High Tech Center

TextAloud MP3 Training

What is TextAloud?

TextAloud is a program that converts any text into voice and even to MP3. Listen to email, web pages, eBooks and documents on your computer or portable MP3 player.

Who use TextAloud?

People with learning disabilities and people with no disabilities use this program.

Step 1: Set your options

TextAloud monitors the Windows Clipboard and when it sees text, it prompts to see if you want to hear that text as spoken audio. Open TextAloud, then under the Clipboard Options tab make sure "Watch clipboard" and "Prompt to copy from clipboard" are checked. Use your mouse to highlight the text in this paragraph, then press Ctrl+C. When TextAloud prompts to see if you want to create a new article, click "New". Look in TextAloud and click the "Read" button in the article to hear it aloud.

Single Article Mode
TextAloud MP3 can easily read aloud anything you are viewing on your PC in real-time:

  • Turn on Single Article Mode using the toolbar.
  • Under Options, check the Automatically Speak New Text.
  • Under the Clipboard TAB, make sure the Watch Clipboard checkbox is checked.

With these settings, TextAloud MP3 will read aloud any text that you copy to the windows clipboard.

Multi-Article Mode - Build Your Personal Newscast!
This is a completely different mode of operation that most TextAloud MP3 users love. By selecting Multi-Article Mode from the toolbar, you can store many emails or articles to be read back. Here is one method that works well:

  • Place TextAloud MP3 in Multi-Article Mode.
  • Make sure "Watch Clipboard" is turned on.
  • Be sure you've selected which voices are your favorites.
  • Under the Multi-Article options, select Random or Round Robin for Voice Selection (so you will get a variety of voices

Now, as you read your emails, newsletters, or websites, simply copy any text you'd like to hear to the clipboard as described in Single Article Mode, and click New. Each selection of text will be added to TextAloud MP3 as a new article. Each article will automatically preload a title, and select a voice. Do this with all the emails or pages you want to hear. It is particularly suited for news and sports sites where you can select information you want to be informed about, but typically don't have time to read everything.

After selecting the articles you want, simply click the Read Aloud toolbar button, and TextAloud MP3 will begin reading the articles to you, changing voices with each article. You can continue to work on your PC or even move around the room while staying informed with your personal newscast.

Step 2: Listen to Email

Put TextAloud in Multi-Article mode by clicking on the Multi button on the top tool bar. With Clipboard Options set as above, open your email program, highlight the text from an email message, hit Ctrl+C and click "New" when prompted. Do this with a few email messages, then look in TextAloud to see the articles. Click the Aloud button on the top tool bar and TextAloud will read the email messages in order. If you like there is a Multi-Article option to "Automatically Delete Text After Play".

Step 3: Hear a Web Page or Document

The procedure is the same as above. Just open your browser, or a word processor or whatever with the document in it, and follow the same steps as you did with email.

Step 4: Open a .txt File in TextAloud

Most text is brought into TextAloud via the Windows clipboard, but of you want to hear text from a .txt file, you can open it directly into an article by using the File->Open a Text File or hitting Ctrl+O.

Step 5: Save as WAV or MP3 Files

To save a TextAloud article as a WAV or MP3 file, click on the File Options tab and choose WAV or MP3 for the Output File Format. Note the Output File Directory where the file will be written. Next click on the Read to File button within an article (or on the top tool bar for multiple articles) and TextAloud will create the file. You can then download the file to a portable player transfer the file, attach it to email, etc.

Step 6: Edit the Speed and Pitch of a Voice

You can change the speed and pitch of a voice. Just find the voice from the pull-down voices menu within an article, right-click on it and choose Edit. You can do the same thing from the Engines/Voices tab by expanding the menu and editing the voice from there.

Step 7: Get More Voices

We include one voice, Mary, a female in American English, with the download version. Additional speech engines are available at no extra charge for a total of 27 voices and 7 languages supported. If you have the NextUp.com CD, the additional speech engines are on it and can be installed from the menu options. They are also available for free download from our web site. When installing additional voices, always be sure to manually close TextAloud MP3 via File->Exit TextAloud MP3 or right-click on the system tray icon and choose Exit TextAloud MP3.

Please go to http://www.nextup.com for more information.

Enjoy TextAloud!

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