[Athen] foreign language OCR and TTS

[Wink Harner]

Jeffrey, 

This is a valuable resource. I'm working on a wiki for technology resources and I would like your permission to include your suggestions below. 

Thanks in advance. 

Wink 


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeffrey Dell" <jeffreydell99 at gmail.com> 
To: "Access Technology Higher Education Network" <athen at athenpro.org> 
Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 2:19:07 PM 
Subject: Re: [Athen] foreign language OCR and TTS 

Hi Maureen 
The answer to your questions depend on what foreign languages you are 
scanning and reading. For European languages the regular Fine Reader 
or ScanSoft OCR engines that come with Kurzweil or Openbook work 
great. Because the programs that read the text need the program 
displaying the text to identify the language we usually use .doc for 
foreign language texts. it is easy to set and change between 
languages in MS Word. If you are using a foreign language keyboard 
Word will make the change automatically. 
For Asian languages we hire a student worker that knows the language 
to edit the textbook. for these texts we tried scanning with IRIS 
Asian Language edition but the scanned files required so much editing 
that it was just easier to have the student worker retype the text. 
It is not easy to purchase the voices for many foreign languages 
without burchasing it as part of some package with a TTS reading 
program. NextUP has a lot of voices availble with their TextAloud 
program. Read and Write Gold comes with voices for most European 
languages. Freedom Scientific programs have access to a wide variety 
of voices with their RealSpeak Direct features. If you want to 
purchase quality voices separately NeoSpeech, Acapela, and Cereproc 
offer many foreign languages. Most companies that make TTS engines 
will only sell development kits to other product developers. 
Most US programs will not work with Asian languages very well. JAWS 
will read them but will not identify specific details like Hiragana or 
Katakana in Japanese. Read and Write Golds features like 
Pronunciation tutor and alot of the reading features do not work well 
with Asian languages. Some of this info I will be covering with my 
CSUN presentation this year on Making Asian Language Materials 
Accessible to Students with Print Disabilities. 
This is what I can think of off of the top of my head with a head ache 
and a desire to start my christmas vacation. If there are more 
specific details you need give me a call at 216-875-9938 or e-mail 
jeffreydell99 at gmail.com. 
Jeff 
cleveland State 

On 12/20/10, Maureen Bourbeau <mbourbea at smith.edu> wrote: 

> Happy Holidays......... 

> 

> I am looking for suggestions and best practices for OCR solutions for 

> foreign language reading materials. 

> What is preferred OCR software? (for both quality and ease of use) 

> what is best format for output file? (.doc, .rtf, .pdf) 

> and what text-to-speech tools and voices are being used by the end user? 

> 

> In addition to accessibility, our Language Resource Center is beginning to 

> explore using foreign language TTS as a support tool to language learning. 

> The goal would be to have properly formatted source materials that could be 

> used with text reading software. 

> 

> Thanks for any and all suggestions! 

> 

> Maureen Bourbeau 

> Assistive Technology Specialist 

> Smith College and Mt Holyoke College 

> 

> 

> 


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-- 
Wink Harner 
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