BrowseAloud
Listen to this website with BrowseAloud
Visitors
to the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety
(DHSSPS) website may listen to the content by using BrowseAloud.
BrowseAloud
is a free tool which is used to speech enable a website. It may make using the Internet easier for people
who have:
- Low literacy and reading skills,
- English as a second language,
- Dyslexia,
- Mild visual impairments.
To
read more about BrowseAloud please visit their website at www.BrowseAloud.com
or you can download the software and begin using BrowseAloud right away by following the guidance below.
Downloading BrowseAloud
Full details on how to download the BrowseAloud software
can be found on the BrowseAloud website support page
.
The
software needed to run BrowseAloud is available free of charge and can be downloaded from the following
link:
Start Using BrowseAloud
Set the Speech Options
You
can change the voice used by BrowseAloud to read text and you can control what you want read aloud.
You can do this using the Speech tab in the BrowseAloud Options dialog box, which
is shown below.

To
open the BrowseAloud Options:
- Double click the BrowseAloud
icon in the system tray
or right-click on the icon.
- Select Open BrowseAloud Options from the popup menu.
The BrowseAloud
Options dialog box is displayed.
By
moving through the appropriate tabs within the main settings box,
elements such as speech and pronunciation can be altered to suit individual needs.
If
you are not happy with the new settings, click on the Program tab and select the Reset
all defaults button to revert back to the original settings.
If you click on this button, all of the options you have selected in the BrowseAloud
Options dialog box will be replaced by the default settings.
Keyboard Access

As
well as the on-screen toolbar, all
BrowseAloud functionality is accessible via the Keyboard.
Use
the Alt+Tab keys to
select "BrowseAloud 6 Toolbar" you may then use the Tab key to move along
the buttons, and the Space Bar to activate the buttons.
There
are also access Hot Keys for each button. Hover the mouse over each button and the Hot Key and a brief
description will appear.
BrowseAloud also allows you to
use your keyboard to start and stop speech. Simply press the Ctrl key on your keyboard
to start speech and then press it again to stop speech.
If
required, you can change the key(s) you need to press to control speech. You can do this using the Customise
Speech tab in the BrowseAloud Options dialog box.
If you
have difficulty using a mouse, you can use MouseKeys which allow you to use the numeric keypad to control
the mouse pointer.
For more information on using MouseKeys,
please refer to the Microsoft Windows online help
site.
Reading Text Aloud
You can instruct BrowseAloud to read text aloud
on web pages. You can also instruct it to read aloud PDF and Microsoft Word documents that accompany
web pages.
There are two ways in which you can read text
aloud. You can read it aloud using:
- mouse hovering - you use mouse hovering to read aloud text on web pages and PDF documents, you may turn hovering on and off using the Hover toggle button on the Toolbar .
- text selections - you use text selections to read aloud selected text on web pages, and PDF and Microsoft Word documents. Select the text you wish to read and click “Play”.
When
you click on a link to a PDF document BrowseAloud will ask you if you would like BrowseAloud to read
it. Click “Yes” and the PDF document will open and you may use the BrowseAloud Toolbar as you
would
for a normal web page.
Please Note: The
latest version of BrowseAloud will only read PDF documents in Acrobat Reader 9.
If
you do not have Acrobat Reader 9 installed on your computer then you can download it from the following
link:
Stopping
BrowseAloud
It is not necessary to stop BrowseAloud. You
can continue to perform other tasks on your computer, while BrowseAloud runs in the background. However,
you may not want BrowseAloud to start immediately each time your computer starts.
If
this is the case, you can deselect the Always start BrowseAloud when my computer starts check box in
the Program tab of the BrowseAloud Options dialog box and then manually start BrowseAloud when you need
to use it.
You can also stop BrowseAloud at any time by right-clicking
on the icon in the system tray and selecting Exit BrowseAloud from the popup menu.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you have any questions relating to the
use of BrowseAloud then the BrowseAloud website has a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) which you may
find
useful.

