Speech to text overview
Windows has a built in speech to text system that allows the computer to
read text aloud. This was designed for visually impaired people to be
able to navigate around a computer more easily, hear the contents of
documents, emails, etc. This works by Windows having voices installed
on a computer. By default there are some voices including in Windows,
but it depends on the version of Windows you have.
The quality of voices has improved with each version of Windows.
Windows 10
Microsoft Zira - US female voice
Microsoft Mark - US male voice
Microsoft Susan - UK femail voice
Microsoft George - UK male voice
Windows 11
Microsoft Zira - US female voice
Microsoft Mark - US male voice
Microsoft Susan - UK femail voice
Microsoft George - UK male voice
Text to speech for visitor/patient call with Repeat Signage
Within Repeat Signage, you can use text to speech for visitor or
patient calling. For example, Repeat Signage has been used in doctors
and dental surgeries as part of 'patient call' systems. This is where
the name of the next patient is displayed on screen and also a voice speaks
messages along the lines of
'Mr Jones to Dr Smith's office'.
Text to speak works for both the
text label control
and
text block control.
The way this works is as follows:
1. First create a text file on a shared network drive using Microsoft
Notepad (which is part of Windows and under 'Start' then 'Accessories').
The file will be called something like n:\PatientCall\NextPatient.txt or
n:\MessageBoard\Message.txt. If you want to use an RTF file instead,
then create one with Windows WordPad instead. The reason it is created
on a network drive is so that a computer and screen displaying a Repeat
Signage presentation in a waiting area can be updated from another computer
which is likely to be in the receptionist's office area. Being on a
network drive (with appropriate security permissions set) allows both
computers to use the same file.
2. Insert a new
text label control (or
text block control if using an RTF file for
rich text) into a presentation and then use 'In a local/network file' option
and select your network file (such as n:\MessageBoard\Message.txt) and then
click on OK to add the control to the presentation.
3. Now move and resize the control as you see fit.
4. Double click the control to edit the properties and select the
'Refresh' tab.
5. Put a tick in 'Check for updated content' tick box then change the
'Check for updated content every' section to 0 minutes and 5 seconds.
6. Put a tick in the 'Play sound on refresh or next playlist item'
tick box and then change the 'Action' type to 'TEXT TO VOICE'.
7. It will default to a voice of 'DEFAULT' which is the default system
voice.
Click the 'Test' button to hear an example. You can select a different
voice if you have others installed on your system (See below for 3rd party
voices that can be purchased). The speech rate and volume can also be
set if required.
8. Click on the 'OK' button to save this.
What you have done is to set up a text control which uses refresh. The
control will monitor your text or RTF file, such as
n:\MessageBoard\Message.txt for changes. Every time someone opens this
text file, updates the text and then saves it, then Repeat Signage will see
the change and play the new text in this file using a Windows text-to-speech
voice.
9. Leaving Repeat Signage open, switch to your text file in Windows
Notepad (or Windows WordPad if using an RTF file) and then resize the
Notepad window so that you can see Repeat Signage behind it and move is so
that you can see your text control with the text displayed.
10. Now change the text in the file to something like 'Miss Smith,
please visit room 10' and then save the file.
Now what should happen is that your text control updates itself
automatically to the new text (usually within 2.5 seconds) and then you will
also hear the text being read out. If you have any problems then
double click your text control and check the settings. The refresh
should be set to 5 seconds and enable and the 'Play sound on refresh' should
be ticked and test the voice to make sure your system sound is not muted or
too quiet.
Using Repeat Signage text to speech with other software
The above example is fine but requires someone to manually update either a
text or RTF file. You could also use our free
www.repeatserver.com
service to host your text file or RTF file online and manually update it
using a website control panel interface. You would have log into your
account (creating one first if necessary) then use the 'Text labels' or
'Text blocks' pages to create and maintain text/RTF files.
Using our system along side patient or visitor software will need your
software to overwrite the text or RTF file on the network whenever the next
patient is to be called. You would need to modify your software to
allow this. This should be quite a minor alteration and any good
programmer would be able to do this without difficulty.
Using more than one patient calls controls with a presentation
You can use multiple
text label control and
text block controls in a single presentation
and control each one independently to monitor different network files.
This way you could have one screen that serves two (or more) different
patient calls systems on the same screen.
Purchasing additional voices
You can also purchase voices on a computer by computer basis. For example, if you have Windows 7 above you will have
Microsoft Anna which is a female US voice. If used in a doctor's
surgery in Scotland, a Scottish voice would be more appropriate.
Cestral have a voice called Laurence that is widely used in the UK National
Health Service as well as other voices:
www.cepstral.com
CereProc is a Scottish company that do a large range of regional voices.
Scottish, Irish, northern and southern English voices. There are even
French and German accents.
www.cereproc.com
Voices cost varying amounts per computer, depending on your application.
Text to speech setting in Windows
Open the Windows Control Panel in whatever version of Windows you are using
and either look for the Speech icon or do a search for 'Speech'. You
then need the 'Change text to speech settings' option.