Web authors committed to Web Content Accessibility have long complained that there was no fully functional "real life" screen reader available at a reasonable price that they could use to check their web pages.
There are now numerous screen readers available. Visit Disabled World - Screen Readers for the Visually Impaired for a comprehensive listing accompanied by thumbnail evaluations. Some implementations are available as free trial downloads.
Inexpensive audio Screen Reader:
My own favorite audio screen reader is TextAloud, which I find very easy to install, set-up, and use. Excellent toolbars are installed for IE & Firefox Browsers. It is a Windows implementation and is available at NextUp.com as a 15 day free trial download. The $29.95 purchase price is very reasonable, especially when compared with $895 for JAWS or Window Eyes, and $795 for Hal, all of which I have used as trial versions.
TextAloud is a quick and easy download and installation and is ready to use after a Computer re-start. An excellent toolbar is automatically installed in Firefox and IE Browsers. I have found that setting Sentence Pause Interval to .1 seconds, and Paragraph Pause Interval to 1.0 seconds, using Options> TextAloud Options> Pre Defined Pauses from the toolbar menu, to be ideal for readability. The free trial version does not include premium voice choices, but the speaking voice selections provided are really not bad. The voice of "Anna" is used for one of my installations, and that of "Sam" for the other. I prefer "Anna", but "Sam" is not bad. The computer sound card is used for voice transmission.
The speaking style and pronunciation may take a little getting used too, but the text is readily understood with a little familiarity. Authoring for audio screen reader usage requires some adjustments. Paragraphs are afforded the longest vocal pauses, followed by periods, semi-colons, commas, exclamation points, and question marks, all of which have approximately equal weight. Slight pauses can be specified for such symbols as colons, dashes, parentheses, brackets, and quotation marks via the options menu.
Audio screen readers are also invaluable for Web authors in proof reading web page content.
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