About the English Text-to-Speech Software (Draft 1)
(information now in Mac OS help has been removed)
With the English text-to-speech software installed, many Macintosh programs can read English text out loud. One of the programs that can read to you is the SimpleText program, which comes with this computer and is already installed on your hard disk. (You are probably reading this document using the SimpleText program.)
Technical details
The software that enables your computer to speak has these components:
— Speech Manager, a system extension
— one or more of these English speech synthesizers, depending on your hardware and software:
- MacinTalk 2 for standard-quality speech
- MacinTalk 3 for high-quality speech
- MacinTalk Pro for highest-quality speech
— several voice files, each identified with one particular synthesizer
— the Speech control panel
The Installer installs the files that are appropriate for your system.
— If you have version 6.0.7 or 6.0.8 of system software on any Macintosh, these files are installed:
- Speech Manager, in the System Folder
- MacinTalk 2, in the System Folder
- 9 voices, in the Voices folder, which is in the System Folder
— If you have version 7.0 or later of system software on a Power Macintosh or on a Macintosh with a 68040 processor, the following files are installed:
- Speech Manager, in the Extensions folder
- the Speech control panel, in the Control Panels folder
- MacinTalk 3 and MacinTalk Pro, in the Extensions folder
- 19 MacinTalk 3 voices, in the Voices folder, which is in the Extensions folder
- 3 MacinTalk Pro voices (Agnes, Bruce, and Victoria), also in the Voices folder
—If you have version 7.0 or later of system software on a Macintosh with a 33 MHz or faster 68030 processor, the following files are installed:
- Speech Manager, in the Extensions folder
- the Speech control panel, in the Control Panels folder
- MacinTalk 3, in the Extensions folder
- 19 voices, in the Voices folder, which is in the Extensions folder
—If you have version 7.0 or later of system software on any other computer, the following files are installed:
- Speech Manager, in the Extensions folder
- the Speech control panel, in the Control Panels folder
(Note: On Macintosh SE computers, the Speech control panel requires
version 7.1 or later of the system software)
- MacinTalk 2, in the Extensions folder
- 9 voices, in the Voices folder, which is in the Extensions folder
Troubleshooting (problems and solutions).
— My Macintosh won’t speak.
- Turn up the speaker volume in the Sound control panel.
- Choose a voice that requires less random-access memory. The voices Agnes, Bruce, and Victoria take the most memory.
— The Installer program says there’s a problem with the hard disk.
- Re-install your system software, then try installing the English text-to-speech software again.
— The Installer program displays other error messages.
- Make sure you restart the computer with extensions off, as described in “Installing the Software,” above.
— I had an older version of text-to-speech software, then did a custom installation of the new software, but some of my older voices disappeared.
- The custom installation you chose erased the older version of the software that can use those voices. You can install newer versions of the voices by doing another custom installation of the new software to install MacinTalk 2 or MacinTalk 3 — whichever you used to have. (If you’re not sure which you had, you can install both.)
