[gui-talk] Fwd: Jaws FAQ: Did you know that you can change the way Jaws pronounces words?

[Steve Pattison]

 From:    Daniel Keogh DKeogh at quantumtechnology.com.au
 To:      vip-l at softspeak.com.au
 
You've probably all come across a time when the speech synthesizer you
use with Jaws pronounces a word wrong. Usually it's a person's name or
place name. If you find that kind of thing annoying like I do then there
is a way you can correct it with some trial and error.
 
Important Note: This FAQ applies to Jaws 10 or later. The dictionary
manager in earlier versions of Jaws was not as powerful but should be
easy enough to work out from the instructions here.
 
Jaws has a built in function called the Dictionary Manager. Basically
this is a pronunciation dictionary that stores the original word, how
Jaws should pronounce it, the synthesizer the pronunciation applies to.
The language the pronunciation applies to and the voice it applies to.
 
The easiest way to explain how this works is to work through an example.

 
If you're an Eloquence user you may know that it usually mucks up the
word Melbourne with the typical American pronunciation. This is easy
enough to change.
 
To access the Dictionary Manager you can use Jaws Key D. The Jaws Key is
the insert key on the number pad if you're using the default keyboard
layout or the caps lock if you're using the laptop layout. 
 
Like most of the Jaws managers if you're in an application where you
don't have any configurations set up it may ask you to create one. Just
go ahead and press the enter key if it does. We don't want to use and
application specific dictionary anyway. What we do want is the default
one. You can get to this by pressing control shift D once the dictionary
manager is loaded.
 
The way Jaws organizes the information in a dictionary is by language.
If you haven't changed anything you'll be on the part of the tree view
set aside for English. Below all the languages are all the words that
aren't language specific. We want to create a new entry. You can either
do this by pressing Alt A or by tabbing to the Add button and pressing
the space bar.  You are now in a dialog with a series of controls you
can tab to.
 
The first field you land on is the "actual word". This is where you type
Melbourne. Don't worry about capitalization at this point. We won't need
it for this example.
 
The next edit field is the replacement word. This is where you type in
how Eloquence should pronounce Melbourne. Depending on the word this may
take some trial and error. Sometimes you may even have to split a word
into several parts to get it right. Play around until it's what you
want. The easiest way to change Melbourne is to drop the O. Type
Melburn.
 
The next 2 fields allow you to substitute a sound file for a word. To do
this press space on the Select Sound button. Jaws comes with a series of
default sounds but you can import your own by pressing the Import
button. Press Ok when you've got the sound you want.
 
The next field is a combo box which will allow you to select the
language you want the change to apply to. The choices in here will
depend on the synthesizer you have selected. For our purposes we want
the change to apply to all languages which is the default.
 
the "speak replacement word using language" combo box is next. This
one's useful if you have a word you want pronounced in a particular
accent. Again names are a good example of where you'd change this. We
can leave this one alone for the moment.
 
The case sensitive check box should be fairly self explanatory. Use it
if you only want the word changed if the case matches your original word
exactly. For this example if you do stick to the proper case to spell
Melbourne you'll know if it's spelled correctly by how Jaws pronounces
it.
 
Now you can tab to the OK button and press the space bar. To save your
changes press control S. Now exit the Dictionary Manager using Alt F4. 
 
That's all you need to do. 
 
Regards,
 
Danny Keogh
Quantum Technology
Blindness Software/Hardware Sales and Support
 
Phone:  03 9545 4102
Mobile:  0439 022 146
 
Email  dkeogh at quantumtechnology.com.au
 
www.quantumtechnology.com.au

Regards Steve
Email:  srp at internode.on.net
MSN Messenger:  internetuser383 at hotmail.com
Skype:  steve1963