speechd-up

The aim of Speechd-Up is to give users the possibility to use the Speakup screen reader with software synthesis. It works as an interface daemon between Speakup and Speech Dispatcher, who takes care of the software synthesis. Currently, Festival, Flite and Dectalk software (non-free) are supported in Speech Dispatcher, but generally any software synthesizer can be made to work.

We believe that a general screen reader can't be a substitute for a specialized application interfaces like speechd-el or Emacspeak. But on the other side, it is really important in the setting where the specialized support is lacking or where the specialized applications aren't working for some reason. There are many such situations and we think Speakup is a very good solution for these.

Speakup with Speechd-Up and Speech Dispatcher enables users to:

* Work with programs like bash, links (javascript), mutt, ...
* Read or browse any place visible on the screen
* Use high quality software synthesis for this
* Switch to hardware synthesis when nothing else works