Alternate format text... independently

This is another colleague-question inspired post. She was looking for resources that would help her relative (who has learning disabilities) through law school. I figured... hey, what a good opportunity for a blog post!

Text to speech programs

There are a number of text-to-speech programs out there that will, well, turn text into computerized speech. I've covered a number of these in some of my blog posts (tools for Mac users, another one for Mac, an older one for PC tools). Here's a more up-to-date list of my favorite text-to-speech tools and what the advantages and disadvantages are of each of them.

• Read Please: Free. Microsoft voices; customizable font & background color; copy/paste reading; reads email emoticons, adjustable voice speed. (There is also a not-free version that includes better voices and more options.)
• Advantages: Free! Easy to use. Several nice options.
• Disadvantages: Microsoft voices awful. Copy/paste method of reading is cumbersome to say the least.
• Natural Reader: Free. Can read Word, email, even accessible PDF files, Select text and press a key - not copy/paste; voice speed adjustable; change font sizing, zoom; uses Microsoft voices
• Advantages: Free! Can be used within Word or other applications
• Disadvantages: Microsoft voices awful. Have had reports from students about issues with crashing/locking up
• GhostReader (Mac): Inexpensive (trial free, full version $39.95). Great Cepstral voices; comes in multi-lingual formats; convert text to iTunes tracks easily, includes bookmark capability in exported iTunes tracks; reads accessible PDF files; has word-by-word tracking when reading on screen.

Creating text from physical books

"But..." (I hear you saying) "...I have actual books I have to read. How do I get them on my computer?" There are a couple of options: finding books that are already in an accessible format, or creating that format yourself. Here's how to convert physical books into documents you can use a text-to-speech program to read.

1. Scan the book. If you only need a few pages, a flatbed scanner will be fine. Otherwise, you'll want to cut off the binding (a copy shop usually as a guillotine that can do this for you) and then use an automatic document feeder on a scanner.
2. Use optical character recognition software (OCR) to convert the scan (pictures of pages) into actual text. Omnipage and Abbyy FineReader are the market leaders. I prefer Omnipage because it tends to recognize unknown images as text, where Abbyy tends to recognize unknown images as graphics. Omni also handles Greek symbols quite well. Abbyy is a bit easier to learn. Both are excellent products.
3. Open the .doc file you've created in step 2 and do a little clean-up. Remove optional hyphens (they'll mess up the reading) by doing a find-and-replace for ^- (replace with nothing). Ensure margins are consistent and reasonable throughout the document. Spell-check.
4. Read, using your favorite text-to-speech program above

Another option is to use Kurzweil to scan, convert, and read the text. It's not cheap ($395 for read-only, $1095 for black-and-white conversion version, $1495 for color conversion version), but Kurzweil is the Cadillac option. It's easy, it's smooth, it has all the bells and whistles for conversion, reading, and writing that you might need. There's versions for both Mac and PC, and a trial version is available.

Some serious words about copyright when creating alternate formats

Remember, folks, that this process is for your personal/educational use only. Don't distribute what you've created to anyone - that would be a violation of copyright law - and for for the love of Pete don't sell the alternate format. What we're talking about here is access... since traditional paper books (and many e-books, for that matter) are not accessible for people with certain disabilities, this process is designed to make them accessible so you can read the great stuff the author wrote. That's it.

Searching for already-available alternate format text

There are several places to get accessible formats of text. I've written pretty extensive blog posts already on Recordings for the Blind & Dyslexic and Bookshare.org, both of which have free memberships for students. They create beautifully accessible audio versions of texts of all kinds. For other sources of text that can be used with text-to-speech, you might also want to check out our Alt Format Resources webpage.