Another very useful program is TextAloud. This program is designed to allow you to use speech to
read Word files, text files, email, Web pages and PDF files. You can use the SAPI 4 and 5 speech
engines (you can download them from here: sapi51.msi), or you can purchase a wide variety of
commercial speech files which are linked on the NextUp site where you can find TextAloud.
One of the neatest features of TextAloud is the option to convert the text you wish to read to MP 3
format so that you can burn it to a CD or put it on an MP 3 player and not be tied down to your
computer when you want to read your document! I also discovered, quite by accident, that you
can just use your screen reader voice to read the files in TextAloud! Here is the link: Nextup.Com.
While you are visiting NextUp, you might want to take a look at some of the other programs with
speech that they have in their repertoire. BTW, TextAloud is not free, but it is only $29.95 which
I think is very reasonable.
DAISY is the way to go now-a-days. So, here is a link to the website where you can download
the Dorina Daisy Reader (DDR). This is a terrific - and free - DAISY reader that is an add-on
to the Web browser, Firefox. You can just download the add-on if you already use Firefox, or
you can get DDR bundled with Firefox (which I prefer because it has a separate icon for DDR):
Caracol