Editing a Story? Listen! (part two: Microsoft Windows)

[gsemones]

A while back I posted on how I had my Mac reading my stories to me (see Editing a Story? Listen!). I continue to do that, and its very helpful. It helped find two errors in my current story this past week. So that's all good.

After that blog post, I've received several questions about how to accomplish the same thing on Windows. I intended to do that, but the task got ran over by the To-Do truck on the road to good intentions. :-/

This week, the topic came up again when I commented on jimvanpelt 's post about Perfection Deception and Edtiing. Following up on that comment, I finally sat down and figured it out how to have Microsoft Windows read your stories to you.

The following applies to Microsoft Windows XP, Vista and 7. I can't guarantee it works in all versions (business, home, etc.).

Things you need to know:

• You will need a sound card in your PC.
• We will be using a built-in Windows program called "Narrator" whose purpose is to read the contents of the Windows interface to provide accessibility for the sight-impaired. So, be prepared, while Narrator is running, the computer is going to read back to you every action you click in the Windows interface. However, when you quite Narrator, it will stop.
• Narrator may only work with Windows Notepad and/or WordPad.

Click on the "Start" menu (I don't know what they call it in Vista or 7, but it's that menu button in the bottom left of your screen.

• On XP, click Run under the Start menu to get the Run text box. On Vista and 7, click the text box at the bottom of the Start menu.
• Type narrator and press enter.
• After a moment, the small Narrator application window will appear in the bottom right corner of your screen.
  • If your sound card is on, your computer may start reading to you the contents of the Narrator window.
• Run Notepad or WordPad.
• Type some text in Notepad or WordPad.
• Highlight the text
  • On Windows 7 (and Vista, I believe), the computer should read the text to you).
  • On XP, you have to press Control-Shift-Enter, and the computer will read the text to you, but may say "editable text" first.

Configuring Speech

• Access the Control Panel and look for Speech. One of the tabs in that control allows you to change the "voice" that you hear.

Now copy and paste your story to Notepad or WordPad, highlight all the text and off you go!

If you try this and any of the steps don't work for you, please let me know. I can't say I can fix it, but I'd like to know.

So what's different from what I did on the Mac? I was able to export to MP3 and play it anywhere. This option is not available from Narrator. However, there are free Windows programs out there that may do it for you. I'll look into that for Mac and WIndows next.

Have fun!

Part 1
http://gsemones.livejournal.com/22852.html

Part 3 (Windows and Mac Add-ons)
http://gsemones.livejournal.com/24498.html