Make your Windows XP system speak

Text-to-speech overview text-to-speech (TTS) is a capability of the operating system to play printed text into a verbal language. The internal Driver (known as the TTS engine) recognizes text and broadcasts written text using the synthesized sound selected from several pre-generated sounds. The TTS engine is installed with the operating system. Other engines provided by third-party suppliers can be used. These engines often use fixed terms and vocabulary. For example, professional medical or legal terms. They can also use different voices with regional accents (such as English), or speak different languages (such as German, French, or Russian) at the same time ).

The "Text to Speech" tab on the "Voice" attribute in Windows XP "Control Panel" provides options for each TTS engine. In addition to the general options, each engine has different feature sets. Therefore, the result dialog box may have different appearances. It is likely that some special functions are not included, and some property buttons do not have related dialogs.

The following describes how to set and use voice to text in Windows XP:

1. Determine the voice from the selected text to the speech

1. Open "voice" in "Control Panel ".

2. The name displayed in the "voice selection" drop-down list box on the "Text to Speech" tab is the currently activated sound.

3. Click "preview sound" to listen to the activated sound. The text will be broadcasted and highlighted during the word-by-word presentation. Note that text-to-speech sounds are closely related to specific engines. The association may not be cleared from the name of the language in which the display sound is being used. After selecting an engine or sound, Click Preview sound to test the sound and language. The engine display name may not clearly display the language or sound supported by the engine. This includes not only supported languages, but also dictionary functions. The dictionary function specifies whether regular syntax or terminology (such as law or medicine) is used ).

2. preview the text-to-speech sound

1. Open "voice" in "Control Panel ".

2. on the "Text to Speech" tab, the name displayed in the "voice selection" drop-down list box is the active voice.

3. Click "preview sound" to listen to the selected sound. The texts to be broadcasted are highlighted during the verbatim presentation. During playback, the "preview sound" is changed to "stop ". Click "stop" to interrupt audio playback.

By highlighting text and typing new text, you can change the text to be read with "preview sound. These changes are not permanent. When you re-open the "Voice" attribute or select different sounds, the text is reset to the default value.

3. Change the voice or engine from Text to Speech

1. Open "voice" in "Control Panel ".

2. on the "Text to Speech" tab, the name displayed in the "voice selection" drop-down list box is the active voice.

3. Click the active sound in the drop-down list or use the arrow to display the available sound list.

4. Click the new sound to select the sound.

5. The newly selected sound will read the text in the preview sound box.

6. Click "OK" or "application" to receive new voices.

4. Change the voice speed from Text to Speech

1. Set "Voice" in "Control Panel ".

2. Select the "Text to Speech" tab.

3. Move the "voice speed" slider to change the speed of text to voice. By default, it is set to normal.

4. Click "preview sound" to listen to the selected sound at the new rate. The text will be broadcasted and highlighted during the verbatim presentation.

5. Select an audio output device

1. Open "voice" in "Control Panel ".

2. on the "Text to Speech" tab, click "audio output ".

3. You can select "Use the preferred audio output device" or "use this audio output device ". Use the preferred audio output device to set the output device to the default device of the system. If you want the output device of the voice to be the same as that of all other audio devices in the system, select this option. It is also the "Default Option for voice attributes ". Generally, a computer has only one output device, such as a pair of speakers. The default device is specified for various operating systems through the corresponding sound or multimedia attributes in the control panel.

"Use this audio output device" only allows you to use another voice application device. If other devices are available, the drop-down list box is available. Select a device from the drop-down list. This does not change the default device for other audio applications. For example, all voice outputs may need to go through a head-mounted microphone instead of a speaker.

6. Change the volume from Text to Speech

To adjust the voice output level, follow these steps. However, not all devices support this option in the same way. Some devices do not support volume control. The volume button is unavailable. Other devices may use their own display methods. In this case, follow the on-screen prompts or engine-specific documents.

1. Open "voice" in "Control Panel ".

2. on the "Text to Speech" tab, click "audio output" and then click "volume ".

3. Adjust the volume control mixer to the desired level.

7. Disable or enable the text service

1. Open "region and language options" in "Control Panel" (to open "region and language options", click "start" and "Control Panel" in sequence ", point to "Settings", click "date, time, language, and Region options", and then click "region and language options ").

2. on the "language" tab, click "details" in "text service and input language ".

3. In "Preferences", click "language bar ".

4. to disable the text service, select the "Disable advanced text service" check box. To enable the text service, clear the check box.

5. If a prompt appears, click "yes" to confirm the selection.

Note: You can temporarily disable handwriting recognition, speech recognition, and some additional functions. These services affect computer performance. If you do not use these services in the current program, temporarily disable them. If you do not use the text service at all, delete it. Disabling the text service does not affect the multiple languages or keyboards added to "installed Services" in the "text service and input language" dialog box.