Text reading software..

[Guest]

This has nothing to do with what everyone is talking about here but I thought
that some of you who have so much knowledge of computers could help me. I
work with a student who has C. P. ( Cerebral Palsy) she uses a computer most
the time. IO was wondering if there is any soft ware that will read ANY text
that she scans over with her mouse. I know that there is some thing that
reads word documents as you type them but I was looking for some thing that
reads all text such as this question?
I would appreciate any and all feed back possible.
Thanks,

 

[The poster formerly known as 'The Poster Formerly]

This has nothing to do with what everyone is talking about here but I thought
that some of you who have so much knowledge of computers could help me. I
work with a student who has C. P. ( Cerebral Palsy) she uses a computer most
the time. IO was wondering if there is any soft ware that will read ANY text
that she scans over with her mouse. I know that there is some thing that
reads word documents as you type them but I was looking for some thing that
reads all text such as this question?
I would appreciate any and all feed back possible.
Thanks,

Might the narrator do this?

--
Priceless quotes in m.p.w.vista.general group:
http://protectfreedom.tripod.com/kick.html

"Fair use is not merely a nice concept--it is a federal law based on
free speech rights under the First Amendment and is a cornerstone of the
creativity and innovation that is a hallmark of this country. Consumer
rights in the digital age are not frivolous."
- Maura Corbett

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Have you turned on the native narrator tool yet? It can do many of these
things.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Guest]

As far as I know the narrator only works for text you are typing, am I wrong?

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/13d48403-fb32-4f26-8141-2cf2ae72a4e31033.mspx

INSERT+F4
Read the current word

INSERT+F5
Read the current line

INSERT+F6
Read the current paragraph

INSERT+F7
Read the current page

INSERT+F8
Read the current document

 

[Guest]

That is very helpful for a document but I am looking for some thing that will
read a web page for her. Any other ideas?
Thanks,

 

[Andrew McLaren]

work with a student who has C. P. ( Cerebral Palsy) she uses a computer
most
the time. IO was wondering if there is any soft ware that will read ANY
text
that she scans over with her mouse. I know that there is some thing that
reads word documents as you type them but I was looking for some thing
that
reads all text such as this question?

Hi

The type of software you're looking for is called a "screen reader". As
other replies have noted, Windows has a built-in screen reader, Narrator;
although this is very limited, compared to the stand-alone products. This is
"by design"; in the online Help for Narator it says in effect: this is a
basic tool to get users started, & if they want a full-featured tool they
need a stand alone product. Analogous to Notepad and text editors.

Microsoft has a catalogue of third party assistive technology tools at:
http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/showcase.aspx?ctId=40&tabid=1&WT.mc_id=0107_24

The most popular screen reader for Windows is JAWS, from Freedom Scientific.
This is about as full-featured as you can get; JAWS is an amazing program
which does lots of things to help vision impaired people use computers. The
only downside is that JAWS is rather expensive. See:

http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/software_jaws.asp

Other popular screen readers for Windows are:

HAL
http://www.dolphincomputeraccess.com/products/hal.htm

and Windows Eyes:
http://www.gwmicro.com/products/

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have follow-up questions, I've dabbled
in assistive software a bit, over the years.

 

[Guest]

Thank you so much, I will look into these. They sound like what I am looking
for.

 

[Grama]

My Husband uses both Narrator and the Microsoft Speech Dictation Program. We
found out recently that you really need to have 2Gb of RAM for Narrator to
read a whole screen of text. Hope this helps. And Hope that Microsoft will
get the Narrator perfected so that it will work as good as JAWS. Talk about
multitasking. He had to have three programs running before he could even open
his email and read it when he had to use JAWS, and Jawbone, and Dragon Nat
Speak, in order to use his computer.