Add-ins
PowerTalk
reviewed by Geetesh Bajaj, December 20th 2004
Introduction
Steve, Simon and Speechmakers
Download and Installation
Getting Started
Continued on Page 2...
Introduction
Surprises can add value to so many things
in life. PowerTalk is one such surprise - imagine a free program
that adds speech abilities to PowerPoint. What's even more surprising
is the fact that it is so less publicized. Few people know about
this program, so the best way to begin this review would probably
be to start with how it evolved.
Back
Steve, Simon and Speechmakers
Steve Lee, a software developer based in the UK explains that
he got to the stage where he wanted to give something to the accessibility
cause. He further adds
that he likes the concept of Open
Source Software (OSS) where a community of people work together
to develop solutions and ensure that software can be modified freely.
Steve wanted to put the accessibility and OSS concepts together
and when he discovered Simon Judge of Speechmakers,
they both found that they were thinking along similar lines. Around
this time, a letter appeared in the BCS Disability Group's Ability magazine
requesting help in presenting PowerPoint content to an audience
including blind and visually impaired
people. Also, this was to be presented by some one with aphasia.
As Steve explains "This letter was an ‘ahah’ moment
for me and all the threads came together. I could use a little Python (an
OSS developer language) code to glue together PowerPoint and SAPI (Microsoft's
Speech API) to solve the person’s problem and provide some
starting code for Speechmakers. The code would simply hook up to
PowerPoint events and grab slide text, squirting it at SAPI to
narrate."
Steve further adds: "The reality was not so simple. All the
hard COM automation work for Python had been done by Python Window’s
Guru Mark Hammond. PowerPoint, however, worked in strange ways
and I could not get the simplest thing to work. The great power
of OSS development is that people help each other and Mark soon
sorted out the problem via email and the result is the very little
code that makes PowerTalk tick."
Back
Download and Installation
PowerTalk is available for download from the Speechmaker's
site...
Find a download link on the page. Installation is easy - after
the setup is complete, you'll find a new PowerTalk group in your
Windows' Start menu.
During installation, you are prompted if you want PPS and PPT
files to automatically be associated with PowerTalk. Unless you
want to open PowerPoint files all the time with PowerTalk, you
will want this feature turned off. After installation, it is easy
to enable or disable this feature anytime through the PowerTalk
Settings option in the PowerTalk menu in the Windows' Start menu.
The installation also includes a sample PowerPoint file called
Power Talk.ppt that includes special tags that the Microsoft Speech
API can understand.
PowerTalk requires PowerPoint 2000 or later to be installed on
Windows 2000, XP, 2003 Server or newer.
Back
Getting Started
For a start, just click the PowerTalk icon
in your Start menu - this will result in a dialog box that prompts
you to open a PowerPoint presentation. Navigate to the folder
where you installed the Power Talk program and open the sample
file.
The sample presentation should automatically
load in show mode and start playing - while it is being presented,
you'll hear a computer generated narration that reads out text
that's either visible on screen or not. This sample presentation
also describes the PowerTalk concept and showcases the narration
capabilities. Let's explore how this works...
Back
Continued on Page 2...
|
