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This is emacspeak.info, produced by makeinfo version 6.8 from
emacspeak.texi.
INFO-DIR-SECTION Accessibility
START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* Emacspeak:(emacspeak). Speech-enabled Audio Desktop.
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
INFO-DIR-SECTION Emacs
START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* Emacspeak:(emacspeak). Speech-enabled Audio Desktop.
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
This manual documents *Emacspeak, The Complete Audio Desktop* and was
last updated on May 3, 2023.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Top, Next: Copyright, Up: (dir)
Emacspeak
*********
The manual is divided into the following chapters:
* Menu:
* Copying: Copyright.
* Announce: Announce.
* Background: Background.
* Introduction: Introduction.
* Installation: Installation.
* Basic Usage: Basic Usage.
* Audio Desktop: Audio Desktop.
* Voice Lock: Voice Lock.
* Using Online Help: Using Online Help.
* Emacs Packages: Emacs Packages.
* Emacspeak Keymaps: Emacspeak Keymaps.
* Emacspeak Commands And Options: Emacspeak Commands And Options.
* Running Terminal Based Applications: Running Terminal Based Applications.
* Emacspeak Keyboard Commands: Emacspeak Keyboard Commands.
* TTS Servers: TTS Servers.
* Emacspeak At Twenty: Emacspeak At Twenty.
* Acknowledgments: Acknowledgments.
Indices:
* Concept Index: Concept Index.
* Key Index: Key Index.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Copyright, Next: Announce, Prev: Top, Up: Top
1 Copyright
***********
This manual documents Emacspeak, a speech extension to Emacs.
Copyright (C)1994 – 2020 T. V. Raman All Rights Reserved.
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
manual without charge provided the copyright notice and this permission
notice are preserved on all copies. Sections of this manual are
auto-generated from the source code, and the documentation inherits the
same license as the original source code.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Announce, Next: Background, Prev: Copyright, Up: Top
2 Announcing Emacspeak Manual 2nd Edition As An Open Source Project
*******************************************************************
This is to announce the launch of a new open source project to create a
user manual for Emacspeak — an Emacs speech extension that provides a
complete audio desktop.
* Menu:
* Contributing: Contributing.
* Authoring Guidelines: Authoring Guidelines.
* Credits: Credits.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Contributing, Next: Authoring Guidelines, Up: Announce
2.1 How To Contribute To This Manual
====================================
This manual is organized as a series of chapters, with each chapter in a
separate file. If you feel capable of contributing to a specific
section, send out a message to the Emacspeak mailing list
<mailto:emacspeak@cs.vassar.edu>. You can then start adding content to
a local copy of the chapter to which you are contributing. When you
feel you have something to submit, mail out the file to the emacspeak
mailing list — I’ll integrate new content as it comes in.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Authoring Guidelines, Next: Credits, Prev: Contributing, Up: Announce
2.2 Authoring Guidelines
========================
For this manual to hang together and make sense to the new user at whom
it is targeted, contributors need to stick to a consistent style. If
you plan to contribute content, you should take some time to read the
existing sections — note that many of these are skeletal and the first
contributions will be to flesh these sections out.
If you are familiar with texinfo, go ahead and mark up your content
using texinfo. If you are not, simply author the documentation you
create as plain formatted ASCII. If you do submit files as texinfo
source, make sure to validate them at your end first by running the
files through ‘makeinfo’ — badly created or malformed texinfo source
takes more time to fix than marking up straight text.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Credits, Prev: Authoring Guidelines, Up: Announce
2.3 Credits
===========
This initial version draws heavily from the original Emacspeak user
manual, and includes contributions from Jim Van Zandt and Jason White.
Authors who contribute complete sections will be acknowledged here as
well as in the specific section they author.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Background, Next: Introduction, Prev: Announce, Up: Top
3 Background
************
Emacspeak was originally developed in late 1994 and released as Open
Source in May 1995. Since then, the system has been regularly updated
every six months to provide an up-to-date _Audio Desktop_. Here is a
brief overview of some of the significant aspects of the system, and the
lessons learnt from its development and use. The work on Emacspeak was
presented at CHI96 and the co-located Assets96 conference in Vancouver,
BC. This overview is being written nearly 15 years later to trace the
impact of the work.
* Menu:
* Speech-Enabling Applications::
* Audio Formatting And Aural CSS::
* Auditory Icons::
* Summary::
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Speech-Enabling Applications, Next: Audio Formatting And Aural CSS, Up: Background
3.1 Speech-Enabling Applications
================================
The underlying thesis behind AsTeR (Audio System For Technical Readings)
and later Emacspeak is that information is display-independent. This
leads to the insight that producing auditory renderings of information
starting from the true source of that information often produces better
renderings than those that result from working from a modality-specific
representation; thus, attempting to speak visually rendered information
can often prove sub-optimal. AsTeR applied these ideas to documents
authored in LaTeX; Emacspeak generalized these ideas to user interfaces.
Emacspeak was therefore designed from the ground-up to enable
applications generate their own spoken feedback, rather than having an
external software program construct the spoken feedback by responding to
events in its environment.
In Emacspeak, theory meets practice to deliver a working
implementation; Emacspeak leverages the power of Emacs and its embedded
Lisp interpreter to inject spoken feedback into applications that run
within Emacs. For a detailed overview on how the _advice_ mechanism in
Emacs is used, see the original Assets96 paper, as well as the chapter
on Emacspeak in the OReilly publication entitled Beautiful Code
(http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/raman/publications/bc-emacspeak/publish-emacspeak-bc.html).
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Audio Formatting And Aural CSS, Next: Auditory Icons, Prev: Speech-Enabling Applications, Up: Background
3.2 Audio Formatting And Aural CSS
==================================
AsTeR introduced the notion of _audio formatting_ a concept analogous to
the well-understood notion of visual formatting. The work on AsTeR
coincided with the Web being at its infancy. As the Web evolved to
acquire Cascaded Style Sheets (CSS), ideas from AsTeR were used to
define Aural CSS as an appendix to CSS1 in 1995. Emacspeak proved an
ideal platform to prototype the ideas within Aural CSS — first within
the Emacs/W3 browser. Around this time, Emacs itself evolved to support
multiple fonts and _font-locking_ to implement syntax coloring for
various types of content. Emacspeak applied the ideas of audio
formatting to create the auditory analog of _font-lock_ — Emacspeak
calls this _voice locking_.
Voice locking in Emacspeak continues to be a unique feature among
systems that provide auditory feedback. Later in 1997, Emacspeak’s
implementation was overhauled to use Aural CSS for all aspects of
voice-locking, rather than just for Web content.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Auditory Icons, Next: Summary, Prev: Audio Formatting And Aural CSS, Up: Background
3.3 Auditory Icons
==================
Emacspeak augments spoken feedback with short auditory icons that vastly
speed up interaction. Combined with audio formatting, the resulting
experience is analogous to moving from a monochrome character-cell
display to a high-quality color display — the overall user experience is
rich in comparison. This enabled Emacspeak to explore innovative means
of auditory communication — as an example, see my Assets-98 paper
entitled _Conversational Gestures For The Audio Desktop_ that details
how one can play Tetris on the Emacspeak desktop.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Summary, Prev: Auditory Icons, Up: Background
3.4 Summary
===========
The lessons learnt from developing Emacspeak are many — here are a few
highlights:
• A model for browsing tabular data — see relevant chapter in my book
_Auditory User Interfaces_
• Audio formatting and Aural CSS
• Auditory icons for efficient feedback.
• Web widgets for rapid task completion on the Web.
And many more than will fit this margin.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Introduction, Next: Installation, Prev: Background, Up: Top
4 Introduction
**************
Emacspeak provides a complete audio desktop by speech-enabling all of
Emacs.
In the past, screen reading programs have allowed visually impaired
users to get feedback using synthesized speech. Such programs have been
commercially available for a long time. Most of them originally ran on
PC’s under DOS, and have moved over to the Windows environment.
However, screen-readers for the UNIX environment have been conspicuous
in their absence. Note that this is now changing with the availability
of console-level Linux screenreaders such as ‘speakup’. Such Linux
screenreaders provide the same level of UNIX accessibility provided in
the late 80’s by PC terminal emulators running a DOS screenreader. This
means that most visually impaired computer users face the additional
handicap of being DOS-impaired — a far more serious problem:-)
Emacspeak is an emacs subsystem that provides complete speech access.
It is _not_ a screen-reader — rather, it is a complete user environment
with built-in speech feedback. Emacspeak has a significant advantage;
since it runs inside Emacs, a structure-sensitive, fully customizable
environment, Emacspeak has more context-specific information about what
it is speaking than its screenreader counterparts. This is why
Emacspeak is not a “screenreader”, it is a system that produces speech
output.
A Traditional screen-reader speaks the content of the screen, leaving
it to the user to interpret the visual layout. Emacspeak, on the other
hand, treats speech as a first-class output modality; it speaks the
information in a manner that is easy to comprehend when listening.
The basic concepts used by Emacspeak are simple; all interactive
Emacs commands have been adapted to provide speech feedback. Hence, you
use Emacs as normal; Emacspeak works behind the scene to give audio
feedback in addition to updating the screen.
Emacspeak consists of a core speech system that provides speech and
audio services to the rest of the Emacspeak desktop;
application-specific extensions provide context-specific spoken feedback
using these services. Emacspeak currently comes with speech extensions
for several popular Emacs subsystems and editing modes. I would like to
thank their respective authors for their wonderful work which makes
Emacs more than a text editor(1).
---------- Footnotes ----------
(1) I have now been using Emacspeak under Linux as the only source of
speech feedback since 1994.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Installation, Next: Basic Usage, Prev: Introduction, Up: Top
5 Installation Instructions
***************************
This chapter gives brief and detailed installation instructions for
configuring, installing and starting Emacspeak.
* Menu:
* Obtaining Emacspeak:: Obtaining Emacspeak.
* Quick Installation:: Default installation and startup.
* Building And Testing The Speech Server::
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Obtaining Emacspeak, Next: Quick Installation, Up: Installation
5.1 Obtaining Emacspeak
=======================
Emacspeak is available on the Internet at:
WWW
<http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net>
Git Repository
<https://github.com/tvraman/emacspeak>
Mail List
<emacspeak@cs.vassar.edu>
List Request
<emacspeak-request@cs.vassar.edu>
The Emacspeak mailing list is maintained by Greg E. Priest-Dorman.
If you are using Emacspeak, you should join the list by sending mail to
the request address, <mailto:emacspeak-request@cs.vassar.edu>.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Quick Installation, Next: Building And Testing The Speech Server, Prev: Obtaining Emacspeak, Up: Installation
5.2 Quick Installation
======================
Here are the quick installation instructions. See the next section for
detailed installation instructions.
Packages for Linux distributions such as Debian typically become
available on the WWW a few weeks or months after a new version is
released. The instructions below are for building and installing
Emacspeak from the source distribution. If you install one of the
prepackaged distributions, use the install instructions that come with
that package.
• Obtain the source code — either by downloading the tar.bz2 file for
the latest release — or by cloning the git repository.
git clone https://github.com/tvraman/emacspeak
• Change to the ‘emacspeak’ directory.
• Type ‘make config’ to configure the sources.
• Type ‘make’ to compile the files.
• Next, decide which text-to-speech engine you will be using, and
proceed to install that engine. Your choices are:
• Open Source ESpeak on Linux. Install the ESpeak packages for
your system, then compile the Emacspeak ESpeak server by
doing:
cd servers/native-espeak
make
• ViaVoice Outloud (AKA Eloquent). You need to purchase this
engine from the voxin site. That purchase will give you
install-ready packages for installing the speech engine as
well as Emacspeak. See <https://voxin.oralux.net/rss.xml> for
the latest packages, and <https://voxin.oralux.net> for the
main Voxin Web site.
• On the Mac, you can use the builtin Mac TTS engine — emacspeak
comes with a speech server for that TTS engine written in
Python.
• Having installed and configured the TTS engine of your choice, and
having built the associated speech server, set Emacspeak up to use
that engine by setting environment variable ‘DTK_PROGRAM’. If
using ‘bash’ as your shell, add the line
export DTK_PROGRAM=<ENGINE-NAME>
to your ‘.bash_profile’.
As an example, to use ESpeak, add
export DTK_PROGRAM=espeak
• Run it by adding the line
(load-file "<EMACSPEAK-DIR>/lisp/emacspeak-setup.el")
to the top of your .emacs file.
In the above, <EMACSPEAK-DIR> refers to the directory where you
unpacked the sources.
See the next section for details on building and testing the speech
server.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Building And Testing The Speech Server, Prev: Quick Installation, Up: Installation
5.3 Building And Testing The Speech Server
==========================================
5.3.1 Speech Servers
--------------------
Speech servers are located in the ‘emacspeak/servers’ directory.
• ESpeak: ‘servers/espeak’. This is a TCL script that uses a library
built in ‘servers/native-espeak/’.
• Dectalk: ‘servers/dtk-exp’. This is a TCL script that does not
depend on any native code.
• Outloud: ‘servers/outloud’ or ‘servers/32-outloud’ (for 64-bit
machines). This is a TCL script that uses the library built in
‘servers/linux-outloud’. Note that a checkout from GitHub gives
you a prebuilt library — however you will need to purchase the TTS
engine from <http://voxin.oralux.net>.
• Mac: ‘servers/mac’. This is a Python script that binds to the
native Mac TTS.
5.3.1.1 Testing The Selected Server.
....................................
Once you have picked the TTS engine to use, run the selected server
script at a shell prompt, e.g. for the ‘espeak’ engine, execute:
./servers/espeak
This will result in a TCL prompt. Here, you can test the TTS engine
by typing
q "this is a test."
d
You should hear the TTS engine speak the text.
Type ‘s’ to stop speech. You should see a TCL prompt when you
execute it.
Quit this TCL session by typing ‘C-d’ (an end-of-file character).
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Basic Usage, Next: Audio Desktop, Prev: Installation, Up: Top
6 Basic Usage.
**************
This chapter gives an overview of how to use Emacspeak; for a full
listing of Emacspeak keybindings, see *Note emacspeak::. Note: This
documentation should be used in conjunction with the online Emacs info
pages that extensively document Emacs itself. These sections briefly
describe the speech-enabling extensions. However, they should not be
considered a substitute for reading the Emacs manual. How successfully
you use Emacspeak will depend on how well you learn your Emacs.
All Emacs navigation and editing commands have been speech enabled.
Thus, moving to the next or previous word, line or paragraph results in
the text around point being spoken. Exactly how much text is spoken is
determined by the amount by which you moved.
In addition, Emacspeak provides basic reading functions that can be
invoked to listen to chunks of text without moving.
* Menu:
* Overview:: Basic Overview.
* Working:: Working in Emacspeak.
* Reading:: Reading chunks of information.
* Speech System:: Controlling Speech Output.
* Voice-lock:: Audio Formatting.
* Status Information:: Speaking Status Information.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Overview, Next: Working, Up: Basic Usage
6.1 Emacspeak Overview
======================
Emacspeak provides a small number of core services around which the
remainder of the audio interface is constructed. These essential
features of the software are briefly outlined in the following
paragraphs; the commands by which they can be controlled will be
described later in the manual.
Apart from providing a fluent spoken interface to all of Emacs’ basic
editing functions, Emacspeak also includes software modules which add
speech feedback to a range of applications that can be run from within
Emacs. In this sense, Emacspeak amounts to much more than a talking
text editor; indeed, it can more aptly be characterized as a true “audio
desktop”, in which speech is treated as a first-class output modality.
Emacspeak implements a special minor mode, known as “voice lock mode”
(*note Voice-lock::) which uses distinct speech characteristics to
provide aural highlighting of specific textual constructs, such as
comments in program code, quoted strings and reserved words *Note Voice
Lock::. This facility is further extended when Emacspeak is used with
the ‘EWW’ and ‘W3’ Web browsers, to enable the semantic and structural
distinctions captured by the HTML markup to be communicated efficiently
*Note Web Browsing::.
It is often desirable to exercise control over the pronunciation of a
word (E.G. a technical term or a reserved word in a programming
language) within specific contexts. Emacspeak maintains pronunciation
dictionaries for this purpose, which may be customized by the user.
Moreover, individual dictionaries can be activated selectively,
depending for example on the current major mode or the name of the file
which is being visited *Note emacspeak-pronounce::.
In addition to spoken feedback, Emacspeak can generate “auditory
icons” — short sound cues which alert the user to significant events,
for example the opening or deletion of a file, the completion of an
action, the arrival of an electronic mail message or the creation of a
completion buffer. Sound cues act as a supplement to the spoken
interface, and are especially valuable to the experienced user in
facilitating rapid interaction. Note that in order to support auditory
icons, the computer must be equipped with sound hardware for which the
operating system has been correctly configured *Note emacspeak-sounds::.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Working, Next: Reading, Prev: Overview, Up: Basic Usage
6.2 Using Emacs Buffers
=======================
While typing in an Emacs buffer, hitting space speaks the recently typed
word. I use completion all the time; so Emacspeak will speak the
completion just inserted as well as the next possible completion. In
Emacs, use ‘M-x load-library <RETURN> completion <RETURN>’ for loading
the completion package.
The standard Emacs prompting functions have also been speech-enabled.
Emacs prompts with available lists of completions in response to partial
input wherever appropriate — all forms of completion provide speech
feedback.
In addition, Emacspeak provides a number of commands for reading
portions of the current buffer, getting status information, and
modifying Emacspeak’s state.
All of the commands are documented in the subsequent sections. They
can be classified into types:
• Emacspeak commands for listening to chunks of information. The
names of these commands all start with the common prefix
‘emacspeak-speak-’. All Emacspeak commands are bound to the keymap
EMACSPEAK-KEYMAP and are accessed with the key ‘C-e’(1). Thus, the
Emacspeak command “emacspeak-speak-line” is bound to ‘l’ in keymap
EMACSPEAK-KEYMAP and can be accessed with the keystroke ‘C-e l’.
If for some reason you wish to use some key other than ‘C-e’ as the
common keyboard prefix for all Emacspeak commands, set the variable
EMACSPEAK-PREFIX.
• The second category of commands provided by Emacspeak manipulate
the state of the speech device. The names of these commands start
with the common prefix ‘dtk-’ and are bound in keymap
EMACSPEAK-DTK-SUBMAP.
You can access these commands via the prefix ‘C-e d’ (2). Thus,
the command “dtk-set-rate” is bound to ‘r’ in keymap
EMACSPEAK-DTK-SUBMAP and can be executed by pressing ‘C-e d r’.
Emacs has extensive online help; so does emacspeak. Please use it.
This info manual is only to get you started. You can get a summary
of Emacspeak’s features by pressing ‘C-h C-e’
---------- Footnotes ----------
(1) C-e is mnemonic for Emacspeak.
(2) Historically, d was mnemonic for Dectalk; note that nothing in
Emacspeak is DECTalk specific.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Reading, Next: Speech System, Prev: Working, Up: Basic Usage
6.3 Reading Without Moving
==========================
Emacspeak speaks information as you move around within a buffer. How
much text is spoken depends on how you move, thus, when you move by
words, you hear the current word; when you move by paragraphs, you hear
the current paragraph spoken. In addition, the following commands allow
you to listen to information without moving point (point is emacs
terminology for the editing cursor).
Reading without moving point:
‘C-e c’
‘emacspeak-speak-char’
Speak character under point. Pronounces character phonetically
unless called with a PREFIX arg.
‘C-e w’
‘emacspeak-speak-word’
Speak current word. With prefix ARG, speaks the rest of the word
from point. Negative prefix arg speaks from start of word to
point. If executed on the same buffer position a second time, the
word is spelled instead of being spoken.
‘C-e l’
‘emacspeak-speak-line’
Speaks current line. With prefix ARG, speaks the rest of the line
from point. Negative prefix optional arg speaks from start of line
to point. Voicifies if option ‘voice-lock-mode’ is on. Indicates
indentation with a tone or a spoken cue if audio indentation is in
use. Indicates position of point with an aural highlight if option
‘emacspeak-show-point’ is turned on — see command
‘emacspeak-show-point’ bound to ‘C-e C-d’. Lines that start hidden
blocks of text, e.g. outline header lines, or header lines of
blocks created by command ‘emacspeak-hide-or-expose-block’ are
indicated with auditory icon ellipses.
‘C-e <UP>’
‘emacspeak-read-previous-line’
Read previous line, specified by an offset, without moving.
Default is to read the previous line.
‘C-e <DOWN>’
‘emacspeak-read-next-line’
Read next line, specified by an offset, without moving. Default is
to read the next line.
‘C-e p’
‘emacspeak-speak-paragraph’
Speak paragraph. With prefix arg, speaks rest of current
paragraph. Negative prefix arg will read from start of current
paragraph to point. If voice-lock-mode is on, then it will use any
defined personality.
‘C-e r’
‘emacspeak-speak-region’
Speak current region delimited by “point” and “mark”. When called
from a program, argument START and END specify region to speak.
‘C-e cap R’
‘emacspeak-speak-rectangle’
Speak a rectangle of text. Rectangle is delimited by point and
mark. When call from a program, arguments specify the START and
END of the rectangle.
‘C-e b’
‘emacspeak-speak-buffer’
Speak current buffer contents. With prefix ARG, speaks the rest of
the buffer from point. Negative prefix arg speaks from start of
buffer to point. If voice lock mode is on, the paragraphs in the
buffer are voice annotated first, see command
‘emacspeak-speak-voice-annotate-paragraphs’. This provides the
auditory equivalent of _dropped caps_ from visual typography.
‘C-e n’
‘emacspeak-speak-rest-of-buffer’
Speak remainder of the buffer starting at point
‘C-e /’
‘emacspeak-speak-this-buffer-other-window-display’
Speak this buffer as displayed in a different frame. Emacs allows
you to display the same buffer in multiple windows or frames.
These different windows can display different portions of the
buffer. This is equivalent to leaving a book open at places at
once. This command allows you to listen to the places where you
have left the book open. The number used to invoke this command
specifies which of the displays you wish to speak. Typically you
will have two or at most three such displays open. The current
display is 0, the next is 1, and so on. Optional argument ARG
specifies the display to speak.
‘C-e <LEFT>’
‘emacspeak-speak-this-buffer-previous-display’
Speak this buffer as displayed in a ‘previous’ window. See
documentation for command
‘emacspeak-speak-this-buffer-other-window-display’ for the meaning
of ‘previous’.
‘C-e <RIGHT>’
‘emacspeak-speak-this-buffer-next-display’
Speak this buffer as displayed in a ‘previous’ window. See
documentation for command
‘emacspeak-speak-this-buffer-other-window-display’ for the meaning
of ‘previous’.
‘C-e [’
‘emacspeak-speak-page’
Speak a page. With prefix ARG, speaks rest of current page.
Negative prefix arg will read from start of current page to point.
If option ‘voice-lock-mode’ is on, then it will use any defined
personality.
‘C-e DIGIT’
‘emacspeak-speak-predefined-window’
Speak one of the first 10 windows on the screen. In general,
you’ll never have Emacs split the screen into more than two or
three. Argument ARG determines the ’other’ window to speak.
Speaks entire window irrespective of point. Semantics of ‘other’
is the same as for the builtin Emacs command ‘other-window’.
‘C-e C-n’
‘emacspeak-speak-next-window’
Speak the next window.
‘C-e C-p’
‘emacspeak-speak-previous-window’
Speak the previous window.
‘emacspeak-speak-other-window’
Speak contents of ‘other’ window. Speaks entire window
irrespective of point. Semantics of ‘other’ is the same as for the
builtin Emacs command ‘other-window’. Optional argument ARG
specifies ‘other’ window to speak.
‘<ESCAPE> <UP>’
‘emacspeak-owindow-previous-line’
Move to the next line in the other window and speak it. Numeric
prefix arg COUNT specifies number of lines to move.
‘<ESCAPE> <DOWN>’
‘emacspeak-owindow-next-line’
Move to the next line in the other window and speak it. Numeric
prefix arg COUNT can specify number of lines to move.
‘<ESCAPE> next’
‘emacspeak-owindow-scroll-up’
Scroll up the window that command ‘other-window’ would move to.
Speak the window contents after scrolling.
‘<ESCAPE> prior’
‘emacspeak-owindow-scroll-down’
Scroll down the window that command ‘other-window’ would move to.
Speak the window contents after scrolling.
‘emacspeak-speak-sexp’
Speak current sexp. With prefix ARG, speaks the rest of the sexp
from point. Negative prefix arg speaks from start of sexp to
point.
‘C-e meta C-@’
‘emacspeak-speak-spaces-at-point’ Speak the white space at point.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Speech System, Next: Voice-lock, Prev: Reading, Up: Basic Usage
6.4 Speech System Commands
==========================
This section documents Emacspeak’s various user commands for controlling
the text to speech (TTS) system.
* Menu:
* Controlling Echo:: Character, Word and Line Echo.
* Speech Output Control:: Indicating case, capitalization and indentation.
* Miscellaneous:: Miscellaneous TTS Commands.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Controlling Echo, Next: Speech Output Control, Up: Speech System
6.4.1 Character, Word And Line Echo.
------------------------------------
By default, Emacspeak speaks characters as they are typed — this is
called character echo; Words are spoken as they are completed — this is
called word echo. Emacspeak can also optionally speak each line as it
is typed — this is called line echo.
Character, word and line echo can be toggled — either in the current
buffer — or for all buffers (globally). To toggle the specific echo
functionality for all buffers, precede the specific command with ‘C-u’.
Note that in the documentation below, this use of ‘C-u’ is indicated
using the common Emacs terminology of _prefix arg_ or _interactive
prefix arg_.
‘C-e d k’
‘emacspeak-toggle-character-echo’
Toggle state of Emacspeak character echo. Interactive PREFIX arg
means toggle the global default value, and then set the current
local value to the result.
‘C-e d w’
‘emacspeak-toggle-word-echo’
Toggle state of Emacspeak word echo. Interactive PREFIX arg means
toggle the global default value, and then set the current local
value to the result.
‘C-e d l’
‘emacspeak-toggle-line-echo’
Toggle state of Emacspeak line echo. Interactive PREFIX arg means
toggle the global default value, and then set the current local
value to the result.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Speech Output Control, Next: Miscellaneous, Prev: Controlling Echo, Up: Speech System
6.4.2 Setting TTS Characteristics.
----------------------------------
Emacspeak user commands can set different characteristics of the speech
output such as speech rate and punctuations mode.
Emacspeak provides a number of settings that affect how attributes of
the text such as capitalization are conveyed. These include settings
that produce a short tone for each upper case letter, as well as a smart
mode for speaking mixed case words which is especially useful when
programming. These settings can be made locally in a given buffer or be
applied to all buffers by preceding these commands with ‘C-u’.
‘C-e d r’
‘dtk-set-rate’
Set speaking RATE for the TTS. Interactive PREFIX arg means set
the global default value, and then set the current local value to
the result.
‘C-e d f’
‘dtk-set-character-scale’
Set scale FACTOR for speech rate. Speech rate is scaled by this
factor when speaking characters. Interactive PREFIX arg means set
the global default value, and then set the current local value to
the result.
This function is advised.
Before-advice ‘emacspeak-auto’: Automatically defined advice to
speak interactive prompts.
‘C-e d DIGIT’
‘dtk-set-predefined-speech-rate’
Set speech rate to one of nine predefined levels using digit keys
‘0’ through ‘9’. Interactive PREFIX arg says to set the rate
globally.
‘C-e d p’
‘dtk-set-punctuations’
Set punctuation mode to MODE. Possible values are ‘some’, ‘all’, or
‘none’. Interactive PREFIX arg means set the global default value,
and then set the current local value to the result.
‘C-e d m’
‘dtk-set-pronunciation-mode’
Set pronunciation MODE. This command is valid only for newer
Dectalks, e.g. the Dectalk Express. Possible values are ‘math,
name, europe, spell’, all of which can be turned on or off.
Argument STATE specifies new state.
‘C-e d s’
‘dtk-toggle-split-caps’
Toggle split caps mode. Split caps mode is useful when reading
Hungarian notation in program source code. Interactive PREFIX arg
means toggle the global default value, and then set the current
local value to the result. ‘dtk-toggle-caps’
‘C-e d c’
Toggle capitalization. when set, capitalization is indicated by a
_cap_ before the word, and upper-case words are indicated with a
_acc_ before the word. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the
global default value, and then set the current local value to the
result.
In addition, Emacspeak can convey the indentation of lines as they
are spoken — This is relevant when programming and is the default when
working with program source.
‘C-e d i’
‘emacspeak-toggle-audio-indentation’
Toggle state of Emacspeak audio indentation. Interactive PREFIX
arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current
local value to the result.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Miscellaneous, Prev: Speech Output Control, Up: Speech System
6.4.3 Miscellaneous Speech Commands
-----------------------------------
Speech can be stopped using command ‘dtk-stop’ — though in normal use,
the action of moving the cursor will stop ongoing speech. The speech
server can be stopped and restarted for cases where the user wants to
switch to a different server — or in the rare case to nuke a runaway
speech server.
‘C-e s’
dtk-stop
Stop speech now.
‘C-e d q’
‘dtk-toggle-quiet’
Toggle state of the speech device between being quiet and
talkative. Useful if you want to continue using an Emacs session
that has emacspeak loaded but wish to make the speech shut up.
Optional argument PREFIX specifies whether speech is turned off in
the current buffer or in all buffers.
‘C-e C-s’
‘dtk-emergency-restart’
Use this to nuke the currently running dtk server and restart it.
Useful if you want to switch to another synthesizer while emacspeak
is running. Also useful for emergency stopping of speech.
Finally, here are the remaining commands available via the TTS
related keymap ‘C-e d’.
‘C-e d a’
‘dtk-add-cleanup-pattern’
Add this pattern to the list of repeating patterns that are cleaned
up. Optional interactive prefix arg deletes this pattern if
previously added. Cleaning up repeated patterns results in
emacspeak speaking the pattern followed by a repeat count instead
of speaking all the characters making up the pattern. Thus, by
adding the repeating pattern ‘.’ (this is already added by default)
emacspeak will say “aw fifteen dot” when speaking the string
“...............” instead of “period period period period”.
‘C-e d d’
‘dtk-select-server’
Select a speech server interactively. This will be the server that
is used when you next call either M-x dtk-initialize or C-e C-s.
Argument PROGRAM specifies the speech server program.
‘C-e d <SPACE>’
‘dtk-toggle-splitting-on-white-space’
Toggle splitting of speech on white space. This affects the
internal state of emacspeak that decides if we split text purely by
clause boundaries, or also include whitespace. By default,
emacspeak sends a clause at a time to the speech device. This
produces fluent speech for normal use. However in modes such as
‘shell-mode’ and some programming language modes, clause markers
appear infrequently, and this can result in large amounts of text
being sent to the speech device at once, making the system
unresponsive when asked to stop talking. Splitting on white space
makes emacspeak’s stop command responsive. However, when splitting
on white space, the speech sounds choppy since the synthesizer is
getting a word at a time.
‘C-e d <RETURN>’
‘dtk-set-chunk-separator-syntax’
Interactively set how text is split in chunks. See the Emacs
documentation on syntax tables for details on how characters are
classified into various syntactic classes. Argument S specifies
the syntax class.
‘C-e d t’
‘emacspeak-dial-dtk’
Prompt for and dial a phone NUMBER with the Dectalk.
‘C-e d cap V’
‘tts-speak-version’
Use this to find out which version of the TTS firmware you are
running.
‘C-e d z’
‘emacspeak-zap-dtk’
Send this command to the TTS engine directly.
File: emacspeak.info, Node: Voice-lock, Next: Status Information, Prev: Speech System, Up: Basic Usage
6.5 Voice Lock Mode
===================
The status of voice lock mode can be toggled on and off in the current
buffer by issuing the command ‘C-e d v’ (M-x voice-lock-toggle).