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Narrator Publisher's Description:
Use Narrator to read out a play or story with different voices for each of the parts. It uses speech synthesis to read out marked passages using specified voice attributes. You can choose different voices, rates, pitches, inflections, and volumes for each character in the story. The words are highlighted on-screen and there are also a couple of silent read-along options for stage directions, or for you to read out your own parts. Starting with version 2, you can have multiple chapters in each document to help organize the story, use a word replacement dictionary to fine-tune the pronunciation, and can export the story as an AAC sound file or export it to iTunes, so you can listen on an iPod or iPhone, just like your own audiobook! Plus many other appearance and functionality improvements.
WHAT'S NEW
Version 2.0b1:
* A major redesign of the Narrator document window, in keeping with Leopard standards.
* Replaced the Characters drawer with a source list on the left of the window, with details below.
* Added a Chapters source list above the Characters one. Multiple chapters are now supported, as a way of breaking up long documents, if desired.
* Changed the way speech changes are indicated: instead of using text colors, you now insert markers in the text. You can insert them by selecting a Character and clicking Assign, by double-clicking a Character (not on the text; that will rename it), more...or by dragging a Character into the text.
* Characters still have colors associated with them, but are only displayed in the marker backgrounds to make them easier to tell apart.
* If text is selected when you Assign, the indicated Character is inserted before the text, and the original Character is inserted after it -- useful for marking up quoted dialogue etc.
* You can now select discontinuous blocks of text by holding down the Cmd key when selecting. This is useful to assign several blocks to a Character.
* Bold or italic text is emphasized when speaking, if 15 characters or less, to give more natural and flexible speech.
* The Silent (skip over) Actor now has a Duration option, allowing it to remain on that Character for a brief interval if desired.
* Changed the default Character names from "Default" (for Victoria) and "Karaoke" (for Silent (read along)) to "Narrator" and "You" respectively, and added "Note" (for Silent (skip over)) as well.
* Added buttons to reset the Rate, Pitch, Inflection and Volume individually.
* A "Welcome to Narrator!" document opens automatically the first time you run Narrator, as a demo and explanation of the features.
* Narrator documents now support searches via Spotlight, plus Leopard's new Quick Look thumbnails and previews.
* Now manages the documents using Apple's advanced Core Data framework, allowing fast access, much larger documents, and better Undo support.
* Narrator 2 documents have a file extension of ".narrative". Narrator 2 can open Narrator 1 documents (with an extension of ".narrator"), and many other formats.
Export:
* Major new features: export as AAC and export to iTunes.
* The Export as AAC function allows saving the speech of the current chapter (or just the selected text, if any is selected) to an AAC-encoded ".m4a" sound file, which can be played in the Finder, manually imported to iTunes, or another player. The voices of the various Characters are merged into one sound file, just like listening to them in Narrator.
* The Export to iTunes function is similar to the AAC export, but exports to a location specified in the preferences, and imports that file to iTunes, complete with track attributes, including a transcript of the text as the track's lyrics. This is great for listening to Narrator stories on an iPod or iPhone.
Preferences:
* Added options for the default state of the spelling and grammar checking, and smart copy/paste, quotes and links.
* Added an option to start reading opened documents automatically.
* Added checkboxes to disable or re-enable confirmation sheets when deleting Chapters or Characters.
* Added the ability to set the default font.
* Added a Dictionary preference page, where you can specify a list of words or phrases to replace with others, to help fine-tune the pronunciation.
* Added an Export preference page, with options for the new export functions.
* Now sets the default preferred release type for the Check for Updates feature based on the type of release used. If you ever use a beta release, it's safe to assume you are comfortable with beta releases, so you are notified of new ones. You can of course override this in the Updates preference pane.
* Added a Restore Factory Settings button to the Updates preferences pane, that changes the preferences in this pane back to the recommended values.
Bug Fixes:
* The speech is now stopped when the document window is closed.
Other:
* Added several features available in Leopard, including grammar checking, smart link detection, smart quotes substitution, Link, List and Table features, style sheets, and more.
* Enhanced the Licenses window to include more information, support finding lost licenses, support the new upgrade licenses, and more.
* Now forces the OS to notice the Services menu command without having to log out.
* Replaced the feedback and e-mail options in the Help menu with Forums and Dejal Blog items.
* The Dejal logo has been professionally redesigned by Emily Pfeifer, so all places it occurred have been updated.
* Upgraded to the latest development tools under Mac OS X Leopard, and many behind-the-scenes improvements.
* Switched the distribution method to ZIP archives instead of disk images, as it's simpler for everyone. Feedback welcome!
* Built as a Universal Binary for PowerPC and Intel architectures.
* Now requires a minimum of Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Version 1.1.4 is still available and still works back to Mac OS X 10.1.5.
* Version 2.0 will be a paid upgrade from Narrator 1.x... but the beta releases work with version 1 licenses. Everyone who purchased Narrator since October 1, 2007 will be eligible for a free upgrade.
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