Making the computer read out text aloud can be useful in several situations. The most obvious is as a aid for blind people but it can also be helpful if you cannot look at the computer screen at that moment.
Speak It was a very popular Firefox add-on. It is listed to be compatible with Firefox 2 only at the official Mozilla homepage but a user changed the compatibility of the add-on and made it compatible with Firefox 3 as well.
It utilizes text to speech capabilities of the operating system to provide the means to read out text aloud to the user. It integrates itself nicely in the right-click context menu and can be used to read out all of the text on a website or only the selected text.
It comes with some options to configure the add-on. It is possible to change the read rate and volume. There is also the possibility to change the text to speech engine if more than one engine is installed on the computer system.
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Mayhap ye try FireVox, a nice reader add-on. FTW, freedom thru wisdom!
Now all Mozilla have to do is,sort out the security issues,make it less buggy and pass the Acid 3 test with flying colors. Then it might be nearly as good as Opera!
I tried that and it drove me crazy listening to it read your page. They can keep it. :)
But I have to admit that it is better than the old ones. Maybe in another 10 years I’ll enjoy it more.
The Microsoft “Sam” narrator is not very good at all. I prefer to use a program called ReadPlease. RP’s voices is also a bit robotic sounding, but not NEARLY so bad as the “Sam” voice in MS’s Narrator. I use Autocopy to send text to the clipboard and ReadPlease reads it off to me.
You should look at talkingclipboard.com for the best and free text to speech mozilla addon.