Re: lynx-dev Help me please to validate my html pages with a vocal syntetizer.

[Lloyd G. Rasmussen]

On Tue, 26 Jan 1999 11:51:30 +0100, 
Arclele  <address@hidden> wrote:

>I'd like  validate some Html pages of mine with a Screen reader program,
>but I haven't a vocal syntetizer. 
>
>These pages are written in Italian language (i'm sorry) but i'm interesting
>to their structure  and to their rhytm of reading (I don't know if the
>punctuation and the empty lines are read by the vocal syntetizer).
>

I don't know Italian, and don't have an Italian speech synthesizer or 
screen reader.  There are a number of blind internet users in Italy, 
including someone who was working on an Italian-language version of 
Lynx.  I use an American screen reader and speech synthesizer, in DOS 
and in Windows.

How much punctuation is read, and whether blank lines are announced, 
and whether indentation is announced, are controlled by the user of 
the screen reading program.  The rhythm is controlled by the 
text-to-speech synthesizer.  Some synthesizers pronounce one word at a 
time, and do not analyze the surrounding text to set the prosody or 
rhythm.  Other synthesizers do analyze the text, but their rules can 
be detrimental.  For example, should any "end of line" produce a 
pause, or not?  In a paragraph, it should not.  In a poem, perhaps it 
should.  How does a synthesizer know?  Eventually we will have style 
sheets, and markup language that can tell the machine how this piece 
of text should be pronounced, as well as displayed on the screen. 

The best you can do at the moment is make sure your text appears 
logically in Lynx and other browsers.  It is up to the blind user to 
interpret what is coming through their system.  

-- Lloyd Rasmussen
Senior Staff Engineer, Engineering Section
National Library Service for the  Blind and Physically Handicapped
Library of Congress          202-707-0535
(work)       address@hidden    http://www.loc.gov/nls/
(home) address@hidden http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/lras/