Filtering text using Start of Line and End of Line

[Jim Bretti]

Many times TextAloud users want to filter certain text strings if the strings appear at the start of line or at the end of a line.

One way to do this is with a regular expression in the TextAloud Pronunciation Editor, using a modifier that causes the expression to scan the text line by line.

As an example, say you want TextAloud to speak the following text, but not prounounce the numbers at the start of each line:

1 This is the first line
2 This is the second line

The Word / Pronunciation entries can be set up like this:

Word: {{re=(?m)^(\d+)}}
Pronunciation: <s>

The (?m) string is a modifier, where ?m causes the text to be read as multiple lines, instead of one big text string. In this mode, the ^ symbol will match the start of a line. So the expression above will look for one or more digits following the start ot a line, and replace the digit(s) by a space. (the <s> in the pronunciation field represents a space).

Also when using this multiline modifer, the $ symbol will match end of line.

If you need to filter text based on start of line (^) or end of line ($) give this modifier a try.