Reading the Web: Using a Web Browser with Text-to-Speech Support for People with Reading Difficulties. CALL Information Sheet 2

Transcription

1 1.00 Reading the Web: Using a Web Browser with Text-to-Speech Support for People with Reading Difficulties CALL Information Sheet 2 June 2009 (updated August 2009) Communication, Access, Literacy and Learning The University of Edinburgh Paterson s Land, Holyrood Road Edinburgh EH8 8AQ Tel: Fax: call.centre@ed.ac.uk

2 Web Browsers with Text-to-Speech Support for People with Reading Difficulties 'Text-to-Speech' - the use of synthetic speech built into a computer to electronic text out loud - is just one of a number of tools that can be used to support people who have ing difficulties. Most web browsers have in-built accessibility features, such as the ability to change the size, colour and font for the text. For many people, these accessibility features, combined with the ability to have a passage of text from a web site, out by a computer, are sufficient to help them become independent learners. This paper focuses on the needs of this significant group, i.e. people with dyslexia, mild learning difficulties, and others who just need text to speech support. At this stage, we are not considering the needs of people with a significant visual impairment, who require a dedicated screen er, people with physical disabilities who are unable to use a keyboard or mouse, or people with learning difficulties who require symbol support. We are also concentrating on products for the Windows XP / Vista operating systems, rather than Mac or Linux. Where a program has a Mac or Linux version we will mention it, but testing was generally done with the Windows version. We have, however, looked at a couple of Mac products: the in-built speech system that comes as part of Mac Os X and GhostWriter. Text-to-Speech Software in Word Processors There are now many programs that can be used to speak text from an electronic document in a word processor. These include programs designed as talking word processors (e.g. Write:Outloud, TextEase, etc.), utilities that add speech to a standard word processor (e.g. WordTalk) and more general literacy support utilities (e.g. Read and Write Gold, ClaroRead). Read and Write Gold and ClaroRead can both be used to web pages directly. There are a number of tools that can be used to speak text from a web browser. They are generally less sophisticated than the text to speech utilities in word processors. If this is a major issue, remember that it is almost always possible to copy and paste text from a web browser into your favourite speech-enhanced word processor, allowing you to take advantage of its facilities. Factors to Consider when Choosing Text-to-Speech for a Browser Before we look in detail at the different options available for adding text to speech to a web browser, we need to look at some of the factors that will help you decide the best options for your situation. Browser The most commonly used browser is Internet Explorer, which comes as part of the Windows operating system, but there are free alternatives. Firefox, available from is becoming increasingly popular as the main alternative to Internet Explorer. Opera (from and Safari (from are also popular. The more general text to speech utilities work equally well with any browser, but there are a few utilities that have been designed to work with only a specific browser, particularly Firefox or Opera. If the user can t install the program quickly and without any difficulty, then it is not going to be used! A reasonably experienced computer user should be able to install any of the programs. Most of the programs were CALL Scotland,

3 straightforward to install. Some were more complicated, but had detailed instructions, which, if followed carefully, would result in a successful installation. A few had incomplete, or inaccurate instructions which could result in difficulties for a novice. The Interface Design Ideally, once a text to speech utility has been installed it should be obvious what to do next, or clear instructions should be provided onscreen, without the user having to hunt for them. The better interfaces generally included a toolbar or control panel with buttons to and stop ing text. Some toolbars had too many features for somebody just looking for text to be, which could cause confusion. Some programs had no visual clues. This is understandable in the case of tools designed for blind users, but it does make them of limited use for people with ing difficulties. Where the Text is Read Some utilities are able to the text straight from a web page. This is the best option provided that the user can easily select the text to be and it is clear what text the computer is actually ing at any time. Where text, graphics and external links are combined on a page, it is important for the user to see and the whole page in context. Other programs use the clipboard to copy text to a separate window for ing. Some programs do this well, with text being spoken as soon as it is selected and copied, others require the user to physically paste the text into the second window and then use speech tools. Selecting Text Most programs require the user to select text with a mouse and then click on a button to have it spoken. (In the case of ClaroRead, it is enough to just select the text it starts ing automatically when the button is released.) Some programs (e.g. Accessibar, Claro, Penfriend and Read and Write Gold have an option to simply hold the mouse pointer over a sentence to have it, without any need to select text, or click. This hover and speak facility can be useful for someone who needs only occasional text to speech support as it is faster, but it can be confusing as the text is not necessarily highlighted and it is not always clear what is being spoken. We found that most programs using hover and speak do not cope well where there is a mixture of normal, bold, and italic text, or where there are links to web sites. When there is a change of text style the utility will stop ing and will only start again when the new style is selected. Highlighting - Our experience of using text to speech utilities for ing worksheets and books suggests that the best option for ing is to be able to highlight a piece of text, e.g. a paragraph, and then have individual words highlighted with a different colour as they are spoken. Read and Write Gold and BrowseAloud are the only programs that we looked at that can do this on a web page. Most of the other programmes can highlight either words or sentences as they are spoken. Given that people web pages to get information, rather than as a ing exercise, it is possibly less important (though still desirable) to have different highlighting options available to suit the user, but we consider it very important to have at the very least a clear indication of what text is being. We recommend using a er that uses high quality SAPI 5 voices, e.g. the Scottish Voice, Heather (from Heather is available free of charge for use in schools in Scotland. We have decided to specifically indicate programs that can use Heather (and other SAPI 5 voices). Some of the programs use the older SAPI 4 voices, which are not very good, or are designed to use a proprietary voice, which may or may not be of good quality. Some of these utilities are designed purely to add a text to speech facility to a web browser; others provide facilities for the production of MP3 files so that text can be played back on an ipod or MP3 player; more 2 CALL Scotland, 2009

4 comprehensive tools, e.g. word prediction, homonym checkers are available in the literacy support packages such as TextHelp Read and Write Gold and ClaroRead. If you ONLY want text to speech from a web site, there is no need to buy one of the more expensive literacy support packages. If you need a lot of writing support tools for use throughout the curriculum, there is a case for getting a more expensive, but comprehensive package, but if you just want to have web pages out, a simple, low-cost package may be enough. Some of the utilities are totally free; others have a free version, with a charge for higher quality voices, or extra facilities. If the free version can be used permanently (rather than for a limited time period), then we state in the tables below that a product is free, while also giving a price for the full version for a single user. Many programs are also available on a site licence basis. Overall We have attempted to provide overall ratings for and Value of each program, from * (poor) to ***** (excellent). These ratings are subjective and try to give an impression of the overall feel for a program. Inevitably it is hard to compare a program that is excellent in many ways, but has one major difficulty (e.g. BrowseAloud), with another program that is generally effective, without being particularly spectacular (e.g. NaturalReader). Text to Speech Facilities for Web Browsers In this study we looked at 25 different text-to-speech options for web browsers. These are categorised as follows: Text to Speech Add-ons for standard web browsers These are extras that are connected to a particular web browser, to provide text to speech. In some cases different versions are available for use with different browsers. The Narrator utility in Windows XP and Vista can be used to add speech output to Internet Explorer (and other browsers). BrowseAloud is an excellent utility that can add speech to sites that have been speech-enabled for its use. Talklets works in a similar way, providing good text-to-speech facilities, but only for sites that have been speech-enable to use Talklets. Internet Explorer users can now get text-tospeech support from Read on Web s CleanPage utility. Speech support for Opera can be downloaded from the Opera web site. Various add-ons provide text-tospeech for Firefox, e.g. FireVox (primarily for people with a visual impairment), Hawking (providing switch access), CliCk Speak and Accessibar. This section also includes VozMe, a web site that can be used to text from other web sites. Utility Source Narrator (PC only) Within Windows XP / Vista operating system Free BrowseAloud Free Talklets Free VozMe Free CleanPage (for Internet Explorer) (PC only) Free Opera Voice (PC only) Free Accessibar for Firefox Free CliCk Speak for Firefox Free FireVox for Firefox Free CALL Scotland,

5 Windows Narrator Version tested Windows XP Narrator is pre-installed and can be accessed through Accessories Accessibility - Narrator Narrator only s events, buttons and menus and text as it is typed. It is therefore not suitable for ing text from web pages Cannot select text to be. Narrator does not highlight text as it is, or give any other indication of what text is being The XP version uses low-quality SAPI 4 voices. The Vista version uses the computer s default SAPI 5 voice. This is of much higher quality. None Free with Windows XP and Vista. Scottish Vista only. Narrator is a VERY basic screener for people with a visual impairment. It is unsuitable for ing text from web pages. * Value * BrowseAloud Version tested CALL Scotland, 2009 Straightforward Windows download and install. BrowseAloud runs in the background while you are browsing the web. BrowseAloud s text directly from the web page. BrowseAloud can be set up to either by selecting text with the mouse and clicking on Speak Selection, or by a hover and speak facility Browsealoud will highlight the selected text and also by word as text is spoken. BrowseAloud uses its own high quality voice, Emily. There is also a facility to choose from a number of other high quality voices, available by streaming over the internet. We found that even when using a very fast internet connection (100 Mbps) there was an unacceptable delay of around 5 seconds before text was. None. Free. Scottish BrowseAloud is an excellent product in terms of the ease of use, voice quality and range of options for highlighting and speaking text, but it has a major disadvantage in that sites need to be enabled for BrowseAloud by their owners before they can be. (This is indicated by the appearance of a yellow tick on the BrowseAloud icon in the Windows system tray.) Most sites have not been enabled for BrowseAloud so it would be necessary to have a second utility available to provide speech output from them. NOTE that No.

6 BrowseAloud can interfere with other text-to-speech programs. We advise you to turn BrowseAloud off when it is not in use. *** Value **** Talklets Version tested 2.5 No need to install any additional software. Talklets will work automatically if a site has been enabled for it. Talklets s text directly from the web page. Talklets can select and text by using the mouse, or keyboard command. There is also a screener option which allows the use of a hover and speak facility. There is an option to highlight a block of text in a particular colour prior to it being. There is also an option to highlight words as they are under Help and Options. Talklets uses its own high quality UK English female voice. There is no option to change to another voice Scottish These include text magnification options and a Smart Story Finder which will attempt to identify the main story on a web page. Free. Talklets is similar to BrowseAloud in many ways, but the highlighting is slightly less sophisticated. On the other hand, it has some useful additional features and has a particular advantage in that there is no need to install software on the computer. It suffers from the same major disadvantage as BrowseAloud, requiring sites to be enabled for it to be used. If a site is enabled for Talklets the Talklets toolbar will be at the bottom of the window. *** Value **** No. VozMe Version tested N/a tested April VozMe is easy to set up and to use. Simply go to and follow the instructions. We recommend the Add speech to your browser option. This will add a button to your Bookmarks toolbar, which will allow any selected text to be. Text is copied from a web page to the Vozme site, converted to an MP3 file and. Unfortunately, it is not possible to see the text as it is. Select text with a mouse and click on the VozMe button you added to your toolbar. CALL Scotland,

7 Highlighting text General comment Text is not visible as it is. Voice quality is adequate, but not great, with a choice between male and female voices. There is no option to use alternative voices. Creates MP3 files. Free from Scottish VozMe provides a very neat way to produce MP3 files from text on a web site, without any need to install additional software. It works equally well on a Mac as on a PC. *** Value **** No Read on Web - CleanPage Version tested Highlighting text General comment CALL Scotland, 2009 CleanPage is easy to set up. Go to and download the installer. This adds a toolbar to Internet Explorer. (If it doesn t appear when you load Internet Explorer, it may be necessary to make the toolbar visible by going to Tools, Toolbars and ticking ReadonWeb.) When the Read your filtered content button is clicked, the main text content from the web page is converted into uncluttered text in the same window, or a new one. This text can be transferred to a separate ReadonwebTTS window for ing out loud. If you minimise the text-to-speech window, the text will appear to be directly from the web page. All of the able text from the web page is copied automatically to the new window. It is now also possible to just copy selected text Individual words in the text-to-speech window are highlighted as they are. There are options to change the colour of the highlight, background and text. CleanPage uses the SAPI 5 voices available on your computer. Scottish CleanPage produces an uncluttered version of a web page, filtering out graphics and extraneous junk. These uncluttered text files can be saved for later use. Text can be magnified and there is also a speed ing option which will display text one or two lines at a time, with the rest of the text greyed. Currently free from When we first looked at CleanPage we considered it a very useful utility for some people with the potential to become an excellent option for a wider group of potential users. We had concerns with regard to selecting text and colour options in the text-to-speech window and fed back on them to ReadonWeb. Within a week they had produced a new version, which addressed all of our concerns. This is now an excellent program, easy to use with the right balance of features necessary to provide text-to-speech functionality for Internet Explorer. With the possibility of having three windows (the original web page, the uncluttered page and the text-tospeech window) open, it may sound complicated, but it is actually quite straight forward. It is possible to use a keyboard command (ALT-SHIFT-N) to have selected Yes

8 text instantly in the text-to-speech window. CleanPage is as close as we have found to being the ideal solution for Internet Explorer, providing high quality speech, good highlighting options and ease of us, all for no cost! ***** Value ***** Opera Voice Version Tested 9.64 Opera Voice has to be downloaded and installed into the Opera web browser. Go to Tools Preferences Advanced Voice and check Enable voice-controlled browsing. Follow instructions carefully! Text is directly from the web browser. Opera Voice is designed to be controlled by voice input, but it is possible to speak text by keyboard command. Select text with the mouse and type v to speak it. There are voice commands, but this involves unnecessary complication. Selected text remains highlighted as it is spoken, but there is no indication exactly what text is being spoken. Standard and High Quality male and female voices are provided. High Quality voices are reasonable, but there is no option to change them. Scottish No. System can be controlled by speech input. Free Opera Voice, though potentially useful, is very gimmicky and less useful than it could be. It would have been far better if they had created a decent interface for keyboard and mouse users, before introducing a voice input system. Version 9.64 is very buggy it is usually necessary to refresh a page with selected text (or tab to another) before text can be spoken. ** Value ** Accessibar for Firefox Version Tested Complicated to install! Go to Tools - Add-ons Get Add Ons and search for Accessibar. Then follow the instructions. Once you have installed Accessibar, you will have to separately install text-to-speech support. Click on the Read Aloud button, followed by Install text-to-speech support. You will have to download and install the Java Runtime Environment, followed by Accessibar Reader. Accessibar s text directly from the web page. CALL Scotland,

9 Selecting text Highlighting text It uses the hover and speak method, with a paragraph of text being spoken when the mouse pointer is moved over it. Accessibar does not highlight text as it is. It is sometimes not clear what text is being spoken. Uses its own low quality voice. Scottish General comment Accessibar installs a toolbar with buttons offering a range of accessibility options: changing colours of background, text and links; changing font; enlarging text, altering line spacing, hiding graphics. Free. Accessibar is complicated to install a task made more difficult by links going to help files on a site that no longer exists! Some of the features on the toolbar are useful and are implemented well. Unfortunately, the text-to-speech option is not one of those the hover and speak method used for ing text is confusing and voice quality is poor, with no opportunity to change to a better voice that may be available on the computer. *** Value *** No. CliCk Speak for Firefox Version tested 1.5 Relatively straightforward to install instructions are on the web site. Note that instructions are in a different place from the download so it is a good idea to print them. CliCk Speak s directly from the web page Highlighting text Text can be selected by mouse, or it will from the cursor. CliCk Speak highlights sentences as they are. Uses SAPI 5 voices. Scottish General comment None. Free. This is an excellent option for somebody who is looking for a simple, effective textto-speech option for the Firefox web browser. could be better, but shouldn t present problems for an experienced computer user. It adds a new toolbar with three buttons: Speak Selection, Auto Reading Mode and Stop Speaking. Simply click on a button to speak. Auto Reading will either the entire contents of the page, or (better) will speak from where the cursor is placed. **** Value ***** Yes. 8 CALL Scotland, 2009

10 FireVox for Firefox Version tested 5.7 is almost identical to that for CliCk Speak, above. Note that we found we could not install both programs on the same machine. FireVox s text directly from the web page. FireVox can the whole page, or text selected by mouse. There are various options for highlighting text as it is spoken, including sentence by sentence, or line by line. Uses SAPI 5 voices, or any others available on the computer. Scottish None. Free. FireVox has been designed primarily as a tool for people with a visual impairment who wish to access the web and is pretty good for this group. It is controlled almost entirely by keyboard commands, with no visual cues to assist the sighted user. It CAN be used by people with ing difficulties, but the lack of buttons and other visual cues makes it more difficult to use than CliCk Speak. On some web sites, it seemed to all headings and links first, before the body text this could be confusing for sighted ers. ** Value *** Yes CALL Scotland,

11 Screeners We tested a couple of free screeners designed primarily for people with visual impairments to see if they were suitable for people with ing difficulties. They weren t! Utility Source NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) Free Thunder Free NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) Version tested 0.6p3.2 NVDA is easily installed download and run the installer on the web site. It can be installed on a pen drive, allowing a user to move from one machine to another without having to re-install the program. NVDA can text directly from the page in Firefox, but cannot text within Internet Explorer. NVDA uses the hover and speak method to the paragraph underneath the mouse pointer. Text is not highlighted as it is. NVDA uses espeak, but can also be used with SAPI 4 and SAPI 5 voices. Scottish Comprehensive support for blind and visually impaired users, including Braille output. Free for Windows XP and Vista. NVDA is pretty good as a screener for people with a visual impairment, but is of limited use for a person who can see what is happening on the screen, but who has ing difficulties. The fact that it can text from Firefox gives it a definite advantage over Thunder, but it is only slightly better than nothing for people with ing difficulties! Can be run from a USB pen drive. ** Value *** Yes 10 CALL Scotland, 2009

12 Thunder Version tested Thunder is straightforward to download and install, but the number of files involved, particularly in the USB version, is confusing. Thunder s text directly from a web page, but only in the text-based Webbie browser. This strips out graphics and other nontextual elements, so a student with ing difficulties loses the support provided by images. Text is in Webbie by moving the cursor to the line you want to hear. Text is not highlighted. Thunder can use SAPI 4 and SAPI 5 voices. We found that it sometimes returns unexpectedly to the default SAPI 4 voice. Good support for blind users. Scottish Free for Windows XP and Vista. Network and USB stick versions are available. Yes. Thunder is a free screener designed for people with a visual impairment. It uses SAPI4 or SAPI5 voices. Though an adequate screener, it is not suitable to provide speech support for people with ing difficulties accessing the web as it can only be used with the Webbie web browser, which strips out graphics from web pages. It s window titles, etc. automatically, which can be distracting for someone only wanting the information on a web page to be. * Value ** CALL Scotland,

13 General Text-to-speech Utilities We tested a number of general free / low cost text-to-speech utilities. Some of these are designed for use directly with web browsers ing text directly from a web page, while others require text to be copied from the browser into a clipboard to be. Some programs have linked the clipboard to the web page so that text is spoken as soon is it is copied from the web site. Others are more cumbersome, requiring the user to select and copy text from the web site transfer focus to the text-to-speech utility, paste the text and then it. Utility Source Balabolka (PC only) Free GhostWriter (Mac only) 40 Mac Speech (Mac only) Free NaturalReader (PC only) Free / $50 Premier Internet Toolbar (PC only) $90 ReadPlease (PC only) Free / $50 SpeakText (PC only) $30 TextAloud (PC only) $30 Ultra Hal Reader (PC only) Free / $30 Universal Reader (PC only) $50 Balabolka (PC only) Version tested Easy to install download file from web site and install it. Can be installed to run from a USB memory stick. Text is copied from the web page into a clip board. Text selected on the web page by mouse. 12 CALL Scotland, 2009 Text can be from the clipboard by pressing F9, but it is not displayed until it is pasted into the Balabolka window, where words can be highlighted as they are spoken. Uses any SAPI 4 or SAPI 5 voices available on the computer. Scottish Includes spellchecker, magnifier and facility to create audio files in various formats. Free. Yes. This is a very good general purpose text-to-speech program. It is slightly more awkward to transfer text into it from a web page, than is the case with some of the other programs that from the clipboard, e.g. SpeakText and Penfriend, but once the text is in the Balabolka window it works very well. Can be run from a USB pen drive. *** Value ****

14 GhostReader (Mac only) Version tested Very easy download file from web site and install it. Text is copied from the web page into a separate window. Text selected on the web page by mouse. Words or sentences are highlighted one by one as they are. There are options to change the highlighting colour. Uses high quality Acapela voices, equivalent to SAPI 5 Scottish Yes. Can be used to create audio files for itunes. It is possible to include tags withon such a file to improve navigation. Trial version lasts for 15 days, thereafter it costs 40. Apple Macs have a built-in text-to-speech facility, which is adequate for many purposes. GhostReader adds useful tools to the basic system, including the ability to highlight text as it is spoken *** Value *** Mac Speech (Mac only) Version tested Mac OS Installed automatically as part of operating system Text is directly from the web page. Text selected on the web page by mouse. General comment Selected text remains highlighted as it is, but there is no indication of exactly what is being at any time. Uses voices installed on Mac (some of which are perfectly satisfactory). None Free. Scottish Very basic, but still useful if all you want is to have text spoken. Turn on the feature by going to System Preferences Speech Text-to-speech. Select Speak selected text when the key is pressed and choose a key to use. Highlight text Yes CALL Scotland,

15 that you want to hear on the web and press the key to have it. ** Value *** NaturalReader (PC only) Version tested 7.0 Fairly complicated - requires separate downloads of voices and program. Important to follow instructions closely. The free and full versions both allow text to be directly from the web page. Text selected on the web page by mouse. The full version gives an option for text to be in a separate clipboard, with words highlighted as they are. It can also display text in the toolbar as it is. Uses any SAPI 4 or SAPI 5 voices available on the computer. Scottish General comment Can be used to create MP3 files Free version can be used indefinitely. Full version can be used free for 30 days, thereafter it costs $ Discounts are available for bulk purchases. The free version of NaturalReader opens with a screen providing information about the program and demonstrations of its operation. There is an option to go to the very simple MiniBoard, which is what you would use to get text-to-speech from a web site. Highlight the text you want to hear and click on the play button. Annoyingly, the highlight disappears when you the text, unless you click on the text you selected a second time, or use a keyboard command (CTRL F9, by default). The full version adds a text-to-speech toolbar to Internet Explorer, which displays text as it is. Note that the toolbar needs to be activated the first time it is used (Go to View and Toolbars and tick NaturalReader), but thereafter it will continue to function without any need to open NaturalReader. The full version also provides a drop-down window from the MiniBoard, which displays the selected text and highlights word-by-word as it is spoken. *** (free version) **** (full version) Value **** (free version) **** (full version) Yes 14 CALL Scotland, 2009

16 Premier Internet Reader (PC only) Version tested 2.1 Easy to install download file from web site and install it. It adds a toolbar to Internet Explorer. The text to be is selected on the web page and copied automatically to the Reader window when the Read button is clicked. Text is selected on the web page by mouse. There is also a Talking Pointer which uses a hover and speak method for ing text on the web page. Words are highlighted as they are in the Reader window. Uses any SAPI 4 or SAPI 5 voices available on the computer. Scottish Internet Reader adds a number of extras to the basic text-to-speech facilities offered by Universal Reader, including Web Capture (saving pages to PDF files), Dictionary, Encyclopedia, Summariser, text magnification and output to MP3 Demo version can be used 25 times, thereafter it costs $89.95 for a single user. Internet Reader is designed as a toolbar to add facilities to Internet Explorer. It cannot be used with other browsers, though its text-to-speech facilities are the same as those provided by Universal Reader, which can be used in other programs. Check the Universal Reader entry for further information. **** Value *** Yes ReadPlease (PC only) Version tested Easy to install download file from web site and install it. Text needs to be copied from the web page into the ReadPlease window to be. The full version has options for this to be automatically when text is copied. Text is selected on the web page by mouse. Both the free and full versions highlight words as they are spoken in the ReadPlease window. The free version can only be used with specific low quality SAPI 4 voices. The paid for version uses better, SAPI 5 voices, but it ignores voices installed from other sources. Both versions allow the font size to be changed. Scottish No. CALL Scotland,

17 There are no restrictions on the use of the free version. The full version costs $49.95 for a single user / $999 for an educational site licence. ReadPlease has been around for a number of years and in some respects (e.g. the voices it uses) is showing its age. The free version does a basic job (though there are better free options), while the full version adds useful functionality, including better voices and a more seamless transfer of the text to be spoken from the web site into ReadPlease. Readplease have also produced Readingbar for Internet Explorer 6. This adds a toolbar with text-to-speech, MP3 file creation, magnification, translation and other facilities. Unfortunately, there are no plans to update it for later versions of Internet Explorer. ** (Free version) *** (Full version) Value *** (Free version) *** (Full version) SpeakText Version tested Easy to install download file from web site and install it. Note that the file is very large as it includes many foreign language voices that you may not want. Text is copied from the web page into a separate window. Text selected on the web page by mouse and copied, using CTRL-C. Text can be displayed in the SpeakText window as soon as it is copied. Text is highlighted word by word as it is spoken. Uses any SAPI 4 or SAPI 5 voices available on the computer Scottish Yes. Designed primarily to create MP3 files. The free version is restricted to approximately 1,000 characters. SpeakText is a nice program designed in China (but using English characters!), and offering support for 29 languages. Text is copied from the web page into a separate window for ing. This window has a very good interface, with clear text highlighted word by word as it is spoken. Under Settings, there is a Monitor clipboard to aloud option, which will start speaking text as soon as it is copied. Unfortunately focus is not automatically transferred to the SpeakText window, so it is best to keep both browser and SpeakText windows visible. Bizarrely there are options to either quit SpeakText, or close down the computer when the text has been. *** Value **** 16 CALL Scotland, 2009

18 TextAloud (PC only) Version tested Highlighting text Easy to install download file from web site and run installer Text can be directly from the web page, or through a separate TextAloud window. There are options to select text, with a mouse, or the whole page. Words are highlighted one by one as they are on the web page in Internet Explorer. Text can be copied to and back from a separate window with preferences (font, size, colour, etc.) adjusted to suit the user. Uses any SAPI 4 or SAPI 5 voices available on the computer. Scottish General comment Can create variety of audio files (MP3, wav, etc). Has range of facilities for adjusting voices, e.g. pronunciation editor. Demo runs for 20 days, thereafter it costs $29.95 for a single user. Site licensing available for schools. Yes. This is an excellent text-to-speech program with a wide range of facilities. It can appear complicated at first, but is actually easy to use. It installs a toolbar into Internet Explorer, which allows selected text to be word by word. For other browsers any text that is copied can be automatically transferred to the TextAloud window and back. **** Value **** Ultra Hal Reader (PC only) Version tested 2007 Highlighting text Easy to install download file from web site and install it. Text is copied from the web page into the computer s clip board, and is as soon as it is copied, by pressing CTRL-C. Text selected on the web page by mouse. A selected block of text remains highlighted in the web browser while it is spoken by Ultra Hal. CALL Scotland,

19 Uses any SAPI 4 or SAPI 5 voices available on the computer. Scottish Yes. General comment Has a facility to convert text to a wav file. Free. (High Quality voices have to be purchased.) For web users Ultra Hal provides a quick, easy way to text from a web page, simply highlighting text and pressing CTRL-C to speak it. Individual words are displayed at the bottom of the Ultra Hal window as they are spoken. Note that it will only speak the same text once as the clipboard needs to be cleared by copying something else. The Ultra Hal window provides additional facilities, but the text has to be physically pasted into it. *** Value **** Universal Reader (PC only) Easy to install download file from web site and install it. The text to be is selected on the web page and copied automatically to the Universal Reader window when the Read button is clicked. Text is selected on the web page by mouse. There is also a Talking Pointer which uses a hover and speak method for ing text on the web page. Words are highlighted as they are in the Universal Reader window. There are limited options for changing colour and font of text in window. Uses any SAPI 4 or SAPI 5 voices available on the computer Scottish None. Demo version can be used 25 times, thereafter it costs $49.95 for a single user. A pretty standard text-to-speech utility, with the addition of a Talking Pointer, which provides a hover and speak facility. The interface is good, with a limited number of obvious buttons in the toolbar. Simply select the text to be and click on Read. **** Value *** Yes 18 CALL Scotland, 2009

20 Comprehensive Literacy Support packages These provide a number of tools to support ing and writing (text-to-speech, word prediction, grammar checkers, etc.) and generally include very good facilities for ing text from web pages. If you JUST need a utility to from a web site, these can be expensive unless you aly have one available to use, but if you are working with pupils with a range of literacy support needs these would be useful options. For the purpose of this paper, we are only considering the web ing features of the programs, rather than the other tools that they provide. Utility Source ClaroRead Penfriend Read and Write Gold Read:Outloud ClaroRead (PC and Mac) Version tested Easy to install. ClaroRead s text directly from the web page Text is selected on the web page by mouse. It can be back as soon as the mouse button is released. A hover and speak method for ing text on the web page can also be used. Text can be highlighted and as a block, or it can be with individual sentences highlighted as they are spoken. Choice of three SAPI 5 voices: Realspeak Daniel or Serena, Cereproc Heather. Scottish Lots of facilities to support ing and writing, including screen rulers, word prediction, homophone support, scanning, etc. Demo version lasts for 15 days, thereafter it costs 129 for a single user. Bulk purchase discounts are available, e.g. 795 for school with students. Yes. ClaroRead has a fairly comprehensive set of tools for ing text, but they can be difficult to set up and some features, e.g. background highlighting do not to work in web browsers. Can speak selected text as soon as the mouse button is released, which is a nice feature, as is the CTRL + Hover feature which allows one word to be. ClaroRead can be run from a USB pendrive. *** Value *** CALL Scotland,

21 Penfriend XL (PC only) Version General comment XL Easy to install. Penfriend copies text to a separate window and s text from that. It can be set up so that this window appears automatically when text is copied and then disappears when the text has been. Text is selected on the web page by mouse and then copied using CTRL-C. The Screener option offers a hover and speak facility, which copies text and s it from a separate window. Text is highlighted as it is from the separate window. Note that the default text size is very small. This can be altered by selecting View, Preferences, Advanced, Use main font in keyboard window and then changing text size, font, etc. Penfriend can use any SAPI 4 or SAPI 5 voice available on the computer. Scottish Penfriend is basically a word predictor, with additional functions built in, including a screener and an on-screen keyboard. Yes. Demo version lasts for 30 days, thereafter it costs 120 for a single user. Bulk purchase discounts are available, e.g. 600 for installation on 25 machines. Schools in Scotland can purchase from Learning and Teaching Scotland for 18 per CD and per licence. Penfriend can be fiddly to set up, but it is the best implemented of the programs that use a separate window to display and text. Our preference is to have the text window appear while text is being, and disappear when it has finished ing. This is done by selecting View, Preferences, Speech Options and selecting Speak Clipboard Copy and Auto Open Clipboard. Some people may prefer to use the Screener, which uses a hover and speak system, with text shown in a new window as it is. This may suit somebody who can home in on the desired text, but it can lead to text being from all over the screen if somebody waves the mouse about. (This problem has now been reduced in the latest version ( Available on USB pendrive. **** Value **** 20 CALL Scotland, 2009

22 Read:OutLoud (PC and Mac) Version Highlighting text 1.1 (Solo) Easy to install. Read:Outloud s text directly from a web page. Text is selected on the web page by mouse, and back by pressing a button on the toolbar. Selected text remains highlighted as it is spoken, but highlighting word by word does not seem to work within the web browser. Read:OutLoud uses the Elan SAPI 5 equivalent voices only. Scottish General comment Read:OutLoud is a ing support tool, providing facilities to highlight, copy and organise text in order to create notes on a subject. It also includes a Franklin talking dictionary. There is no demo version, though there are lots of demonstration materials available on the Don Johnston web site ( It costs 195 for a single user and 1,226 for 10 users. Read:OutLoud is probably most useful for the organisational tools that it provides and the ability to text from a wide range of document formats. There is nothing remarkable in its web-ing facilities. *** Value ** Read and Write Gold (PC and Mac) Version Easy to install. Read and Write Gold s text directly from the web page. text to a separate window and s text from that. It can be set up so that this window appears automatically when text is copied and then disappears when the text has been The user selects text either with the mouse, or by using a hover and speak method that they call Web Highlighting. Read and Write Gold is the only program that we have found which reliably highlights the block of text being and the individual words as they are on the web page, rather than by using an external window. No. CALL Scotland,

23 Read and Write Gold uses a restricted set of SAPI 5 voices. Scottish Yes. General comment A wide range of literacy support tools are provided, including word prediction, spellchecker, homophone support, note-taking, scanning facilities and screen masking. A free demo CD is available from This lasts for 30 days. Read and Write Gold costs 320 for a single user. Site licences are available, e.g. 1,995 for a site licence for a secondary school. Read and Write Gold provides the most comprehensive set of tools for ing text directly from a web page and almost everything is well-implemented (we found a small bug when trying to the same text twice using Web Highlighting). If a pupil needs this level of support (e.g. having individual words highlighted within a block of text directly from the web page), then this is the best option but it is expensive! ***** Value *** Conclusions: What is the best program? We are often asked to say what we think is the best program for somebody with ing difficulties who needs to have text on a web site out loud by a computer. When we completed the first draft of this Information Sheet in June 2009 we were not able to give a definitive answer. Any answer was likely to begin with, It depends! Things have become a little clearer over the past two months, with the latest version of CleanPage being very useful. Free Options BrowseAloud is a very good program in terms of the facilities it offers and should certainly be considered. We like the way that it allows sentences and individual words to be highlighted as they are spoken. It can only BrowseAloud-enabled sites so there will always be a need for a second option. If you are in an environment where you are able to use the Firefox web browser, rather than Internet Explorer, and you just need a basic program to text from the web, we would recommend the CliCk Speak add on. It s text directly from the web page, highlighting sentences as they are, and has a very simple interface. is reasonably straightforward. Internet Explorer users should start with CleanPage. We had some reservations when we first saw this program and fed these back to the developers. Within a week, they had produced a new version that addressed all of our concerns a very impressive response! It is now easy to use, has a good range of formatting options within the text-to-speech window and, if you minimise the text-to-speech window, will look as if it is ing highlighted text straight from the window. The fact that it is free is an added bonus! The four main alternatives, Balabolka, NaturalReader, ReadPlease and Ultra Hal all have advantages and disadvantages. NaturalReader has the most helpful interface, but is let down by the way in which highlighting is lost when the mouse is used to click on the Speak button. The free version of ReadPlease is not suitable for most people as a result of the poor quality voice and the need to copy and paste text before it can be. If you JUST want to be able to highlighted text from a web page, Ultra Hal is the easiest to use (though the inability to the same text twice is an issue). Balabolka is a little more complicated to use than Ultra Hal, but is the better option for somebody who needs a little more support with ing the text. We do not recommend a 22 CALL Scotland, 2009

24 particular option for Internet Explorer; instead we suggest people try Balabolka, NaturalReader and Ultra Hal to see which suits them best. Low Options The various options in this category (Internet Reader, SpeakText, TextAloud, Universal Reader and the full versions of NaturalReader and ReadPlease) are all satisfactory. We liked the interface of SpeakText, as a good example of a program that uses an external window for ing text. TextAloud was particularly impressive, combining a broad range of features at a low cost. It works particularly well with Internet Explorer, allowing text to be highlighted word by word, as it is directly from the web page. We would recommend TextAloud as first choice among the low cost text-to-speech programs for PCs. GhostReader is the best option for Mac users. Literacy Support Packages It is important to stress that people should not be choosing one of the comprehensive literacy support packages (ClaroRead, Penfriend, Read:OutLoud, Read and Write Gold) on the basis of how well they web pages. If they aly have one of these packages available, then they should certainly consider using it for ing web pages. On the other hand, if a school has a number of pupils with ing and writing difficulties, for whom getting information from the web is just one of a number of literacy issues, then it would be worth taking time to have a close look at these packages to see if the tools they provide would be useful. Penfriend and Read and Write Gold provide the best overall support for ing text from web pages. Read and Write Gold uses our preferred method of ing text directly from the web page, but Penfriend, once it has been set up properly, integrates so well with a web browser that it is no great disadvantage to be using a separate window. We would recommend either Penfriend or Read and Write Gold. CALL Scotland,