BrowseAloud is:
- Free to download
- Easy to use - just place your mouse-pointer on a page and Browsealoud starts reading!
Keep reading to find out more about:
- Voice control - you can control how BrowseAloud reads sites aloud
- Highlighting - BrowseAloud highlights the word and sentence it is reading aloud
- Continuous reading - BrowseAloud will keep reading a page until you tell it to stop
- Small download - BrowseAloud has a small firewall-friendly download
Voice control
You can control how BrowseAloud reads sites aloud. You can:
- Change the voice you are using
- Change the reading-speed of the chosen reading voice
- Define your own shortcuts/hotkeys to start and stop reading
- Re-define how words are pronounced
- Have the program start when the computer starts
Highlighting
BrowseAloud has a dual colour highlighting system - it highlights the section of the page being read and the particular word being read:
This means that you will always know:
- Which part of a page is being read
- Which word on a page is being read
- How much of a page remains to be read
Continuous reading
BrowseAloud will read a page until you tell it to stop. When you start using BrowseAloud, only the words under your mouse-pointer will be read aloud. But it is also easy to ask BrowseAloud to read a complete page to you
Small download
- The Browsealoud download is 14-15 MB
- The download is also specially-designed to be firewall-friendly
Setting up Appearance options
You can change the way BrowseAloud highlights the text as it is read aloud and whether or not you want to use BrowseAloud mouse pointers. You can do this using the Appearance tab in the BrowseAloud Options dialog box, which is shown below:
To set up Appearance options:
1. Double-click on the 
icon in your system
tray or right-click on this icon and select Open BrowseAloud Options
from the popup menu. Alternatively click the Options button 
on
the BrowseAloud Toolbar.
The BrowseAloud Options dialog box is displayed.
2. Click on the Appearance tab, which is shown above.
If you cannot see the Appearance tab, make sure the Show me more options check box is selected in the bottom left-hand corner of the dialog box.
3. Select the I want text to be coloured as it is spoken check box if you want the text, and the background of the text, highlighted as it is read aloud. You can then click on the following buttons:
· Foreground colour - click on this button to select the colour of the actual text highlighted by BrowseAloud
· Background colour - click on this button to select the colour of the background of highlighted text.
For example, if you select purple for the foreground and yellow for the background, BrowseAloud highlights the text in the following way:
4. Select the Show coloured mouse pointers on enabled web pages check box if you want to see the BrowseAloud icons used with the mouse pointers on speech enabled websites. Deselect this check box if you want to see the normal mouse pointers. The mouse pointers look like this:
· BrowseAloud
mouse pointers: 
· 
.
5. Select the Use the Text Reader Window check box if you want the text read aloud in a separate window. You can then select either of the following types of window:
· Text Ticker - this window is displayed at the very top of the page and spans the breadth of the page. The text is displayed in the window and each word is highlighted as it is read aloud. Example
· Single Word Display - this window is displayed in the centre of the page and is the size of a single word. Only the word that is spoken is displayed in this window. Example
You can also select the size and style of the font used in the separate
window by clicking on the Text Size and Style button. The colours of the
background and foreground of the text are the same as the colours you selected
in step 3.
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|
If you are not happy with the new settings, click on the Program tab and select the Reset all defaults button to revert back to the original settings. If you click on this button, all of the options you have selected in the BrowseAloud Options dialog box will be replaced by the default settings. |
6. Click on the OK button to save the settings.
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