Hiding the tags?

[miklk4nup]

Hi. I'd like to use TA3 to help my kid in his reading hability. I was thinking of writing some short texts with different voices. The problem I have is that when I put some tags (pauses, change of voice) I get all the tag writings on the screen and I can't find a way to show just the text.

<voice required="name = Mike16">Tom: Why would you want to go there?{{Pause=1}}

<voice required="name = Crystal16">Jennie: Because...{{Pause=1}}

<voice required="name = Mike16">Tom: ...

Is there a way to solve my problem.

Thanks

[Jim Bretti]

There is currently not a way to hide the tags. The question comes up fairly often, and it is on our list of enhancements to add in a future release.

One thing you might do in the meantime is have TextAloud insert some of the tags automatically. For example, from the TextAloud menu, click Tools -> Text Processing -> Pauses and Text Insertions. You can use this panel to have TextAloud automatically insert your end of sentence / end of paragraph pauses.

You could use Pronunciation Dictionary Maintenance, also under the Tools menu, to automatically insert your voice change tags. Looking at your example, you would have the pronunciation editor scan the text for Tom: and Jennie:, and 'respell' these as <voice required="name = Mike16">Tom: and <voice required="name = Crystal16">Jennie:

We'll look at hiding the tags in a future release but hopefully this will help for now. Let me know if you have any questions or have any problems getting it to work.

[D.Leikin]

... I put some tags (pauses, change of voice) I get all the tag writings on the screen and I can't find a way to show just the text...

Currently, you can hide tags by doing the following

1. Install TextAloud plug-in fo MS Word
2. Copy your tagged text from TextAloud to MS Word
3. Switch to MS Word and change tags' font color to that of the background (white by default). This should make tags pretty invisible to only you, not to TextAloud...
4. Use TextAoud plug-in for MS Word to enjoy listening to tagged text without actually seeing the tags

[miklk4nup]

Ya but this way, I'm gonna get something like that: (imagine empty spaces instead of the underline cause I can't get spaces before the characters in the post)

__________________ Tom: Why would you want to go there?
_______________________Jennie: Because...
_____________ Tom: ...

So that's not realy what I want to get to work with my kid. Thanks.

[D.Leikin]

Ya but this way, I'm gonna get something like that:

__________________ Tom: Why would you want to go there?
_______________________Jennie: Because...
_____________ Tom: ...

Forgot to mention you could change font size, i.e., 1 for tags, 72 for text,

to get something like this:

_Tom: Why would you want to go there?
_Jennie: Because...
_Tom: ...

P.S. Also forgot to mention you'd have to change page size to large and then zoom out as appropriate

[miklk4nup]

That's better though that's still not quite ok.

[miklk4nup]

Hi. I've tried it your way, with the Pronunciation Dictionary Maintenance, and it's the best result I've got so far. The only thing is that the Text Processing -> Pauses and Text Insertions doesn't work. Even if I put 5 sec., there's no pause at all. The regular {{Pause=1}} works though and since it's at the end of the sentence, I can put it in white in Word so it doesn't show.

The best/easier way to do it, I think, would have been to get TA to be able to 'see' the masqued/hidden characters in Word. It would have been realy simple that way.

Thanks again for your help.

michel

[Jim Bretti]

Hi Michel,

Can you send me a sample TextAloud article where you're having problems with the automatic pauses not working? I'll give it a try here and see if I can figure out whats happening. Use File -> Save Article as Text File, and send me the file. Along with the text file, please send me you pronunciation dictionary files. To locate the dictionary files, use Help -> Open Data Folder ... the dictionary files are in the Dictionaries folder. Just zip up any dictionary files in this folder and attach to your reply along with the article text. Send it to me at jim@nextup.com

Thanks.