Category Archives: Difficulties

Microsoft Office and OneNote hidden text to speech command!

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A freely available way of using text to speech in Word, PowerPoint and OneNote and even
Excel is possible thanks to the Microsoft Office ribbon command menu.  You can select text and have it read back.  This idea does not offer all that specialist programs can provide such as text highlighting, pausing etc. but it is a quick way to hear how a word, phrase or sentence sounds when you want a quick check.
Adding speech in Word

If you go to Quick Access Toolbar in the ribbon you customise it by choosing More Commands – select ‘Quick Access toolbar’ from the menu on the left > Then go to the top of the right hand window and make sure you drop down the command list to ‘All commands’ otherwise you will not see ‘Speak’  in the list – Add it and return to your document.

Choose speech iconWhen you have typed something or have a file to read – highlight the text and select the new speech bubble that appears in your Quick Access toolbar.  The text will be read aloud in any voice you have chosen from the Control Panel > Speech recognition > text to speech. 

control panel screen grab

This comes thanks to Jean

iPod Touch to record lectures.

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“I use the iPod touch voice record function to record lectures. In addition to paper notes, this provides a means of revisiting lecture material for revision, especially if concentration fails during the actual lecture especially if I am very tired during a lecture.”

The iPod touch voice memos “saved in a Recordings folder on iPod in the WAV file format. If you enable iPod for disk use, you can drag voice memos from the folder to copy them.”

iPod voice memoMacWorld has a useful article about recording voice memos on the iPod and iPhone with some notes about the different versions and the extra accessories needed for some models.

iPhone dictionary so easy to use.

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“I like the iPhone’s dictionary – if you don’t know the meaning of a word on a website you just have to tap on it to get its meaning. So simple and easy.” Anibul

The dictionary was added for iOS 5 and it is important to just tap and hold on a single word to see the ‘Define‘ menu appear beside ‘Copy, Select All  and Speak’.  It does not work in all applications.  In messages the complete message is highlighted on tap and hold but you can use Copy and use Speak.

iPhone dictionary
iPhone dictionary interface

Subtitles for translating video content – English not your first language?

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“When you watch videos that are not in your first language – if there are subtitles turn these into your chosen language to help explain the content.”

turning on captions

YouTube has closed captioning or subtitles on some videos and the video called “How to extract YouTube Subtitles (Interactive Transcript) in 2 minutes [HD]” illustrates some of the difficulties that occur with automatic captioning – A Frenchman speaking in English and when you view the subtitles by selecting the small list icon on the bottom right of the video player you will see that some of the words do not match what has been said but you can also translate the words into your chosen language.  The results will be variable!  In this video you will see how you can take the transcript and improve the results.

Google Scholar for research material

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google scholar citation

“I use Google Scholar to search for materials and useful information for my studies and find this can lead to reading other papers as a result of the links to similar articles. It also helps when you want to cite a paper as it gives you the layout for the citation.” Katherine

iTunes U free app – open courses useful for extra information

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course title

contents

slidesThe iTunes U app from the Apple Store has lots of open courses.  It is very useful for my studies – you can listen to the course at the same time as looking at the slides in iBooks.

Henry – Web and Internet Science

It works on an iPhone and iPad – you need to register on the Apple store. Many of the courses are American. ‘Internet Economics’ as a lecture is an example from one of the courses and you have a podcast plus slides from Stanford University – “Future of the Internet by Ramesh Johari”  You can speed up the voice up to 2x, pause the lecture and return to it later and rewind in short steps.