This feature is only available in SoftMaker Office Professional and NX Universal and is only supported for the Windows version. It is not available in the versions for Mac, Linux and Android/iOS.
The ribbon command Review | Speak lets all or part of the text in your TextMaker document be read aloud to you. This is also possible for text included in tables or form objects.
If you are working with different languages in your document, format the text in the desired language on the ribbon tab Review | group Spelling | Change language beforehand. For more information, see Formatting text in another language. This allows TextMaker to recognize which language should be used for reading aloud.
To have the text read aloud, please proceed as follows:
| 1. | Place the cursor at the point where you want TextMaker to start reading aloud. |
| Note: If only part of the text is to be read aloud, select this text section. |
| 2. | Choose the ribbon command Review | Speak  , the Text-to-speech module will open. |
| 3. | If necessary, click on the Options button before playback to adjust the settings for the speech output. For example, you can add the language pack required for a language in the dialog box if this language has not yet been installed in the Windows language settings. For more information on this and the other options in the dialog box, see the paragraph "Text-to-speech options" below. |
| 4. | Press the arrow button  to start. Adjust the Volume and Speed as needed by using the sliders. |
| The button  pauses the reading aloud. Press again to continue. |
| The button  jumps to the previous paragraph and  jumps to the next paragraph. |
| The button  stops the reading aloud. If you now start again with , the reading aloud resumes wherever the cursor is positioned or at the beginning of the selected text section. |
| 5. | Click on Close to exit the Text-to-speech module. |
Text-to-speech options
If you click on the Options button in the Text-to-speech module, the program opens a dialog box in which you can make settings for the speech output.
The following options are available:
▪"Tables" section
| The program not only reads out the normal text passages in your document but also text that is included in tables. For this purpose, you can choose between two methods of reading tables. |
| Speak cells by row: After the first cell of the table has been read out, TextMaker jumps to the cell to the right of it for further reading. Once the last cell in the horizontal direction is reached, the program jumps to the next row and continues there with the cell on the far left. |
| Speak cells by columns: After the first cell of the table is read out, TextMaker jumps to the cell below it for further reading. Once the last cell in the vertical direction is reached, the program jumps to the next column and continues there with the top cell. |
▪"Options" section
| Spell numbers: With this option enabled, numbers are pronounced distinctly to make it easier to recognize the occurrence of a number. This option is very useful for enumerations with numbers, for example. |
| Spell punctuation: Enable this option if you want the separators and punctuation marks (. ; , ? ! – "" etc.) to be expressed as in dictation to make it easier to recognize them. |
▪Language/Voices
| There are different voices available for reading aloud. In the list Language, first select the language for which the available voices are to be displayed. Then click on the desired voice for this language in the list Voices below. |
| If necessary, click on the Add Installed Voices button to add more voices to the list. |
▪New language packs
| TextMaker can only read aloud texts in the languages that have been installed in the Windows language settings. If the language required for reading aloud is missing here, you can access the Windows language settings directly via the New language packs button. Add the missing language in the "Preferred languages" section. |