TextAloud version 3.0.69 Release Notes

[PHenry1026]

Greetings Jim,

I have not installed TextAloud version 3.0.69 as yet, but could you please expanded on the "phoneme pronunciation corrections" cited in the release notes?

[Jim Bretti]

Basically the problem is related to problems with word highlighting when using Sapi5 phoneme tags in the text. With AT&T voices, word highlighting gets out of sync anytime the voice runs across one of these tags. The fix (implemented quite a while back) was for TextAloud to split the text at each phoneme tag. This fixes the word highlighting problems, but also causes a small pause at the tag.

When I originally did this fix, I only performed this split when speaking text aloud, trying to suppress these small pauses in audio files. It turns out this has an effect on how the tag is actually pronounced, in some cases the pronunciation is noticeably different.

So the fix added in 3.0.69 was basically to include this split when writing audio files. Writing an audio file with AT&T voices with text including phoneme tags now sounds exactly the same as listening to the text aloud.