Never heard of it.  I'd be interested to learn about it though.

-----Original Message-----
From: VICUG-L: Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jody W Ianuzzi
Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2005 4:57 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: PowerTalk


Has anyone tried PowerTalk for reading Power Point presentations?  I
would like to try it but I don't know if it will mess up my JAWS system.



JODY

| Here is the URL: http://fullmeasure.co.uk/PowerTalk/ReadMe.htm
|
| PowerTalk 1.2.2
| Automatic speech for PowerPoint presentations.
| PowerTalk is a free program that automatically speaks any presentation

| or
slide show running in Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows.
|
| You just download and install PowerTalk and while you open and run the
presentation as usual it speaks the text on your slides. The advantage
over other generic 'Text To Speech' programs is that PowerTalk is able
to speak text as it appears and can also speak hidden text attached to
images.
|
| Speech is provided by the standard synthesised computer voices that 
| are
provided with Windows.
|
|  1.. Aids you if you have difficulty speaking or you have an audience 
| that
contains people with sight problems (visual impairments, low vision or
blind) or who have dyslexia;
|  2.. Helps you access presentations when there is no speaker and you 
| are
partially sighted;
|  3.. Simple to use as you just select a presentation and it runs in
PowerPoint as usual;
|  4.. Speaks the text on any presentation and uses standard Windows 
| speech;  5.. Waits for text to appear and animation effects to play 
| before
speaking;
|  6.. Will speak hidden 'alternative text' for pictures, graphics 
| shapes
and text;
|  7.. Lets you add instant narration to presentations without the need 
| to
record speech;
|  8.. Is a useful tool for testing presentation accessibility when 
| using a
screen reader;
|  9.. Is mature with 1000s of downloads and several reviews from people

| who
have found it useful;
|  10.. Free (gratis - as in 'free beer'). No purchase, registration or
adverts, you just download and run it;
|  11.. Free (libre - as in 'free speech'). The Open Source License
guarantees you the freedom to make copies and to alter its behaviour;
|  12.. Is listed on DMOZ and on Google web directories;
|  13.. Anyone can contribute to the project and developers will find it

| is
a SourceForge project;
|  14.. Is a featured project in the OATS Open Source Assistive 
| Technology
Software project which brings the benefits of Open Source software to
Assistive Technology users;
| Several improvements have been made since it's inital release and 
| details
can be found in the Project News. This information is also available as
the RSS feed (See introducing XML/RSS Feeds).
|
| PowerTalk was created 3 years ago in response to an open letter 
| calling
for help from a person with Asphasia. This appeared in Ability magazine,
'Campaigning for Accessible IT' published by John Lamb Media for the
British Computer Society Disability Group in association with
AbilityNet.
|


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VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html