Text to speech

[Glitch]

Before the edit time expired I ran my post in the critique section through a text to speech program. It helped pick up a few errors in the text. A missing 'her', 'the' and a 'she' where it should have been a 'he'.

Does anyone else use text to speech?

 

[tinkerdan]

There was at least one set of posts about this.
look below to similar threads also.
One recent post about how to set it up in MS Word for various OS versions.
Can't recall which one it is.

I have it turned off most of the time--however it does sound like a good way to review things.

 

[Onyx]

Did MS Word not already underline sentences in green that were missing words? The voice version isn't using different rules than the typed version.

 

[Glitch]

Although MS Word did pick up several mistakes, it missed these few.

The difference with the TTS was that it sounded wrong when spoken aloud.

 

[Onyx]

I misunderstood. I was thinking speech to text.

Do you think TTS works better than reading aloud?

 

[AlexH]

Coincidentally, I tried it on Word a couple of days ago, but couldn't get it to work. The Text-to-speech button is greyed out.

 

[Glitch]

Do you think TTS works better than reading aloud?

Yes. When reading it aloud you are at risk of saying what you think is written.

Coincidentally, I tried it on Word a couple of days ago, but couldn't get it to work. The Text-to-speech button is greyed out.

Word should use the default TTS engine. Depending what version of Windows you're running you may not have one installed.

I didn't actually use MS Word in this instance. Instead I used NaturalReader as I found the voices much better.

 

[AlexH]

Word should use the default TTS engine. Depending what version of Windows you're running you may not have one installed.

There seems to be a few installed as I can preview different voices in Speech Settings. I just tried NaturalReader and I don't think I like it anyway. The voices sound too robotic and/or like newsreaders. My favourite was setting a Spanish speaker to read my English.

 

[Cathbad]

I just started using it. You are correct: Hearing it out loud, you catch things previously missed, because they "sound wrong".

 

[tinkerdan]

For a number of good reasons I'm going to have to break down and try this.

I'm really interested in knowing how it handles the pauses in punctuation; because it would be a great way to recognize incorrect or missing punctuation.

Even reading it aloud, we tend to read it the way is should be rather than the way it is and that includes how it sounded in our head the first time.

 

[mosaix]

For a number of good reasons I'm going to have to break down and try this.

I'm really interested in knowing how it handles the pauses in punctuation; because it would be a great way to recognize incorrect or missing punctuation.

Even reading it aloud, we tend to read it the way is should be rather than the way it is and that includes how it sounded in our head the first time.

You’re right, Tinkerdan. We read what we think we wrote not what we wrote. And that even includes missing words.

 

[Glitch]

For a number of good reasons I'm going to have to break down and try this.

In this instance I used Natural Reader. They have a free web version you can try out.

text to speech online

 

[sknox]

It's also fun to hear it pronounce fantasy names and SF jargon. I also find it helps with getting a sense of pacing. Does a description go on for too long? Do I lose track of which character is speaking? That sort of thing. I have to do it in small doses, though. If I try doing several chapters, I lose focus and start to miss things.

 

[Plucky Novice]

I hadn't realised this functionality was available, I've been reading my work out loud which is not as beneficial and certainly less convenient. My wife is not a fan, someone else reading into my headphones gets a definite thumbs up from her.

I tried Natural Reader last night, it really helps. Thanks for the tip @Glitch.

 

[chrispenycate]

I wonder if it was being a sound engineer that enabled me to hear written text and punctuation (or if it's the inverse - hearing voices off the page drove me to sound engineering)? Or it might be that even the voices in my head are readers…