Apart from the 4 standard static avatars to read out your recordings,  there is now a facility to customize your avatar's appearance . You can create customized avatars and  use them instead of the static avatars.

The Avatar creation page is accessible from the My Recordings page. Before creating any new avatar, you need to specify a name for it. Once a custom avatar is created, you can go to the Select Avatars page and set the male and female avatars.

We have the IE version of our ReadTheWords toolbar ready. Using this , you can convert text in a web page to speech without having to go to ReadTheWords.com.

The toolbar has been tested with IE 5.5, 6.0 and 7.0

The steps for installing are as follows:

• Download the toolbar zip file from the download link given below
• Create a folder called Toolbar in your disk
• Unzip the files in the folder
• Close all open windows of IE
• Double click on Installer.exe
• Open IE. If the RTW toolbar does not show then right click on the space above the address bar to get the list of installed toolbars. Check the item called RTW Toolbar. There should be a tick mark next to it.
• Close IE and open it again. The toolbar should be installed now.

To remove or uninstall the toolbar:

• Go to the toolbar folder
• Close all open IE windows
  
• Dbl click on Uninstaller.exe

Please contact us for any problems or issues faced while using the toolbar.

The IE toolbar can be downloaded from here 

We have introduced 2 male and 2 female avatars which members can select to read out their recordings.

 

You can select your avatar settings once you log into your My Recordings screen.  When you click on Play Avatar icon below each recording, depending on the voice used  the male or female avatar will popup and read the recording.

Please note that recordings older than May20th,2008 will not work with avatars as that functionality was built in later.

The firefox toolbar now has avatar support. Recordings created through the toolbar can now be played back using an avatar. The previous default voice used was a male Voice - Michael. This has been changed to a female voice- Lauren.

Download the Firefox toolbar v1.2 here 

There is a new image link called Play Avatar in the My Recordings page. Clicking on this link will open a popup window with an avatar which reads the recording with synchronized lip movements. We are still working on the avatar module for now. The current avatar is a female one. The male avatar should be up soon.

We have made some changes to the firefox toolbar. Please use the newer version now since the old one will not work properly anymore.

Download the 1.1 version of the toolbar here 

 Be sure  to clear your Firefox cache before starting the download as Firefox sometimes caches files and you may get the old file again. To clear cache, open Firefox and go to Tools->Clear Private Data . In the window, check Cache and click ok.

We have released a toolbar which can be plugged in to your Firefox browser.

 

Using this toolbar, you can access your ReadtheWords member account and create recordings on the fly from any web page in your browser. Simply select text in the current web page and click on Record Text. A generated mp3 file will ready for download within seconds. We have kept a limit of 500 characters for text now.

 Please note that you do not have to login or register to be able to record the text .

 The toolbar is going to undergo some changes and enhancements in the near future. We look forward to getting feedback from you about the toolbar. 

 Steps to download and install the ReadTheWords Firefox extension.

• Download the rtwtoolbar.xpi file from here and save it to your hard disk.
• Open Firefox and select the File ->Open menu option
• Select the xpi file and click on Install
• After restarting the browser, the toolbar should show up as shown above in the picture
• This version of the toolbar will work from Firefox v.1.5.* to Firefox v.2.5.* . We will test for compatibility with Firefox 3.0,which has been released 24 hrs back, and  upload an updated toolbar in the next few days.