WordAloud software "free" to English schools

WordAloud^® - teaching English and literacy worldwide

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How to Operate WordAloud

Reading within a file

The four cursor keys are used for reading through a document, pausing, and stepping. We call these keys Up, Down, Left and Right. You can press the cursor (or arrow) keys on your keyboard or click on the corresponding four buttons which appear in the lower middle part of the window.

The words that you are reading appear, a word or sentence at a time, in the large central field, called the "main field", above the arrow buttons.

You can change whether the words appear a word at a time or a sentence at a time, by ticking or unticking the "whole sentence display" flag in the Options dialogue box, or by typing '#' (hash).

The "whole sentence" feature is available for people who are using WordAloud to teach or learn reading skills, and need to be able to see the whole sentence after reading it word by word. The size of the characters in the multiline display can be independently adjusted in the Options dialogue box.

Levels

You can set WordAloud to read through the document. At any moment you can pause, and then you can step backwards and forwards using Left and Right in units of a sentence, a word, or a character. The step size is determined by your "level". There are four levels. At the top is the document level; then you have the sentence and word levels, with spelling level at the bottom.

If you go Up to the document level, it will play on through the rest of the document to the end. If you go Down from this level, you are paused at the Sentence level. You can then step back to the beginning of the sentence with a Left, or to previous sentences with further Lefts. Or you can step to the next sentence with a Right.

If you go Down from the Sentence level you get to the Word level. Then you can step back and forwards a word at a time using Left and Right. Up from the Word level takes you to the sentence level, and it will read on to the end of the sentence. To read on from that point, you need another Up to the Document level.

If you go Down from the Word level you get to the Spelling level which is the lowest level. You can then step Right to spell out the word, a character at a time. Alternatively you can hear an alphabetic spelling using F6 or typing a semicolon, and an "alpha-bravo" spelling using F7 or typing a colon.

Audio feedback

As you go down a level, using the cursor Down key, you will hear WordAloud say "pause" followed by the level you have reached. As you go up a level, WordAloud continues reading through the sentence or the document. However if it has got to the end of the sentence at the sentence level, you need to do an Up or Right for it to continue. Eventually you will reach the end of the document, which is announced to you.

You can switch off some of the spoken messages, such as "pause word", by going into "speech (no pause)" mode. You can change mode using the Options dialogue box.

Paragraphs

If your text is marked up in HTML, then paragraph tags mark the paragraph boundaries. Otherwise WordAloud treats blank lines as paragraph boundaries. (Note that a paragraph boundary is also a sentence boundary.)

The PgUp and PgDn keys will take you up and down a paragraph, and read the first sentence. The Home key will take you to the start of the document, and the End key to the end.

Title and Headings

If the text is marked up in HTML with a title, this title is displayed in the title field. You can read out the title by clicking on the field, or typing 'l'.

If the text is marked up in HTML with headings, you will see the current heading, i.e. the heading of the section you are reading, displayed in the heading field. You can read out the heading by clicking on the field, or typing control-h.

You can skip to the next section or go back to the previous section. An 'h' by itself takes you forward (down) to the next heading. Capital 'H' takes you back (up) to the heading of the previous section.

Pictures

If there are links to pictures embedded in the HTML, they can be displayed beside the text, either on the left or underneath. You can swap between text only and text with pictures by typing a vertical bar, '|', for pictures on the left, or an underscore, '_', for pictures underneath. If there are no pictures in the document, or no pictures up to that point in the document, the space will be blank. Each picture may have "alternative text" to describe the picture. This text is displayed in square brackets. To jump forward to the next picture and its associated text, you Type 'j', and to jump back to the previous picture and associated text, you Type a capital 'J'.

Progress indicators

The progress indicators are to the right of the title and heading fields. There is a figure which tells you where you are in the document as a percentage of the way through the document. Above it there is a bar that spreads across from left to right, giving a purely visual indication of where you are.

You can hear your progress by typing 'w' or by clicking on the field containing the percentage figure.

Control of speech and display using the dialogue box

You can change the way the text is presented to you by clicking on the OPTIONS button, or by typing '1' which brings up a dialogue box. There, on the top left of the box, you will see that you can change the mode. There are four modes: speech, text, stepped and collect mode. These are discussed in a section below. The other fields concern the visual parameters such as colour, and the speech parameters such as volume.

You can see the range of values by clicking on the down arrow to the right of the parameter field. Having selected a new value, you only commit to, or apply, the new value when you click on the OK button.

You can also change values using the keyboard. The tab key will move the focus from one field to the next, and from one button to the next. When the focus is on a field, the value can be changed by using the up and down cursor keys. A button can be pressed using the space bar. You can commit from the keyboard using Enter, which is equivalent to clicking on the OK button. Or you can cancel using the Escape key, equivalent to clicking on the Cancel button.

Control of speech using keyboard short-cuts

Most letter keys are used as keyboard short-cuts for controlling the display or speech, without the need for a mouse. You may wish to change some value such as the volume for the speech output. To lower the value you Type a letter, for example v to lower the volume. To raise a value you Type the corresponding capital letter, thus capital V to increase the volume. If you want to hear what the value is without changing it, you Type the corresponding control character. Thus you Type control-v to hear what the current volume setting is.

The speed of the speech can be decreased using s, or increased using capital S. Control-s will speak the value. There is a range of voice speeds from 100 to 200 words per minute, approximately.

User and system voices

There are two voices you hear when you navigate text. The normal voice is called "user", and the other voice ("system voice") is heard when you change settings or go to a new page.

You can change the voices. Typing "u" reads the next entry in a list of voices for the person called "user", and capital "U" reads you the previous entry. Similarly typing "o" reads the next entry for the other (i.e. system) voice, and capital "O" reads the previous entry. Typing control-u or control-o gives you the name of the current user or system voice.

Typing 'y' (to the left of 'u' on the keyboard) lowers the user voice pitch and capital 'Y' raises it. Similarly typing 'i' (to the left of 'o' on the keyboard) lowers the system voice pitch and capital 'I' raises it.

You will notice that these voice control keys form a row of four keys on the querty keyboard.

Just below is 'k' which is used to adjust the gap between words. A capital 'K' will increase the gap. Control-k gives you the current size of the gap.

Control of the display using the keyboard

There are single letter controls for the visual display as for the speech. The letter 'm' controls the size (magnification) of the font. The letter 'f' allows you to choose between three font styles. The letter 't' takes you through a list of colours for the text, and 'p' for paper or background colour. Type 'c' to swap these colours round.

Modes

There are five modes: text, speech, speech (no pause), stepped and collect mode. In text mode the text is displayed without speech, except that when you click on a word it is spoken. In speech mode, everything is spoken. In "speech (no pause)" mode, some of the system speech is suppressed, e.g. "pause word". In stepped mode, the words are spoken when you step at the word level, but not spoken when playing sentences or the document as a whole. Collect mode is like text mode, but when you click on a word it is not only spoken but put in a word list.

You can read the text while it is being silently displayed, in text, collect or stepped mode. When you come to a word you cannot read, you can pause on the word and hear it spoken. To hear it spoken, you click on the word. When in collect mode, each word that you get spoken by the synthesiser is put in a wordlist. Thus words that you find difficult to read are collected into a list, which you can read at the end of a session.

Reading speed

If you want to read slowly, you can step through the document at the word level, using the Right cursor key and reading a word at a time. But for faster reading you can set WordAloud to read through the document without pausing. For this you need to have the text or speech speed set at a suitable rate, see below. Note that you can reduce the speech speed by setting a gap between the words, see Options dialogue box.

Control of speech and text speeds

There are two independent speed settings. You can change the speed that words are spoken using the voice speed setting, and when in speech mode the text and speech are synchronised. But in text and stepped mode the speed of text display is governed by the text speed setting.

If you click on OPTIONS, then click on the down arrow beside text speed and then scroll the list of numbers up and down, you will see there is a range of speeds from 10 to 1000 words per minute, covering users with a wide range of reading abilities!

You can control the speech speed from the keyboard using 's' to decrease the speed, or capital 'S' to increase it. You can control the text speed from the keyboard using 'q' to decrease the speed, or capital 'Q' to increase it -- the 'q' is for 'quickness'.

Reading files

The program can read any file stored in the computer, providing the text is either in ASCII form (with a .txt extension to the file name) or marked up in HTML (with a .htm or .html extension to the file name). The text can be from an existing document, or it can be Typed in, scanned in, or downloaded from the Internet: web or email. In the case of Microsoft Word or PDF documents, the text needs to be saved as either in txt or html format before being opened in WordAloud.

To read these files, or any other text files in your computer, you click on the FILE button, or Type '2', which brings up a dialogue box from which you can select the file to be opened.

Alternatively, to read text from any Windows application or from the web, you highlight the text to be read, copy it to the clipboard (e.g. using control-c), return to WordAloud and either click on the "Clip" button or Type 'x' (for "extract"). By the way, instructions on how to convert a Word or PDF file into plain text can be found on the Cloudworld site.

Writing into files using a Windows editor

You can write into a file using a text editor, such as Notepad or Wordpad, or a word processor, such as Microsoft Word, and then read the file in WordAloud using one of the methods above. If you then want to change the text in a file you are reading with WordAloud, you can edit the text in Windows, and save the new version to disc. Then typing 'z' or clicking on the refresh button ('Ref') will refresh the file in WordAloud, so you can read the new version.

Note that you can change the way words or abbreviations are spoken by changing entries in the dictionary or abbreviations file respectively. These files are normally found in \cloudw directory. Using the method above of saving and refreshing, you can alternately modify the files in Wordpad and read the files in WordAloud to check the pronunciation, until you have got it right.

Writing using the WordAloud editor

You can write text for immediate display in the main field, with or without speech. The text is displayed as it would for reading in word display mode.

First you need to be in extended mode. Type '&' (ampersand) to get into, or out of, this mode. You will see that there are additional fields and control buttons at the bottom of the window.

Then you need to go into editing mode, either by typing 'control-e' or by clicking on the edit button at the bottom of the window. A cursor will then appear in the main field, and you can Type in text.

There are four speech options: speak characters, speak words, speak both, or remain silent. You can cycle between these options by using 'control-e'. Note that WordAloud will only speak a word when it is completed by a space, punctuation mark, or other non-alphanumeric character.

As with a conventional editor, you can highlight text, you can delete text, you can paste text into the field using control-v, and you can copy or move text from the field using control-c or control-x. However be careful not to press Enter for a new line, unless you want the text to be treated as a URL, see below.

To leave editing mode, Type 'Esc' or click on the 'Escape' button. However if you have written a URL to go to, Type 'Enter' or click on the 'Enter' button. You will then leave editing mode, and be positioned at the start of the document to which the URL refers, assuming the URL is valid.

Navigating between documents or pages

If you Type '2' or click on the "File" button with the mouse, you will see a set of files you can open and read. There is the first chapter of Alice in Wonderland (Alice.htm), the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears (G-locks.htm), and the initial introduction (intro.htm) where you started.

WordAloud can normally read files which have the extensions .txt .htm, .html, .ss and .bat. If you try and open a file which doesn't have one of these extensions, WordAloud presents you with a warning message. If you want WordAloud to try to read it, click on the OK button or press Enter; otherwise click on Cancel or press Escape.

You can also navigate between files on your hard disc and between pages on the web, using hypertext links. F8 creates and loads the root directory of the C drive as the current document, and then you can navigate along hypertext links to subdirectories and files.

You can open files or pages by following any hypertext link embedded in the text. Pause on a link and then press the "Link" button, or Type a right angle bracket ('>'). Subsequently you can press the "Back" button, or Type a left angle bracket ('<'), to return to the point where you had been. Note that the clipboard (see 'Reading files' above) is treated as a document you open, so you can return to the document you had been reading using the Back facility.

WordAloud as Browser

You can use WordAloud as an accessible or speech browser

First you need to be in extended mode, as for editing (see above). Type '&' (ampersand) to get into, or out of, this mode. You will see that there are additional fields and control buttons at the bottom of the window.

The editor can be used for writing the URL of a page or file that you wish to go to, see "Writing using the WordAloud editor" above.

The three additional fields are used for browsing: a 'goto' field, a 'return' field and a 'bookmark' field. Each field contains an entry in a list of addresses. The 'goto' list is a list of the links within the page. The field displays the link nearest above the text that you are reading. You can jump to the previous or next link by typing 'G' or 'g'.

The 'return' list is a list of pages that you have visited. The field displays the most recent page that you have visited. You can navigate up and down the list using 'R' and 'r'. The return list is similar to the History that you have on some other browsers.

The 'bookmark' list contains a list of named addresses, which can be used for your favourite sites. You can add and remove entries by setting editing mode, see above. You can navigate up and down the list using 'N' and 'n'. To go to an address, copy it into the main field, and press 'Enter' or click on the 'Enter' button. To delete an entry, copy it into the main field, and Type 'control-d' or click on the 'Remove' button. To add an entry, Type the name and the URL separated by an '=' sign. Then add this entry by typing 'control-a' or clicking on the 'Add' button.

By the way, you can copy an a address from any of these fields into the main field for editing, by clicking on the 'Copy' button which puts you straight into edit mode.

Maximising the window.

You can click on the square in the top right corner, as one normally does for a Windows application to maximise the window; and clicking again in the same position restores the window to its former size. Alternatively you can use F10 followed by Down arrow which gives you a menu, allowing you to maximise the window, or subsequently restore the window to its former size.

Using the whole window for text display.

You can toggle between a display with buttons and a display without buttons by typing zero ('0'). Without the buttons, the main field fills the whole window, so you can have the text as large as possible, without anything else to distract the reader. When the window is maximised, as on start-up, the text can fill the full width of the screen.

Note that, when displaying a word at a time, the font size of longer words is automatically reduced to fit the words into the width of the screen.

Closing down.

To close down the program you can press F12 or you can click on the x in the top right corner of the window. Your settings are automatically saved. When you next start WordAloud you can go straight to the document you had been reading by clicking on the Back button or typing a left angle bracket ('<').

Summary of keyboard operations

There are keyboard 'short-cuts' for everything you can do with the mouse. Here is a list of the characters to operate WordAloud, including those to control the visual display (not mentioned above).

Type 1 for the options dialogue box;
Type 2 for the file dialogue box.
Type c to change round the colours, so that text colour is swapped with the background colour.
Type control-f for the font;
Type f or capital F to change to the next or previous font on the list.
Type control-h for the current heading;
Type h or capital H to go to the next or previous heading.
Type control-i for the system voice pitch;
Type i or capital I to lower or raise the system voice pitch.
Type control-k for the current word gap;
Type k or capital K to decrease or increase the gap.
Type j or capital J to go to the next or previous picture.
Type l for the title ("location").
Type control-m for the size of font ("magnification");
Type m or capital M to decrease or increase the size.
Type control-o for the "other" voice, i.e. the system voice;
Type o or capital O for the next or previous voice on the list.
Type control-p for the background colour ("paper");
Type p or capital P to change to the next or previous colour on the list.
Type control-q for the text speed ("quickness");
Type q or capital Q to make text speed slower or faster.
Type control-s for the speech speed;
Type s or capital S to make speech speed slower or faster.
Type control-t for the text colour;
Type t or capital T to change to the next or previous colour on the list.
Type control-u for the user voice name;
Type u or capital U for the next or previous name on the list.
Type control-v for the volume;
Type v or capital V to turn volume down or up.
Type control-w for where you are in the document and its title;
Type w just for where you are.
Type x to read from the clipboard.
Type control-y for the user voice pitch;
Type y or capital Y to lower or raise the user voice pitch.Type z to refresh the file content from disc, overwriting ("zapping") the current content.
Type '<' (left angle bracket) to go back to the file that you had been reading in your last session, or previously in this session;
Type '>' (right angle bracket) to follow a link.
Type '?' (question mark) for help mode, so you can query use of keys, above.
Type ';' (semicolon) to hear the alphabetic spelling; Type ':'(colon) to hear alpha-bravo spelling.
Type '#' (hash) to toggle between word-at-a-time display and whole sentence display.
Type '0' (zero) to toggle between buttons showing and buttons hidden.
Type '|' (vertical bar) to toggle picture on/off with vertical division; Type '_' (underscore) to toggle picture on/off with horizontal division.Type PgUp to go up a paragraph;
Type PgDn to go down a paragraph.
Type Home to go to the start of the document;
Type End to go to the end of the document.

Extra controls for browsing and editing

Type '&' to get extended control for browsing and editing

Type control-a to add an entry to the bookmark list.
Type control-c to copy from a field, e.g. for editing.
Type control-d to delete an entry from the bookmark list.

Type control-e to go into edit mode. While in edit mode, control-e cycles you through the four states: speak character, speak word, speak both, silent.
Type 'Enter' to follow the link from the edit field, and open a new document.
Type 'Esc' to escape from editing mode.

Type control-g for the current (go-to) link;
Type g or capital G to go to next or previous link.
Type control-n for the current bookmark;
Type n or capital N to go to next or previous bookmark.
Type control-r for the current page in the return list;
Type r or capital R to go the next or previous page in the list.

Function keys

F1 will take you to the help page.
F2 is the sticky key for capital letters and other upper case characters.
F3 is the sticky key for control characters.
F6 is for alphabetic spelling.
F7 is for alpha-bravo spelling.
F8 creates and loads the root directory as the current document.
F10 followed by Down arrow gives you menu, allowing you to maximise the window, or subsequently restore the window to its former size.
F12 is for closing down the program.