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"Microsoft Word files to serve as talking books"
By Elsa Wenzel
CNET News, Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Microsoft and open-source site SourceForge www.sourceforge.net will offer a free plug-in early next year that will convert Office 2007 files to the DAISY format that translates text to speech.
The free tool will add a "Save as DAISY" option within Word 2007, 2003 and XP software. DAISY XML files can be read aloud by speech synthesizers, paired with audio narration and used to create electronic Braille. Users can navigate open-standard DAISY documents quickly by jumping between page elements, such as headers and indexes.
The DAISY Consortium of 70 nonprofits has aimed since 1996 to make all published information available to people with visual impairments and learning disabilities. The Acronym stands for Digital Accessible Information System. www.daisy.org
Digital narration serves computer users with visual impairments, people with learning challenges like dyslexia, as well as those with Parkinsons disease and other conditions that make it hard to type or hold a book.
With the release of the Office 2007 suite in January, Microsoft shunned the popular, XML-based Open Document Format for its own, new Open XML format. The OOXML documents, which include Word files with the DOCX extension, are easier to retrieve if corrupted than the older DOC files.
Versions of Word prior to 2007 can open OOXML documents after a one-time download of a free converter from Microsoft. However, critics gripe that Microsoft's format change was unnecessary and clumsy. Microsoft maintains that the new format enables greater flexibility, such as accessibility features.
Source: Australian Learning Disability Association (ALDA) Discussion List
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