Amsterdam – 14 May 2008 – ConvenienceWare / AssistiveWare today announced
the release of GhostReader 1.5, which adds new voices, enhanced iPhone/iPod
export, a pronunciation editor and much more. GhostReader is a powerful,
yet easy to use multilingual text-to-speech solution for Mac OS X that
reads aloud PDF, Word and other documents as well as selected text in any
application. It can also convert any text to audio files, MP3s, or
bookmarkable audiobooks for playback on iPhone and iPod. Sit back and relax
while GhostReader reads for you!
GhostReader 1.5 is a major update with the following new features and
enhancements:
– Adds new natural sounding voices for Czech, Polish, Swedish and Finnish
while existing voices have been enhanced.
– Adds a pronunciation editor, which can be used to modify the way a word
is pronounced or to add new abbreviations.
– Adds direct export to iTunes of documents and selected text for playback
on iPhone or iPod.
– Adds user-selectable encoding for export to iTunes (AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF,
Apple Lossless).
– In Leopard now also reads DOCX and ODT documents.
– Export to iTunes now runs in the background.
– Enhanced responsiveness when speaking selected text or text below the cursor.
– Speaking selected text now also works in floating windows such as those
of the Leopard Help Viewer.
– Speak Text Below the Cursor now speaks the alt. tags for images and
buttons in web pages, Mail and widgets.
– Speak Text Below the Cursor now also speaks just the paragraph below the
cursor in Mail, TextEdit and Pages 2008.
– Many other enhancements and fixes.
GhostReader can be used by anyone who prefers to listen to text rather then
read it. Many professionals, writers, educators and students use it on a
daily basis to save time, to proof read their own writing or to learn the
pronunciation of foreign languages or to improve their reading and
listening comprehension.
GhostReader 1.5 is a free update for existing users. It is a Universal
Binary requiring Mac OS X 10.4 or later and provides full Leopard
compatibility. Voices are currently available for the following languages:
American English, British English, Czech, Finnish, French, Canadian French,
German, Icelandic, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, American
Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Norwegian, Turkish and
Swedish. GhostReader itself is localized in English, French and German.
Pricing for GhostReader starts at 39.95 Euro/USD excluding VAT for a
single-user monolingual version (includes all voices for a language of
choice). Multilingual licenses, household licenses, classroom licenses and
school licenses are also available. GhostReader is also available as a
bundle with Infovox iVox for system-wide high quality voices that can be
used with practically all Speech Manager compatible Mac OS X applications.
Pricing for this bundle starts at 109 Euro/USD excluding VAT for a single
user license.
A boxed edition of GhostReader is distributed in Europe through Application
Systems Heidelberg and available in selected European countries from Apple
Stores, FNAC, Amazon and many Apple Resellers throughout the continent.
For more information, a fully-functional downloadable demo and to listen to
samples of the voices please consult the product page:
GhostReader: (http://www.convenienceware.com/ghostreader.php)
Listen to samples: (http://www.convenienceware.com/voices.php)
AssistiveWare (http://www.assistiveware.com/) is the worldwide leader in
innovative assistive technology software for Mac OS X that gives people
back their lives. This includes award-winning KeyStrokes and TouchStrokes
virtual keyboards, SwitchXS scanning on-screen keyboard, LayoutKitchen
panel editor, and Proloquo multi-purpose speech solution. The
ConvenienceWare product line (http://www.convenienceware.com) makes the
advanced technologies developed by AssistiveWare available in cool and
convenient applications that can make the life of Mac users easier.