Wordtalk is a free plugin for Microsoft Word (all versions from Word 97 to Word 2010) which can read all the text that you have written. This plugin was developed for people who have difficulties in reading or writing but can be used by anyone. If you are used to writing and the proof reading your writings, Wordtalk is the perfect solution for you. It will read out everything you have written so that you can just listen and make corrections.
Wordtalk also lets you save the speech in a .wav or .mp3 format so that you can always listen to your writings anytime anywhere. You can also take that mp3 file in your iPod or iPhone for listening on the go.
Wordtalk creates another ribbon tab in Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010 while it creates a toolbar in the previous versions of Word. The toolbar is very easy to use. It consists of a few buttons. Let’s look at the toolbar buttons individually:
Speak from cursorSpeaks the entire document starting from the paragraph containing the cursor.
Speak paragraphSpeaks the paragraph containing the cursor.
Speak sentenceSpeaks the sentence that contains the cursor.
Speak wordSpeaks the word that contains the cursor.
Speak selectionSpeaks the text that is selected.
Stop speakingStops the computer speaking.
Configure WordTalkOpens a window to configure WordTalk. You can choose different voices, change the volume and speed of the voice and also choose a background highlight colour.
Save sound filesConvert the text to speech and save as a .wav or .mp3 file.
Save settingsSave your personalised settings.
Load settingsLoad your personalised settings.
That’s all. It’s very easy to use the toolbar. You only have to press your desired button for the action to take place.
.NET Framework is required in order to run Wordtalk. If you don’t have .NET Framework installed, you can download .NET Framework 4.0 first, install it and then proceed to Wordtalk installation.