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The Text Speaker Window
The Text Speaker window is divided into these components:
- The Toolbars
- The Text Display Area
- The File List
The Toolbars
The toolbars give you quick access to the most commonly used commands in Text Speaker. From the Main Toolbar you can create a New file, Open or Close a file, Speak the current file, Stop speaking, Convert to Audio (save the current text as an audio file), Undo any editing changes you have made, and Redo if you change your mind about undoing. Clicking Voice lets you choose a speaking voice for Text Speaker, and adjust that voices volume, pitch, and reading speed. You can also adjust the Pronunciation of particular words, change the program Settings, or open the program's Help.
The Text Toolbar lets you both see the properties of the currently-selected text and change the settings. You can control style, font face, and font size, turn formatting (bold, italic, and underline) on and off, change alignment, create bulleted and numbered lists, control the Zoom level, and display non-printing characters like paragraph markers.
The Voice Bar lets you see and change the current voice settings. Drag the sliders to change the Volume, Speed, and Pitch of the currently speaking voice. You can also see but not change which voice is the current default.
The Status Bar displays the current state of Text Speaker (Ready, Speaking, Creating a sound file) and the current page number.
The Text Display Area
When you open a file, the contents of the file are shown in the Text Display Area. When the program speaks the text, each word is highlighted as it is spoken. (No words are highlighted during Speak to File.) You can also type text into the Text Display Area directly, or copy text from any program and paste it there in order to have Text Speaker read it aloud to you.
The File List
Whenever you open a file, it is added to the File Name list. To see the contents of a file in the Text Display Area and prepare to speak it, just click on that line. For instance, in the illustration above, clicking on IP Cameras.txt would cause the contents of that file to be displayed in the window above, and clicking Speak after that would cause Text Speaker to speak the contents of that file. To remove a file from the list, click File >> Close or press the Close button on the Display area. Right-clicking on a file gives you several options, including speaking it, converting it to audio, and (if it has already been converted to audio) playing the audio file. You can free more space for the Text Display Area by collapsing the File List. Just click the small "x" at the top of the list and it is hidden.
Click the green circle to re-open the File List.
The File List can be repositioned. Simply drag the File List's title bar to move it to a new location. Drag it to any edge of the main Text Speaker window to attach it there:
You can also leave the File List "floating", unattached to any part of the window:
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