Hi Ann,

I'm right behind you in your fight for universality in the
reproduction of etexts, especially if they are marked up in simple
HTML.  This opens the door for everybody with a print disability,
or with any other difficulty reading the written word.

Once in HTML, there are a number of ways of reading you can
use.  You can of course use a web browser combined with a screen
reader or screen magnifier.  However this is like using a steam-roller
to crack a nut, and you have suggested Readit as a simple alternative.

But instead of Readit running in DOS, you could use WordAloud that runs
on Windows.  If you have some useful vision, WordAloud gives you a
rapid reading facility with magnification, font and colour choice,
using a word-at-a-time display technique.  (This is great for people
with dyslexia.  My son uses it!)  If you have no useful vision, you
can read using WordAloud's speech synthesis.

You can download a free evaluation of WordAloud from www.wordaloud.co.uk.
Note that this evaluation copy expires at the end of June, but there is a
SPECIAL OFFER:  $29.95 for a personal copy, if ordered before 12th July.

Cheers from Chiswick,

John
--
In message  <[log in to unmask]>
Ann Parsons, via [log in to unmask] writes:

>Hi all,
>
>I just bought the American Lit CD.  Very nice format, easy to read and
>all.  The problem with a CD having Kurzweil format is, of course, that
>it is not readable by anything except a Kurzweil 3000.  These books
>are in ASCII and can be read on screen, with synthes of any type,
>brailled, put into MP3's if you can run the sound for them, printed in
>large print, put on tape as plain recordings from a PC speaker, used
>by any computer system running any OS including Mac, all flavors of
>M%, any paperless braille device, Unix, Linux and probably anything
>made up by ET's if they use ASCII.  This is what makes Gutenberg and
>projects like it so valuable.  This is why we have to continue to
>fight for universality in the reproduction of etexts.
>
>The CD includes, by my suggestion, the DOS text reader, Readit.  This
>is the best reader for text that I have ever found, for, it not only
>reads the ASCII text, it also allows you to set book marks and return
>to them when needed.  Those using Windows will probably have to run
>Readit in a DOS box, horror of horrors.  However, if you can do that,
>you'll get a simple, useable product.  Sure you can put the etexts
>into MSWord and use the search feature to find your book mark, but
>this little gem is made for the purpose.  <smile>
>
>Ann P.
>
>--
>                        Ann K. Parsons
>email:  [log in to unmask]                   ICQ Number:  33006854
>WEB SITE:  http://home.eznet.net/~akp
>"All that is gold does not glitter.  Not all those who wander are lost."  JRRT

--
Access the word, access the world! -- Try our WordAloud software!!

John Nissen, Cloudworld Ltd., Chiswick, London, UK
Tel:   +44 (0) 845 458 3944 (local rate in the UK)
Fax:   +44 (0) 20 8742 8715
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web:   http://www.cloudworld.co.uk and http://www.wordaloud.co.uk