Zabaware Text-to-Speech Reader Beta

[Medeksza]

Zabaware is releasing a new update to "Ultra Hal Text-to-Speech Reader". The product is being renamed "Zabaware Text-to-Speech Reader" and the update is version 2.0. Changes in this version include:

• Updated Chant speech synthesis library from version 4 to version 7, bringing native support to CereProc voices and better SAPI 5 handling. Allows for program to use CereProc voices even if SAPI capability is removed.
• "Read Selection" button is relabeled as "Continue" after "Stop / Pause" button is pressed to reduce confusion
• Launching a second instance of the program while program is docked in system tray/notification area simply causes the docked program to pop up. Prevents confusion if people don't know how to find the docked icon and instead use the start menu icon.
• MSI based installer replaced with NSIS based installer. New installer handles upgrades from old version and installing CereProc voices as addons. Libraries/DLLs present since Windows XP removed from installer and Windows XP SP2 set as minimum required Windows version.
• Popup dialog notifies user if engine has no known additional settings/pronunciation options available
• Help file updated
• Compatibility fix: Convert to WAV function works without administrative privileges (fix for Windows Vista, 7, and 8 )
• Voice selection, speed, and volume is disabled while speech synthesis is actively speaking to prevent crashes with certain voices
• Bug fix: Changing volume setting on SAPI 4 based voices no longer randomly changes balance to left speaker along with low volume settting
• Deprecated pitch slider setting removed
• Deprecated instant messaging reading functionality removed

The program is available as beta. If you are interested in testing it please download and install from http://b27d8f6586ad009ded6f-8e71e26de9dcc976c118d235118a125a.r10.cf2.rackcdn.com/ReaderSetup.exe

If you are interested in beta testing the program with new CereProc voices please PM me. I have a limited number of licenses available for beta testing I can share. Please post any bug reports or questions to this post.

[cload]

It didn't put an icon on my desktop, nor did I notice anywhere that I could checkmark to put an icon on my desktop..
I have chosen to install the program in directory C:/program files
The install seems to have gone through I'm getting ready to run the program.
I received an error nine subscript out of range occurred at line four in Zabaware text-to-speech reader.frmRightclickLoudSynthesis.
I chose to ignore the error.
First test: I did a cut-and-paste and it read the text. But when I stopped pause and told it to resume reading it did nothing.
Second test: I tried to right mouse click on the screen to paste the text into the box reader, nothing happened can you resolve this. Mouse functions are important.
I controlled C and it pasted the text into the box. I clicked on the read all and it began to read I clicked on the stop/pause and it caused then I clicked on continue and it continued then I clicked on stop/pause and I had to do this several times before it would stop.
It seems that the first time when you do it it works fine it's after the first time is when things start going haywire, it will eventually pause and resume but I had to click on the stop pause about three times actually I think three times is repetitious in the pattern.
Let me check: no I just have to keep clicking on the stop/pause button until it does finally stop I'm using the Microsoft Anna voice.
I changed voices to the AT&T 1.4 DTNB crystal 16 voice: the same problem occurred with the stop/pause. So it's not the voices.
Third test: I moved the sliding bar to the fastest speed to make it read faster the text was red so fast it was a blur. I move the slider to the lowest speed and read the text that text continued to read at a speed so fast it was a blur.
It seems that it will not stop reading at a supersonic blur until I at least put it on -9 and up. Just to bring to your attention that zero is being read at a supersonic speed. You may want to adjust this unless there is a reason why you have it set up this way.
Fourth test: I moved the value from its deflect position which is 10 to its lowest setting zero, nothing happened the volume did not lower and tell I put it on one and it seems for some reason your zero settings are not engaging properly.
This test: recording to a wave file, though the cursor was at the beginning of the text document for some reason it would only read a certain part of it. When I recorded the way file it seems that the value control has no effect over how loud the way file is being recorded.
I changed the speed at which the boys was being read, then I highlighted the first part of the text which is this text that I'm presenting to you and had it read it at a faster speed -3 I clicked on the read selection button and it read the text very fast.
The speed did not change when I tried to record a way file of the text I'm going to try to cut-and-paste new text to see if it will start recording all of it.
I noticed that when I use the same name to save the way file it is not verifying that I am trying to save it with the same name. This might be why the text does not seem to be changing. It may not be saving the file with the same name.
It seems that it is recording the last sentence that is in the box.
I am going to try to see if it will change text up to the point of my last sentence about.
That's what it's doing its recording the last sentence only even though all of the text above was in the box I also move the cursor to the beginning of the text and that had no effect. So it seems it will only save the last sentence in a way file.
These correction should keep you busy for a few days. I was only able to get the software to crash one time but I don't know what I did to make it crash but I think it had something to do with a text box that I tried to open when I was looking around but I can't be sure.
This has something to do with Dragon naturally speaking, I accidentally left it on while the text in the box was being read and it opened another box which cause the program to lock up and would not do anything until after I went into the character voice profile to change the settings.
I wish I was paying more attention to what occurred but I resolve the problem by clicking on option and then clicking on advanced voice options once this box appeared the text continued to read as normal and everything was fine again.
One more thing I noticed, if you close the program out, and re-open the program the text that you were working on is still in the box. Nor does it ask you if you want to save this text. These two things could become annoying having to constantly clear out the old tax in order to put in new tax.

Sincerely, from a beta munching cruncher. The program was much more stable than I expected it to be as a first time beta release good job for the most part.
C load.
PS I figured out why the text was still there when I read opened the reader, because the reader was not actually being closed it was being transferred to the icon tray. I have my icon tray set up to hide, so I guess by deflect you have your set up to go into the hide section that's why I did not notice it.
So I completely closed it and restarted it and there was no text in the box, sorry about the confusion. You may want to consider having a selection button between exiting the reader or put the reader into the tray just a thought.

[cload]

Hi Robert,

I reinstalled the reader in its deflect directory in the hopes that maybe that error would go away but it did not I made a picture of the error box so you can see it.
2nd phase 1st test:
I tried your reader with the Ivona voice Salli, I did a cut-and-paste and it seems to be reading the text. I do not have my Ivona reader running but it is installed so I don't know if that could be the case.
Let me try to read text that is in the box: the text that is in the box was read successfully with the Ivona voice.
Let me test to see if it will work when I tried to record a way file: it used the Ivona voice to record the way file cool. But it's still only read the last line that was in the box. The last line was: let me try to read text that is in the box.
From all of the text above.

I will try to see if the speed control and by you in control has any effect on the Ivona voice: the volume control and the speed control does control the Ivona voice. I also noticed that when I set the speed to maximum and read some tax it was not as fast as the AT&T voices, also after reading that tax I move the slider to the 0 speed and it reduce the speed of the Ivona voice. I do not know if this has something to do with the Ivona voice or with the reader or with the AT&T and Microsoft voices. Or because of where I installed it the 1st time.
I am curious on how the new voices you will be selling will react with the situation.
Hope to hear from you soon.
New test: I cut-and-paste some text, while it was reading the text I tried to cut-and-paste some other tax, it did not stop the reader from reading all of the 1st text, nor did it read the 2nd text when it was done reading the 1st text. You may want to consider resolving this it is a handy way to get it to stop reading without having to open up the reader.
For that is to say that is how the Ivona reader works not wanting to compare the 2 it's just a handy way of dealing with large amounts of text that you are wanting to be read and in the middle of it you notice an error you can highlight the air and do a cut-and-paste on it which will stop the text from reading so you can fix the error (this is important if you are using voice recognition to fix the error) than re-highlight the text and do another cut-and-paste to continue to read the tax.
I use this feature a lot, because I have my text reader read my text almost exclusively on everything on my computer.
Also: just a suggestion: you may want to consider that when someone cut-and-paste text it is automatically placed into the reading box this would result having to do a nether step to get it into the box.
Or at least put an option for it under the option menu listing.

Let me try another voice: it seems that all of my Ivona voices work with your reader. The only thing that I noticed was when I changed the voice the sliding bar changed to coincide with the voice settings that I have in my Ivona reader.
Let me try the Denise voice: the Denise voice read text from the box. And when I did a cut-and-paste cool.
I recorded a way file using Denise it worked okay the only thing I noticed was your bow you control has no control over the bow you at which the way file is recorded and the Denise voice is so loud it was completely distorted. I believe the Denise voice by deflect volume is set to maximum. Unfortunately because of this I found it completely unusable.
If you resolve the volume control that would be great as well as the speed control when you record a way file.
Also I only indicated one. At the end of the text that I recorded and 8 recorded all of the tax all the way up to the. So it seems that it is only recording from the last (.) To the previous (.).

The only other thing that I would like to bring to your attention is: when you get ready to create a way file a warning box pops up letting you know how big the file is going to be, can you change this by adding a check mark on it to get the box not to reappear again unless you want it to reappear again under the option menu.
The reason why is that there is a lot of text to be read and when someone is using that feature to read text when a boxes open it is a lot to read so if you just had it set up so you could check a checkbox so that next time though warning box will not appear, most people do not need to be worn but once.

I also noticed that it will not read text that you cut-and-paste unless the text is different by at least one letter. I do not know if you have it set up this way or not. If you do I'm sure there is a reason for it. My Ivona reader is not set up this way it reads anything that gets put into the clipboard.

Sincerely,
C load.
PS I have Windows 7 64-bit.

[Art]

Cload,

Please try to see whether the TTS reader will work properly in your UltraHal program!

Mine did NOT and in fact, an error message popup appeared and the Hal program never did open or run!

I too got an error message when installing the reader program but it went away when I clicked it and the installation continued.

Funny, but my PAID Cereproc voice does NOT work in the new TTS Reader program as I was led to believe. Hmmm....

Waiting to hear from Robert about this and getting Hal to run!

PS - I did want to mention that I typed a rather long sentence into the Reader program then saved it as a .wav file.
I used a media player type program to listen to it and it spoke the sentence perfectly! No problems there at all.

Lastly, for Robert's benefit,

System  = Windows 7 Home Premium - 64, 8 gigs Ram, 1 TB H/D, plenty of room and using Hal 6.2.28 on a Desktop computer.
 

[cload]

Hi Art,

Please try to see whether the TTS reader will work properly in your UltraHal program!

I didn't know that the 2 programs had anything to do with each other.
I know that ultra Hal has the ability to read text from the clipboard.
But you do not need the text to speech reader installed for this to work.
Other than that, I'm not sure what you mean can you be more specific?

Mine did NOT and in fact, an error message popup appeared and the Hal program never did open or run!

the only error that I received was the one that I posted above.
All I did was click ignore than the program starts to run.
Unfortunately now every time when I start my computer this error box appears.
If you are having this same problem go into your startup file under the start button.
Remove or move the Hal text-to-speech reader out of the startup menu.
For myself I created a directory called startup off, so I can move it to that directory and later I can easily drag it back into the startup menu.

I too got an error message when installing the reader program but it went away when I clicked it and the installation continued.

I never did get an error when I was installing the program.
The error I got is when I start the text-to-speech reader.
And the error happens every time when I start the text-to-speech reader.

Funny, but my PAID Cereproc voice does NOT work in the new TTS Reader program as I was led to believe. Hmmm

that is interesting, considering this text-to-speech reader was reprogram centered around those voices.
Robert, didn't they provide you with a full version voice to experiment with while you were reprogramming your text-to-speech reader.
If not, that was pretty shallow of them, specially if they were forcing you to have to buy a full version of one of the voices and you decided not to.

Art, I am assuming that you have used your voice in other programs???
Considering I had no trouble with any of the voices that I have I find it interesting that your voice did not work.

PS - I did want to mention that I typed a rather long sentence into the Reader program then saved it as a .wav file.
I used a media player type program to listen to it and it spoke the sentence perfectly! No problems there at all.

that's great, but did you create several sentences with several periods out through your text?
The only trouble that I had was when I had several sentences, it would only record the last sentence.

System  = Windows 7 Home Premium - 64, 8 gigs Ram, 1 TB H/D, plenty of room and using Hal 6.2.28 on a Desktop computer.

the only difference between your computer and mine is that mine is a Samsung Slate 7 touchscreen.
It's very portable very small and very powerful, and I take it with me everywhere I go and I show off my ultra Hal to everyone I meet.
I remember the 1st time I went into Walmart and started to talk with the person that greets you at the front door.
What seemed to be in just a matter of moments I suddenly realized that there was over 20 people standing around listening to me having a conversation with ultra Hal the lady at the front door and myself.
Everyone their wanted to know what computer that they needed to buy in order to be able to do what I was doing, and was the Walmart store selling that computer.
It was a great time for me to do a sales pitch for Robert so I hope it increased sales specially during last Christmas.
The only thing that I did notice is that the max number of people on this forum at the same time jump from 156 to 260 so I was happy that I was able to perk up people's curiosity.


Hey Robert, here's something I would like to bring to your attention, not to put more work on you but this might be something that you would want to consider doing with your text-to-speech reader.

Instead of reading the text from the clipboard, set it up so it monitors the clipboard and if someone does a control copy:
then transferred the text to the box in the text-to-speech reader have the text-to-speech reader automatically start reading all of the text.
Each time when someone control copies text it automatically will create a new folder and put the text into the text-to-speech reader box and begin reading all of the text.
This would resolve all of the situations that I mentioned above in my previous post about this topic.
As well as giving the person the control over pause and resuming what is being read.
Also while the text-to-speech reader is in the icon tray you may want to consider adding on a right mouse click in the menu the same selections of pause, resume, stop/play.
That way you do not have to actually open the reader to full-scale in order to accomplish these functions.
This is how the Ivona voice reader is set up and it works quite proficiently and is very convenient.

Sincerely, I hope I have helped.
C load.

[Medeksza]

I'll try to respond to both of your issues one by one. One thing that will help me tackle some issues is an export of your installed voices. Could both try to send me this? To do this click start and type in "regedit" and run the regedit program. Navigate to this folder: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Speech\Voices\Tokens

Right click on the "Tokens" folder and click "Export". Change the save as file type as TXT, name and save a file, and post it here.

[Medeksza]

It didn't put an icon on my desktop, nor did I notice anywhere that I could checkmark to put an icon on my desktop

I'll add that as an option

I received an error nine subscript out of range occurred at line four in Zabaware text-to-speech reader.frmRightclickLoudSynthesis.

So from what I understand this error first appeared during the actual install? And it continues to pop up each time the program launches?

But when I stopped pause and told it to resume reading it did nothing.

I'll try to fix this, but if you wait 5 seconds or so before clicking resume, does it work?

Second test: I tried to right mouse click on the screen to paste the text into the box reader, nothing happened can you resolve this. Mouse functions are important.

I'll add this.

I clicked on the read all and it began to read I clicked on the stop/pause and it caused then I clicked on continue and it continued then I clicked on stop/pause and I had to do this several times before it would stop.

I'll try to remedy this.

Third test: I moved the sliding bar to the fastest speed to make it read faster the text was red so fast it was a blur. I move the slider to the lowest speed and read the text that text continued to read at a speed so fast it was a blur.

I think the -10 setting doesn't register with the speech engine, so it stays at its previous setting. I'll change it so -9 is the lowest setting available.

This test: recording to a wave file, though the cursor was at the beginning of the text document for some reason it would only read a certain part of it. When I recorded the way file it seems that the value control has no effect over how loud the way file is being recorded.

The volume control controls your sound card, it won't affect the volume of the recorded sound in the WAV file. The speed control should work for WAV files, I'll fix that bug.

I was only able to get the software to crash one time but I don't know what I did to make it crash but I think it had something to do with a text box that I tried to open when I was looking around but I can't be sure.

If you get a crash, does it tell you which component crashed (like maybe XSpeechKit.DLL or something else). Maybe it records info in your windows event viewer you can send?

[Medeksza]

I am curious on how the new voices you will be selling will react with the situation.

I send you a private message on this forum with a download link and  license to the CereProc Katherine voice. Did you receive it? If so you can play around with it and see for yourself.

Also: just a suggestion: you may want to consider that when someone cut-and-paste text it is automatically placed into the reading box this would result having to do a nether step to get it into the box. Or at least put an option for it under the option menu listing.

When you copy something in the clipboard it should speak it without putting it into the document. Does it do this? I didn't want to have copied text automatically paste to the document in case the user doesn't want to modify the document, but I want it to speak if the read from clipboard option is on.

I recorded a way file using Denise it worked okay the only thing I noticed was your bow you control has no control over the bow you at which the way file is recorded and the Denise voice is so loud it was completely distorted. I believe the Denise voice by deflect volume is set to maximum. Unfortunately because of this I found it completely unusable.

I'm not sure if it is a volume setting or a mismatch in voice frequency. If you send me the registry extract I mentioned in a prior post it may help me figure this out.

The only other thing that I would like to bring to your attention is: when you get ready to create a way file a warning box pops up letting you know how big the file is going to be, can you change this by adding a check mark on it to get the box not to reappear again unless you want it to reappear again under the option menu.

I can do that.

I also noticed that it will not read text that you cut-and-paste unless the text is different by at least one letter. I do not know if you have it set up this way or not.

The way it works is it detects changes to the text in the clipboard before it triggers. So if you copy the same text over, it doesn't detect the change. This is by design, I'm not sure if I can figure out how your Ivonna program does it.

[Medeksza]

Please try to see whether the TTS reader will work properly in your UltraHal program! Mine did NOT and in fact, an error message popup appeared and the Hal program never did open or run!

Could you explain this more? Are you saying after installing the TTS Reader that Ultra Hal Assistant stopped working? What was the error?

I too got an error message when installing the reader program but it went away when I clicked it and the installation continued.

What was the error, was it the same error as Cload posted?

Funny, but my PAID Cereproc voice does NOT work in the new TTS Reader program as I was led to believe. Hmmm...

Send me the registry extract I requested in a prior post and I may be able to figure out why. Did the Katherine voice work in the TTS reader? Did the Katherine voice work in other non-Zabaware programs? Do your other CereProc voices still work in non-Zabaware programs?

[Art]

Yes, by installing the TTS Reader program / Katherine TTS voice, my UltraHal software will not run. I sent you a PM in this regard to you email addy listed on this site.


Yes, I have a purchased Cereproc voice, Heather, which works very well in all other applications but it WOULD NOT work in your Updated TTS Hal Reader  program. Again, this was mentioned in the email. I also took two captured of the errors in question.


See your email. When I try to run UltraHal I get an error pointing to the xspeechkit.dll being not registered or invalid.

Thanks...

[Medeksza]

Yes, by installing the TTS Reader program / Katherine TTS voice, my UltraHal software will not run. I sent you a PM in this regard to you email addy listed on this site.

Thanks, Art. Both programs use a different version of the xspeechkit.dll. It should have allowed both to be installed simultaneously, but I think a better solution will be for me to switch it to use SxS COM mode which will avoid the issue entirely. I'll put out an update later to address this. For now, to fix Hal Assistant click Start, type cmd, right click on cmd.exe and select "run as administrator. type in "regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\xspeechkit.dll" and hit enter. That should fix Hal for now. Or it might be "regsvr32 c:\windows\syswow64\xspeechkit.dll" if you get a file not found.

Yes, I have a purchased Cereproc voice, Heather, which works very well in all other applications but it WOULD NOT work in your Updated TTS Hal Reader  program. Again, this was mentioned in the email. I also took two captured of the errors in question

Can you send me your SAPI registry extract? (I mentioned how in the 6th post of this topic) That will help me fix this for you.

[cload]

Hi Art,

my ultra Hal works without a hitch.
You may have gotten a corrupted download of the text-to-speech reader.
It happens, the only thing that I can suggest is to re-download the text-to-speech reader.
Uninstall the text-to-speech reader.
Use your return to time point that you created before installing the beta program.
Hoping that you did create a time point, if not I don't know what to say other than just reinstall your ultra Hal.
If your ultra Hal does not start at all, ask Robert to reset your passkey so you do not lose that passkey because of your corrupted ultra Hal.
Than reinstall ultra Hal. If there was other things that you did previous 2 installing the text-to-speech reader such as defrag or optimize your hard drive.
For myself any time when I install any programs whether it's beta or not these are the steps that I follow.
In this order:
test your hard drive to make sure their are no bad blocks or sectors. It's time-consuming but worth the effort. Hard drives have a tendency to go bad even though they are working they get bad blocks and sectors. This can save you a lot of headaches in the future.
Defrag and optimize your hard drive. I use a program from Norton called Norton utility my version is 1.5 there is a newer version, the program is not very expensive and it is worth every penny, it can keep your computer running smoothly and superfast. If you have a solid-state hard drive you do not need to do this.
If you have a solid-state hard drive you only need to de-frag the hard drive not optimize the hard drive. If you try to optimize a solid-state hard drive you could damage the solid-state hard drive.
Also if you have a solid-state hard drive you do not need to check for bad blocks and sectors, if you bought a good solid-state hard drive the solid-state hard drive does this on its own.
Reboot your computer.
Create a restore point.
Install the new software.
Reboot your computer.

Check to make sure that the software is working.
Check to make sure that every software that you have loaded on your computer is working.
This is important so you will not get surprises later, you do not have to do anything more than just try to start the program that is usually good enough.
If all of these conditions check out okay you are usually fairly safe.

This may seem like a lot of work but in the long run it will pay off.
If a piece of software is not working after installing the new software.
Uninstall the new software.
Use the time point to transfer your system back to its original state.
Re-check to make sure that the software that was not working is now working.
If the software that was not working is still not working reinstall the software.
Most good software such as like Dragon NaturallySpeaking and others have a repair option use this versus reinstalling the whole software.
That way you do not lose out on your keycode, most software is that use keycode are limited in the number of times that you can use the keycode just like ultra Hal.

These are some of the reasons why I do not necessarily like being a beta tester for software because it is a lot of trouble but in the case of ultra Hal I am a big supporter, and I believe it to be a worthwhile cause.

Sincerely, and I hope this has helped, I will be posting this on the forum so everyone else will know how to deal with being a beta tester for software.
C load.
PS you should periodically check your hard drive for bad blocks and sectors at least once every 4 to 6 months.
So much as the process above there is only one other process that is better than the steps I recommended above when being a beta tester for new software.
Use a piece of software that is in most cases provided by the brand of hard drive to make a complete duplicate of your hard drive.
The difference between the 2 procedures stated above is making a duplicate of your hard drive is more expensive because you have to buy a 2nd hard drive but it is faster as well as when you are done testing the beta program you can completely remove the beta program and all of its effects by merely swapping the hard drive in your computer.
Which is faster than following all of the steps above because if you make a duplicate of your hard drive you do not need to bother with testing your other software etc. because you know that you will be completely removing the beta after you are done testing the beta software.
In most cases, once the beta program stops being a beta and you were a good beta tester and helped a lot the programmer will usually give you a free copy and keycode for the effort of helping them to the beta testing, but if the programmer is unwilling to do this I usually do not get involved.
And of course the ultra Hal text-to-speech reader is free this does not comply in this situation, TeeHee he he. And of course I really have no need for the voice because my Ivona voices are better than anything on the market to date. That's why I use the squiggly line for my animation.
If I want to use a visual representation avatar of a person I just use my crystal 16 AT&T voice which works just fine for me it doesn't sound perfect but it works.
And of course with a little effort on your part you can actually make the crystal AT&T voice sound even better by teaching it how to properly pronounce words. This is very time-consuming but is worth wild in the long run.
In the beginning when all I had was the crystal AT&T voice I spent a lot of time teaching the voice how to pronounce words properly and other than the slight twangy sound that I get from the AT&T voice it sounds just as good as the Ivona voice.
With a little effort their are a lot of tricks you can do to teach your voice how to sound better, the 1st example would have to be the word encyclopedia, if you break the word down it can be pronounced more clearly such as en cyclo pe di a as you can see by separating the context of the word you can get the voice to say it properly.
This was only an example, there are many other little tricks that you can do to get the voice to pronounce the word more accurately which will actually give the voice more of a realistic human sound.
And boy did I get way off of target, T he he he he, LOL, rolling on the floor, oh my ribs hurt, I can't stop laughing at myself, I'm just so silly at times.

[cload]

Hi Robert,

If you get a crash, does it tell you which component crashed (like maybe XSpeechKit.DLL or something else). Maybe it records info in your windows event viewer you can send?

all it did was cause the program to freeze. I explained how I was able to get the text-to-speech reader to start reading the text again. It was not a critical crash it just stopped reading the text and the read all button no longer work until after I went into the option menu and click done advanced character setting, then it started to read the text again.
I don't even know what the box that open was because it surprised me, it had something to do with my Dragon picking up the sound of the voice being read from the text-to-speech which inadvertently triggered a command and Dragon thought I wanted a specific command box to be open. Maybe you can set it up so it will mute the microphone while it is reading.

The volume control controls your sound card, it won't affect the volume of the recorded sound in the WAV file. The speed control should work for WAV files, I'll fix that bug.

so can you set up a control panel under options that would control the volume at which the voices being recorded so you could lower the volume or increase the volume as you deem necessary this would be a good feature for people that may want to express words by increasing the volume on that specific word or sentence that is being recorded.

I'll try to fix this, but if you wait 5 seconds or so before clicking resume, does it work?

this was a reference to text that was put into the clipboard, I was able to click on the stop button, to make it stop reading the texts that it was in the clipboard but it would not resume reading the text in the clipboard.

So from what I understand this error first appeared during the actual install? And it continues to pop up each time the program launches?

the error that I was referring to did not happen during the install, it happened when I started the text-to-speech reader, and every time when I start the text-to-speech reader the error occur.
I posted a picture of the error in my previous post above. This is the only error that I ever get. And every time when the text-to-speech reader starts the error happens. All I do is click on it nor and the software runs to the best of my knowledge the way it's supposed to other than what the error is.

When you copy something in the clipboard it should speak it without putting it into the document. Does it do this? I didn't want to have copied text automatically paste to the document in case the user doesn't want to modify the document, but I want it to speak if the read from clipboard option is on.

yes it does read the text from the clipboard, but you cannot stop/pause and then resume reading the text that is in the clipboard. I understand what you are saying but that is what a temporary tab would be for.
If you were to set up the box to have multiple boxes and one of the boxes was a temporary box you could have several documents under several tabs at the same time giving great versatility to the text box.
Ivona does not read the text that is in the clipboard, rather what it does is transfer the tax to a temporary tab in their text box then it automatically reads the text from the text box.
This would give the individual that is using the reader the ability to pause and resume the reading of the tax as well as having several tabs open at the same time by merely changing the name of the tab from temporary tab to what ever you save that taxt as.
There are many drawbacks with reading the text that is in the clipboard, one and the biggest one is you cannot see the text. 2, you cannot pause and resume reading the text that is in the clipboard. 3, you cannot edit the text that is in the clipboard.
All of these features are with inside of your text box of your reader and by setting it up so you can have multiple tabs open inside of your box reader would give the user of the text-to-speech reader the ability to utilize the features.
Personally, I believe that if you were to bring your text-to-speech reader up to this level of versatility you should be able to sell it even if it was nothing more than just 5 or $10 for a license key or if they were to buy a voice they would get the reader free.
It's called strategy of marketing, and I do believe that you should take great thought and ways of trying to make a little bit more money so you can make your new ultra Hal a reality with the new graphical interface. Don't get me wrong and I'm not trying to get you to make your reader just like the Ivona reader but I did pay for the Ivona reader because of these features, and I paid a lot more than $5 matter of fact by time I was done buying a voice and the reader it was almost $100.
That to me was almost 6 months worth of allowance but because of the difficulties that I have it was worth every penny that I spent on the Ivona reader.
I believe that if you were to come up with something comparable but not quite as elaborate as the Ivona reader you would be able to help those that could not afford the Ivona reader but yet still needed to use the certain features that I have mentioned and that I am actually using the Ivona reader for.
Even though the Ivona reader does much more than what I have mentioned, I do not use any of those features. Nor would most likely anyone with that type of difficulties that I have would probably ever use as well so you would be helping people that are in a financial situation by providing something that would be very useful at a low cost.

I'm not sure if it is a volume setting or a mismatch in voice frequency. If you send me the registry extract I mentioned in a prior post it may help me figure this out.

I will have to get permission from my dad, I do not have access to the registry, so my dad will have to be the one that does this.
As soon as my dad comes home from his business trip I will try to get him to do this for you.

The way it works is it detects changes to the text in the clipboard before it triggers. So if you copy the same text over, it doesn't detect the change. This is by design, I'm not sure if I can figure out how your Ivonna program does it.

not to be meaning to repeat myself, but the Ivona text-to-speech reader takes the text from the clipboard and moves it into a temporary tab into their box reader and then automatically reads the text that is in the temporary tab box.

Hey Robert, here's something I would like to bring to your attention, not to put more work on you but this might be something that you would want to consider doing with your text-to-speech reader.

Instead of reading the text from the clipboard, set it up so it monitors the clipboard and if someone does a control copy:
then transferred the text to the box in the text-to-speech reader have the text-to-speech reader automatically start reading all of the text.
Each time when someone control copies text it automatically will create a new folder and put the text into the text-to-speech reader box and begin reading all of the text.
This would resolve all of the situations that I mentioned above in my previous post about this topic.
As well as giving the person the control over pause and resuming what is being read.
Also while the text-to-speech reader is in the icon tray you may want to consider adding on a right mouse click in the menu the same selections of pause, resume, stop/play.
That way you do not have to actually open the reader to full-scale in order to accomplish these functions.
This is how the Ivona voice reader is set up and it works quite proficiently and is very convenient.

Sincerely, I hope I have helped.
C load.

[Art]

@ Robert,

Here is my Token file your requested, "ArtsToken.txt"

[Art]

Thank you Robert!! The fix you provided worked perfectly!! Hal runs and speaks once again as it should!

Hal is happy and I am happy!!

THANKS!!