Hi Anouk, Visiovoice is designed for visually impaired individuals. It was an alternative solution that would work out of the box if you wanted to run your Mac using French or Dutch voices in Tiger, where starting up with VoiceOver required knowledge of English. Visiovoice has a separate interface from VoiceOver and a different pronunciation editor. You also have to separately purchase the Infovox iVox voices for the languages Visiovoice supports. It has a number of other features for low vision users in terms of its cursor magnification support, and it also has features such as simply creating an audio file from text. The main interest in using Visiovoice was among VoiceOver users who wanted to work in languages other than English. I think that at one point, version 1.2 supported Japanese using the DTalker voices.
GhostReader is targeted as "convenience ware" for users who want to have mail, web pages, and documents read to them with text-to-speech on the Mac. It is is not designed for visually impaired individuals, though probably low-vision users would find it convenient. This application is relatively inexpensive (around $39.95 list price for one language), and can only read documents, web pages, pdf files, etc through the GhostReader interface. It comes with compressed versions of the Infovox iVox voices, but can use any of the system voices. I looked at it as a low-price alternative to getting the Infovox iVox voices. (I happened to find this on sale as a one-day new promotion at half price -- $19.95 vs. the then $149.95 price for the regular voices). I was slightly surprised that Anne was using this, since she has Visiovoice, and since this application is not that convenient to use without vision. Also, I think anyone who wants to get non-English voices for their Mac will want to use them for all applications (with VoiceOver), and not just for selected reading of web pages or PDF files and documents through the GhostReader interface, since you don't have the same kind of detailed navigation control that VoiceOver provides; GhostReader is better for doing a straight read through. However, as an add-on (for $10), or as an application for low vision users who use multiple languages, GhostReader can be a great option. They also sell it with multiple language (2, 3, etc.) options, though a VoiceOver user would use the better quality Infovox iVox voices that work system-wide. (The GhostReader voice versions are like slightly lower quality mp3 renditions of an audio CD). The two nice features of GhostReader are: (1) an undocumented feature that lets you automatically switch voices (and languages) when reading text and (2) the feature (also in Visiovoice) to create and audio file from read text. The way the voice/language switching works is by using the sequence: \vce=speaker=newspeaker\ when I specify a French voice, e.g. \vce=speaker=julie\ the text that follows gets pronounced with French intonation. Changing to an English voice, e,g. \vce=speaker=heather\ gives the text in English. If you want to read through a dialog with voices speaking multiple languages, this is great. It only works in GhostReader (not VisioVoice), and only with voices of the same type. So if you have only the lower quality ConvenienceWare versions of voices that come with GhostReader for French, you can only switch between that quality voice in French and English. Since most VoiceOver users will get the better quality Infovox iVox voices for system-wide use in all applications, they can switch between all the higher quality Infovox iVox voices on their system HTH Cheers, Esther anouk radix wrote: > Hi Anne, What is the difference between visiovoice and ghostreader? > Greetings, Anouk > On Nov 7, 2009, at 4:51 PM, Anne Robertson wrote: > >> Hello Donna, >> >> On Nov 6, 2009, at 7:25 PM, Donna Goodin wrote: >>> >>> So what do you use Ghost-reader for? I just can't seem to get >>> excited >>> about it. >> >> I use it for converting text files such as scanned books into audio >> files. I wouldn't actually have bought it since I already have >> VisioVoice except that lots of French Mac users have GhostReader >> and I felt I should know about it to help them with it. After all, >> I have a French-language website for VI Mac users so I feel some >> responsibility toward them. >> >> Cheers, >> >> Anne >>>>> >> >> > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
