Bottlehead Forum

General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Grainger49 on July 14, 2010, 02:34:13 AM

Title: Is There An App For This???
Post by: Grainger49 on July 14, 2010, 02:34:13 AM

This thread can be quite general and is open to everyone seeking software solutions.

I am about to embark on a highway trip of several hours and wondered if there was software that could scan in printed text and ultimately convert it to voice?  That is, could I take a magazine and convert it to a "Book On Tape/CD" for the trip?  Edit: I have a PC.

Or is this the way we Bottleheads could make our Millions, oops, Billions?  (Insert the image of Dr. Evil here)

Title: Re: Is There An App For This???
Post by: Jim R. on July 14, 2010, 03:07:19 AM

Mac or PC?

There are plenty for the PC as this is what I used to get through school.  The product I used is called Kurzweil 1000, but it's expensive and meant for people with visual disabilities.  There is a rudimentary one built into MS Word, or just google "OCR software" (Optical Character Recognition, and you should come up with a good selection to choose from -- some inexpensive, some very expensive.  There is one called TextAloud MP3 that will scan and convert your text and make an mp3 file of a speech synthesizer reading the text.  That one also has a variety of additional high-quality voices that you can purchase as an add-on.  Great little program and not too terribly expensive as these things go.  If you don't want to go insane listening to the robotic voices, then I strongly suggest buying one of the high quality concatenation type voices at the highest bit rate (usually either 8 or 16 khz) as they sound much more like a human voice (note: I said "more like" :-) ).

Sorry, I haven't kept up with all of this as I just use what works for me, which is an old version of Kurzweil.

You'll want a decent scanner too, and plan on this taking some time to learn and master.

HTH,

Jim

Title: Re: Is There An App For This???
Post by: Grainger49 on July 14, 2010, 03:20:42 AM

Jim,

Thanks!  I have a PC and a pretty good, picture quality, scanner (I edited the OP with my computer type).  I will start researching when I get home.  

It sounds like it will do what I want.  I am a basic kind of guy too.  I don't know if I could listen to the robot for 2 hours either.  I will see.

Again, thanks,

Title: Re: Is There An App For This???
Post by: STURMJ on July 14, 2010, 05:37:41 AM

If you can eventually get the files into PDF format, adobe will read to you. Under the view menu item, last selection is read out loud.  Most people are unaware of this.

Title: Re: Is There An App For This???
Post by: Grainger49 on July 17, 2010, 02:50:48 PM

I'm back.  I will look into that. 

Thanks,