<html><head><style type='text/css'>p { margin: 0; }</style></head><body><div style='font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000'>Jeffrey,<br><br>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.<br><br>Thanks in advance.<br><br>Wink<br><br><br><hr id="zwchr"><b>From: </b>"Jeffrey Dell" <jeffreydell99@gmail.com><br><b>To: </b>"Access Technology Higher Education Network" <athen@athenpro.org><br><b>Sent: </b>Monday, December 20, 2010 2:19:07 PM<br><b>Subject: </b>Re: [Athen] foreign language OCR and TTS<br><br>Hi Maureen<br>The answer to your questions depend on what foreign languages you are<br>scanning and reading. For European languages the regular Fine Reader<br>or ScanSoft OCR engines that come with Kurzweil or Openbook work<br>great. Because the programs that read the text need the program<br>displaying the text to identify the language we usually use .doc for<br>foreign language texts. it is easy to set and change between<br>languages in MS Word. If you are using a foreign language keyboard<br>Word will make the change automatically.<br>For Asian languages we hire a student worker that knows the language<br>to edit the textbook. for these texts we tried scanning with IRIS<br>Asian Language edition but the scanned files required so much editing<br>that it was just easier to have the student worker retype the text.<br>It is not easy to purchase the voices for many foreign languages<br>without burchasing it as part of some package with a TTS reading<br>program. NextUP has a lot of voices availble with their TextAloud<br>program. Read and Write Gold comes with voices for most European<br>languages. Freedom Scientific programs have access to a wide variety<br>of voices with their RealSpeak Direct features. If you want to<br>purchase quality voices separately NeoSpeech, Acapela, and Cereproc<br>offer many foreign languages. Most companies that make TTS engines<br>will only sell development kits to other product developers.<br>Most US programs will not work with Asian languages very well. JAWS<br>will read them but will not identify specific details like Hiragana or<br>Katakana in Japanese. Read and Write Golds features like<br>Pronunciation tutor and alot of the reading features do not work well<br>with Asian languages. Some of this info I will be covering with my<br>CSUN presentation this year on Making Asian Language Materials<br>Accessible to Students with Print Disabilities.<br>This is what I can think of off of the top of my head with a head ache<br>and a desire to start my christmas vacation. If there are more<br>specific details you need give me a call at 216-875-9938 or e-mail<br>jeffreydell99@gmail.com.<br>Jeff<br>cleveland State<br><br>On 12/20/10, Maureen Bourbeau <mbourbea@smith.edu> wrote:<br>> Happy Holidays.........<br>><br>> I am looking for suggestions and best practices for OCR solutions for<br>> foreign language reading materials.<br>> What is preferred OCR software? (for both quality and ease of use)<br>> what is best format for output file? (.doc, .rtf, .pdf)<br>> and what text-to-speech tools and voices are being used by the end user?<br>><br>> In addition to accessibility, our Language Resource Center is beginning to<br>> explore using foreign language TTS as a support tool to language learning.<br>> The goal would be to have properly formatted source materials that could be<br>> used with text reading software.<br>><br>> Thanks for any and all suggestions!<br>><br>> Maureen Bourbeau<br>> Assistive Technology Specialist<br>> Smith College and Mt Holyoke College<br>><br>><br>><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Athen mailing list<br>Athen@athenpro.org<br>http://athenpro.org/mailman/listinfo/athen_athenpro.org<br><span><br><br>-- <br><span name="x"></span>Wink Harner<span name="x"></span><br></span></div></body></html>