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Many known bugs.
* The spelling/punctuation modes of my favourite synthesizer don't work.
Speakup uses it's own very simple spelling and punctuation substitution and
doesn't allow the TTS to use it's own user-specified rules.
* It doesn't work in UTF-8
UTF-8 should work as long as you only use characters encountered in the basic
ASCII, so English should work. But Speakup doesn't really support UTF-8 in
any way (nor it can, there is no UTF-8 support inside the kernel -- just
workarounds targeted at visuall interpretation; the kernel virtual terminal
drivers contain many bariers for accessibility).
* I can't switch synthesizers on fly
The way the interface Speakup -- Speech Dispatcher is designed, this is not
possible. You can switch them statically in Speech Dispatcher's configuration
though. If you use Speakup's identification "*:speechd-up:*" you can even
choose a synthesizer specifically for Speakup.
* Any other more advanced thing doesn't work or something is too slow or ...
There are many problems with how this interface is done and with how Speakup is
designed. It's probably much better to use Speakup with a hardware synthesizer,
if you have the possibility. Speakup was not designed with user space software
synthesis in mind and the necessary changes would probably be too difficult
now. There were many important design decisions made which are very reasonable
for hardware synthesizers, but they just don't mix well with software
synthesis.
On the other hand, experience shows people still find this interface to
software speech synthesis useful, mostly because of lack of anything
else. That's the reason why we provide this application and we will try to help
you if you have problems or questions.
If you are looking for a software speech synthesis solution, it's probably
better to look into Emacs and it's interfaces speechd-el or Emacspeak. As of
May 2005, we don't know about any good screen reader that would be useful with
software synthesis, but that might change.
PLEASE don't let this document discourage you in REPORTING BUGS that are not
listed here. It might be something we *are* able to fix and other user's might
appreciate it. You can report bugs on <speechd@bugs.freebsoft.org>.
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