Let Windows XP system speak

Text To Speech overview text to Speech (TTS) is the ability of the operating system to play printed text as an oral language. The internal driver, known as the TTS engine, identifies the text, using a synthesized sound that spoken from intervening to generate a sound selection. The TTS engine is installed with the operating system. You can use other engines provided by Third-party vendors. These engines often use some fixed terminology and vocabulary. For example, a professional medical or legal term. They can also use different sounds (such as British English) with regional accents, or speak different languages (such as German, French, or Russian).

The options for each TTS engine are given in the Text-to-Speech tab of the speech properties in Windows XP Control Panel. In addition to the general options, each engine has a different set of specific features. As a result, the resulting dialog box may look different. It may not contain special features, and some property buttons do not have a dialog box.

The following highlights the settings and use of speech to text in Windows XP:

One, determine the selected text to voice sound

1. In the Control Panel, open voice.

2. The name displayed in the Voice selection Drop-down list box in the Text To Speech tab is the currently active sound.

3, click "Preview Sound" to listen to the active sound. The text will be spoken and will be highlighted when it is spoken verbatim. Note here: Text-to-Speech sounds are closely related to a particular engine. You may not be able to clear the association from the name of the language that is being used by the sound that is displayed. After you select the engine or sound, click Preview Sound to test the sound and language. The engine's display name may not be able to clearly display the language or sound supported by the engine. This includes not only the supported languages, but also the dictionary features. The dictionary function indicates whether a general or a professional term (such as law or Medicine) is used.

Second, preview the sound of text to speech

1. In the Control Panel, open voice.

2, on the Text-to-Speech tab, the name that appears in the Speech selection Drop-down list box is the active sound.

3, click "Preview Sound" to listen to the currently selected sound. The text that is about to be spoken highlighted when it is verbatim spoken. During playback, the preview sound changes to stop. Click Stop to interrupt the sound playback.

You can change the text you want to read with the preview sound by highlighting the text and typing new text. These changes are not permanent, and when you reopen the Speech property or select a different sound, the text is reset to the default value.