They can also change the highlighting and text colour – useful for pupils with scotopic sensitivity problems. The biggest advantage with WordTalk is that pupils who prefer to have text highlighted so that they can follow the text and listen to the spoken version can do so. Another advantage is that because it is a Microsoft product it should work smoothly with future updates to MS Office 2010 (and 2013).īecause WordTalk was designed by a teacher to support a pupil with severe dyslexia (who went on to achieve Highers), it includes features that teachers often find useful: Save as MP3 or Wav audio for listening to later talking dictionary an easy way to turn on and off keyboard shortcuts - a must for pupils who find it difficult to control a mouse or who just like to be able to access features quickly. The pupil can then attend more easily to what he or she is reading or writing. A big advantage is that you can add Speak to the Quick Access toolbar, position the Quick Access toolbar below the Ribbon, and then Minimise the Ribbon (Right click on Ribbon > select Minimise). Speak offers a range of text-to-speech options - by word, paragraph etc. It uses whichever voice is the Default voice used by the computer. In favour of Speak are the fact that it is built in not just to Word but to other MS Office 2010 software. So how does Speak, the MS Office 2010 text-to-speech feature compare with WordTalk, the toolbar designed to use with MS Word versions from Word 97 onwards? You can also add Speak to the Quick Access Toolbar and position the toolbar below the Ribbon to simplify the interface for pupils. You follow the same steps to add the Speak feature in each program. It can also be made available to use with PowerPoint (yes talking PowerPoint), Excel and OneNote (one of our favourite programs that deserves more widespread use in schools). MS Word is just one of the Office Programs that the Speak feature works with.
This is very useful for pupils with a visual impairment, poor mouse control or simply because the pupil finds it quicker to use keyboard commands rather than mouse clicking. (You do this via the Control Panels rather in Word itself īecause it is part of MS Word you can assign a Keyboard Shortcut to start and stop speaking text.
If you have Heather or Stuart or both installed you can choose one or other of these high quality Scottish voices to speak the text.
#ENABLE DICTATION IN WORD WINDOWS#
It is pretty basic but it is available.Īs MS Office is integrated with Windows it means that whichever voice is selected in that computer's Control Panel will be used when you select Speak. Yes, MS Office 2010 includes a text-to-speech feature.
A well hidden feature in Microsoft Office 2010 is the option to speak text out.
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