Worcestershire Record No. 21 April 2007 p. 33

John Partridge

Over the past eight years or so, I have input many thousands of records into Notepad or Excel spreadsheets for entry into WBRC databases, and have needed to check what I have typed. It may be that you have someone who will to read things to you for checking, but if you haven’t, or if they get bored, why not use your computer? You can even use it to check your articles for Worcestershire Record.

If you have Windows XP, some of the required programs are already installed, and the rest are easily downloaded. From www.deskbot.com, you can download and run deskbot full setup.exe. (This is about 6 MB, so if you are on dial-up may take some time – you could borrow my disc)

This will install Deskbot as a program in your Programs list, and put an icon on your desktop.

You start the program by clicking on the desktop icon, or from the Programs list, and this will add Genie to your tray at the bottom of the screen, together with a mini-icon. Now anything that you paste to the clipboard will be read back to you – provided that you have a sound card and speakers, and they are switched on.

Right clicking on the mini-icon will allow you to choose Options and change the voice, but they are all American English. Clicking on the Download tab at the top will take you to www.msagentring.org/setup.aspx and using your PageDown key three times takes you to about the right place to download lhttseng.exe (about 2 Mb). Running this to loads two English English voices which can be selected under Options, and will allow you to hear something more homely.

Using Options you can also change the reading speed and the voice pitch using the Voice Modifiers tab under the Voice tab.