The Sound of Books

One of the little geeky things that I discovered recently was the ability to take a Microsoft word document, convert it to Microsoft Reader document, and then use the speech ability in Microsoft Reader to read it aloud. That sounds very complicated, but actually it's not. There's a download that installs a "Read…" option to the File menu in word. I click on "Read..," Word automatically builds a Microsoft Reader e-book and then Reader will open and you can read it aloud.

The voice does a really nice job to converting text to speech; it didn't miss a word when I read a couple of chapters aloud, and that includes proper nouns and place names. There are three voices that can be selected. The voice I use sounds like the computer in WarGames (for those of you that remember WarGames), but it works for me. I find spots where the sentences don't sound like they should and typos, too!

Anyway, just thought I'd share if you're running XP and Office 2003 or 2002. Please note that Macs do this automatically.

The downloads are below. You'll need three:

Microsoft Reader (if you don't have it already installed):
http://www.microsoft.com/reader/downloads/pc.asp

The Text-to-Speech component of Reader:
http://www.microsoft.com/reader/developers/downloads/tts.asp

The Word-add-on is here:
http://www.microsoft.com/reader/developers/downloads/rmr.asp