text to speech program

[strawberry]

hello all, first my apologies , its not such much a problem but a recommendation request, i couldn't see anywhere else to put it!.

We have a very intelligent girl who has huge problems reading, can anyone recommend a decent text to speech program she could use.

ideally it should also include some sort of ocr so she can scan in docs.

any suggestions welcome, either for use in school or her personal use.

thanks in advance!

[OutToLunch]

Haven't come across anything with easy OCR in it, but I find SayzMe to be a fantastic screen reader for our students in all other respects... Usual caveat about crappy Stephen Hawking voices though.

http://sayzme.sourceforge.net/

[steve]

Read&Write GOLD

http://www.texthelp.com/page.asp?pg_id=1002

[DaveP]

NaturalReader Free Text to Speech Program:

Once downloaded and installed the free version will read any selected text when CTRL+F9 is pressed.

Advanced options and more voices are only available in the paid-for version. Also I haven't found a way to suppress the voice at program launch [reads out a short statement about the benefits of the professional version: However this lasts less than 10 seconds and I could live with that if NaturalReader were required on our network]

Free version webpage and download: Text to speech software with Natural Voices-- Free NaturalReader

[OutToLunch]

NaturalReader Free Text to Speech Program:

Got all excited till I saw

Due to licensing restrictions, we are not permitted to include these natural sounding voices in the Free version. Although the Microsoft Mary voice may sound a bit mechanical, it allows you to experience how the text-to-speech technology can benefit your daily routines.

Interface does look a bit more modern than Sayzme though, may still give it a whirl. Cheers.

[_techie_]

If you don't mind shelling out a bit, and limiting it to a few machines, reading text from a website, scanner, PDF or word document is very easy with the product we use: ClaroRead.

I think it even comes as an MSI, so deployment is easy, should you wish to shell out on it.

HTH
Mark