<HelpTopics1>About Single Article Mode</HelpTopics1>
<HelpTopics2>About Multi Article Mode</HelpTopics2>
<HelpTopics3>About Voices</HelpTopics3>
<HelpTopics4>Listening Tips</HelpTopics4>
<HelpTopics5>Loading Text into TextAloud</HelpTopics5>
<HelpTopics6>Audio Quality - An Introduction</HelpTopics6>
<HelpTopics7>Audio Quality - Why different formats</HelpTopics7>
<HelpTopics8>Purchase and Registration</HelpTopics8>
<HelpTopics9>Customer Support</HelpTopics9>
<HelpTopics10>Volume, School, and Site Licensing</HelpTopics10>
<Introduction>Welcome to TextAloud. TextAloud uses voice synthesis to convert text-based material into spoken audio for listening on your PC . You can also create MP3 or WMA files for use on portable players.</Introduction>
<About Single Article Mode>In Single Article Mode, you deal with one article at a time. Anytime a new article is loaded, the previous article is deleted. Use Single Article mode if you listen to one article at a time, and load new articles as you finish listening. {{Pause=0.5}} A powerful feature of Single Article mode is the Automatically Speak New Text option, available on the Article Options panel. {{Pause=0.5}} When this option is selected, TextAloud will automatically speak articles as they are added.
</About Single Article Mode>
<About Multi Article Mode>In Multi Article Mode, TextAloud can support an unlimited number of articles. Each article is automatically assigned a title based on the first few words in the article. {{Pause=0.5}} You can change this article title by overwriting it in the Title Field. When a new article is added, the new article is displayed, but all previous articles are still available within TextAloud. {{Pause=0.5}} You can change to a previously added article using the Article List dropdown at the top of the window. Once you build up a list of many articles, you can listen to individual articles, listen to the entire list, or easily create audio files from the list.
</About Multi Article Mode>
<About Voices>The default voice in TextAloud is Mary, a female voice from Microsoft. Better voices are available from NextUp.com, but Mary is used in the trial because of file size and licensing restrictions. {{Pause=0.5}} Additional voices, comparable in quality to Mary, are available for free download from the NextUp.com site. {{Pause=0.5}} TextAloud can also be purchased with optional premium voices from companies like NeoSpeech, Kepstral, and A T&T. These premium voices are not included in the trial, but samples and purchasing details are available on our NextUp.com web site. {{Pause=0.5}} Voices are also available in a variety of languages, including Spanish, German, French, and UK English.</About Voices>
<Listening Tips>There are several options available for improving the quality of audio generated by TextAloud. If you find that the voices become dull or monotonous, try some of these tips. {{Pause=.5}} First, try using different voices. Use the options on the Single-Article and Multi-Article panels for random and round robin voice selection. {{Pause=.5}} Another option is to adjust the speed and pitch of the voice. Just select the Engines and Voices panel, choose a voice, and adjust the speed and pitch sliders. Adjusting speed and pitch can help a lot with listening to voices over extended periods. {{Pause=.5}} Depending on the text, the voice engines may frequently mispronounce words, and make the text difficult to listen to. In this case, try using the Pronunciation Editor; it is located under the Options Menu entry. The editor allows you to correct for minor pronunciation errors, as well as some words and acronyms that cannot be pronounced at all. {{Pause=.5}} Finally, if you find that sentences are running together, you can manually insert pauses into articles. Position the cursor to where you would like a pause, right click, and choose one of the Pause entries from the Popup menu. The pre-defined Pauses options panel also allows you to configure pauses to be automatically inserted between sentences and between paragraphs.</Listening Tips>
<Loading Text into TextAloud>
There are five ways of loading TextAloud articles. {{Pause=.5}} One. Clipboard Watching. TextAloud can automatically monitor the Windows clipboard. Anytime you copy text by highlighting it and hitting Control-C, TextAloud can import the text. The Clipboard options panel has several settings that allow you to control this. {{Pause=.5}} Two. File Open. By using this main menu entry, TextAloud can create articles from plain text files, rich text files, html documents, Microsoft Word documents, and pdf Adobe Acrobat files. {{Pause=.5}} Three. HotKeys. See HotKey Setup under the Options menu for a variety of global HotKeys you can define. When working in any program, you can highlight text and press a HotKey to have TextAloud speak or import text. {{Pause=.5}} Four. Manual Creation. Select New Article from the file menu. TextAloud will create a blank article, allowing you to type or paste in text manually. {{Pause=.5}} Finally, Five. Drag and Drop. Highlight text in any application, and drag the selected text onto the TextAloud main window, or onto the TextAloud floating tool bar if the tool bar is visible.
</Loading Text into TextAloud>
<Audio Quality - An Introduction>The Audio Help sections on Audio Quality have to do with using TextAloud to write MP3 files. You can ignore these sections if you dont use this feature. {{Pause=.5}} When writing MP3 audio files, you have many audio quality selections to choose from. Click on the File Options panel, and look at the MP3 Quality combo box. Each selection in the combo box consists of three different values, {{Pause=.5}}one, the number of killo bits per second (Or K B P S) {{Pause=1}}, two, the sample rate (expressed in killo hertz),{{Pause=1}} and three, whether the output should be single channel (mono) or two channel (stereo). {{Pause=.5}}So what are sample rate and bit rate ? Digital sound is represented by very small units, called samples, and the sampling rate is the number of samples per second that you hear. Bit rate, measured in Kay Bee Pee S, or killo bits per second, is an indicator of the data rate required to listen at a given sample rate. You can tell from the bit rate how much an audio file has been compressed, so smaller bit rates mean smaller files and faster MP3 encoding.</Audio Quality - An Introduction>
<Audio Quality - Why different formats>The default setting of 32 killo bits per second, 22 killo hertz is a very good setting for Microsoft voices. For AT&T, NeoSpeech, and Kepstral, try using 24 killo bits per second at 16 killo hertz. {{Pause=1}} The sample rate required for high quality digital voice is much less than the sample rates required for quality digital music. The main reason for choosing different formats is because of portable player requirements. Some players do not support Mono sound, they require stereo. Other portable players require specific sample rates, such as 44 killo hertz or higher. {{Pause=.5}} A very important thing to remember, is that voice engines write audio files with sample rates of 22 killo hertz and less. The result of converting to 44 killo hertz is that you hear more samples per second, but you're still listening at the same resolution. Audio quality is determined when the file is originally written, and you cannot improve it by increasing the sample rate. So we recommend that you use higher sample rates only if your portable requires it, and keep the bit rate as low as possible for smaller files and faster conversion.</Audio Quality - Why different formats>
<Purchase and Registration>When you purchase TextAloud, you will receive an email order confirmation that includes your registration code and instructions on downloading TextAloud. If you already have
the trial version of TextAloud installed, you can simply enter your registration code from the
Help About screen in TextAloud. {{Pause=.5}} When you purchase only TextAloud, the software is delivered by download only. If you also purchase optional premium voices and choose to have them delivered on see dee, then there will also be a copy of the TextAloud program on that see dee. {{Pause=.5}} It is important to save the email with your registration code since you may need it later to reinstall </Purchase and Registration>
<Customer Support> Our site provides product information and purchase links, as well as downloads of the latest version of TextAloud. Email us at any time with any questions you have. YouÆll find that we provide very quick and helpful responses to all email questions. Send your email to support at nextup.com. </Customer Support>
<Volume, School, and Site Licensing>TextAloud is available at a discount for volume purchases. NextUp.com works with hundreds of schools and businesses to bring the power of TextAloud to their workers and students. {{Pause=.5}} In the workplace, our experience has shown that TextAloud can greatly improve productivity of workers who generally have to absorb a great deal of information. When combined with portable listening, workers turn idle commute times into useful time by listening to news and information, proofreading documents, or catching up on email by listening instead of reading. {{Pause=0.5}} Within educational settings there are clear uses of TextAloud, including but not limited to, improving reading skills for poor readers and dyslexics; {{Pause=.5}} improved writing output through better proofreading; {{Pause=.5}} extensive uses in English as Second Language (ESL) as well as foreign language learning; {{Pause=.5}} providing valuable access to written words for sight impaired students. {{Pause=.5}} If you think your school, organization, or business might benefit from TextAloud please contact us by email to support at nextup.com for volume pricing discounts and more information.
