Text to Speech & Office 2007

[Anthony]

Seems like I no longer have handwriting recognition , text to speech or
speech recognition when I updated Office XP with 2007, but I have spent
the
whole day looking to add text to speech to my language bar like the
good ol
days with no success so what are the possible solutions to get any form
of
text to speech to work with office 2000/XP?

 

[JoAnn Paules [MVP]]

I think voice recognition was introduced with Office XP and that for the
time being it's not available with Office 2007. Has something to do with
Windows but that's all I know.

 

[Wally(CNM)]

Seems like I no longer have handwriting recognition , text to speech or
speech recognition when I updated Office XP with 2007, but I have spent
the
whole day looking to add text to speech to my language bar like the
good ol
days with no success so what are the possible solutions to get any form
of
text to speech to work with office 2000/XP?

 

[Wally(CNM)]

I teach at Central New Mexico Community College. I frequently have visually
impared students. It appears that Office 2007 is not addressing accessabilty
needs for visually or hearing impared individuals. I am not able to even get
third party software to work such as Windoweyes. Does anyone know if this is
being addressed and when it might be available.

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Reinstall text to speech for Office 2000/XP. 2007 does not ship with it
anymore (the functionality is being moved to Windows) and seems to
uninstall it as well.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Hi Wally,

Accessibility seems to be working in 2007, but I don't know with what
configuration. There is a very active accessible beta tester and I have
asked her about this.
I'll get back to you. If you don't hear anything on this topic within a
few days, please drop me a quick reminder email (get my email address
from my website).

Thanks,

Patrick Schmid

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Hi Wally,

Here is the reply from Karen McCall
(http://www.iprimus.ca/~martha/table.htm):
All of the adaptive technology developers are working on this including
Freedom Scientific/JAWS and MAGic, GW Micro/Window-Eyes and
AiSquared/ZoomText. It is difficult to provide support during the beta
process as the applications and UI are still being fine tuned. With the
first release of the screen readers and screen magnification software
after the full release of Office, we should see support.

Trying to provide support equal to that of Office 2003 at this point
wouldn't be a good use of development time...it is like trying to nail
jelly to the wall.

Although the current versions of JAWS and Window-Eyes aren't fully
functioning at this point with beta 2, I do have some access with
current
versions so it is not as if nothing is working. I am finding it faster
to
find things and format documents using the Ribbon Accelerators...and I
can still use the keyboard commands I'm used to...Ctrl + Alt + F for
example still inserts a Footnote at my cursor point.

My general comment is that the Microsoft teams are taking my bugs
seriously and working on them. Many of the tools have either enhanced
accessibility or have at least not lost any. A good example is SmartArt
which has keyboard access. The SmartArt Styles are read to me and I can
use either the Text Pane or the actual SmartArt elements to enter
information. Screen reader access is not perfect in this tool yet, but
the tool is accessible.

Everything is still being worked on...Not quite time to panic.

Cheers, Karen

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Patrick,

Ummm, actually the Text to Speech feature (Speak), an Excel feature does still ship with Office 2007. Dictation and alternative
input, such as inking and drawing for non-tablet users does not.

For some reason Excel no longer shows that feature on the ribbon, and instead of having a grouped command for it be added to the QAT
toolbar you will need to add five separate 'speak' control items from the 'Commands not on ribbon' customization area to the Excel
toolbar to readback the spreadsheet.

I haven't had a chance to test in 2007 the 2003 MS Knowledge Base procedure for having text to speech from Excel work in Word and
Powerpoint.

==========
Reinstall text to speech for Office 2000/XP. 2007 does not ship with it
anymore (the functionality is being moved to Windows) and seems to
uninstall it as well.

Patrick Schmid >>
--
I hope this helped you,

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office system products MVP

LINKS for the 2007 Office System

1. Read about it, try it, or watch the movie
the 2007 Microsoft Office system iinfo is at
http://microsoft.com/office/preview

2. Already have 2007 Office System Beta 2?
Send Microsoft your feedback (with pictures)
http://sas.office.microsoft.com/

3. Use the 2007 OfficeOnline website without Office2007

a. Install the ActiveX access control
http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?AssetID=XT101650581033
b. then visit http://officebeta.iponet.net

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Ummm, actually the Text to Speech feature (Speak), an Excel feature
does still ship with Office 2007. Dictation and alternative

input, such as inking and drawing for non-tablet users does not.

Oops. I got them confused. Thanks for setting me straight Bob!


Patrick Schmid