freequently asked questions
why
do blind persons need a screen reader
what
is a text to speech system
A screen reader is a
software which monitors information on computer screen, and input including
keyboard and mouse, then sends that information to the output devices such as
speech synthesizer or braille display. This
information is sent in text form, The speech synthesiser
converts that text information to the speech, and the braille
display presents that information in form of tactile dots. The screen reader has to get the desired
information from the specific application that it supports in order to provide
rich information.
People with sight are able
to see at the screen and know what is written on it. For blind persons computer
provides a way to know the same information via speech or braille.
A blind person can use the screen reader and then read and write textual
information. This opens up broad possibilities such as writing letters to their
loved once, communicating with email and chatting, browse the internet and
research the subject they want to know about. There are alot
of other possibilities, any thing that can be done with text online, a blind
person can do with the screen readers.
A text to speech (TTS)
system also known as speech synthesizer is a software which excepts text as
input and generates output in form of speech. It works on one of two
principles. 1. concatination: in this form, words are
divided in phoniums or syllables and kept as a
database. when text is processed, then they are added together as per the language
rules. second is the pure synthesis, in which every sound is generated with
algorithm. this form of synthesis is difficult, provides good results after alot of testing and requires less space.