Welcome back! We hope last month’s newsletter, our first, was informative. As we enter November, we celebrate National Assistive Technology Awareness Month.
Product News
Annual Subscription
You asked, and we listened! Voice Dream Reader for Macs now has an annual subscription option for $49.99 per year, which is equivalent to two months free per year compared to the monthly option. Best of all, you’ll support our continued efforts to bring you the very best product on the market. Existing subscribers can switch to the annual option and save: Go to App Store, Account Settings, Subscriptions – Manage, then Edit the subscription for Voice Dream Reader.
Language Translation
With version 4.15, Reader for iPhones and iPads can translate your documents or books to any language. It’s fast, accurate and free. Translation is performed on your device so that your content stays private and secure. From the Document menu, select Translate and pick your target language. It’ll first download necessary language data for the language pair, if it hasn’t been downloaded already. Then, it’ll translate the original text and place the translated text in a new file in your library.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Reader for iPads now supports keyboard shortcuts. Many people use iPads with a connected keyboard. (Some iPhone users use keyboards too). Now you can perform frequently used commands using keyboard shortcuts. To see what they are, press the Command key and hold for a second. Note that the Library window and Reader window have different sets of shortcuts.
Did You Know That…
Everyone Can Become a Speed-Reader
Almost everyone can read twice as fast using text-to-speech with no loss of comprehension. Yes, it’s the only scientifically proven method of speed reading. In a study conducted at University of Massachusetts at Boston, subjects are instructed to gradually increase speed while using Voice Dream Reader. Critically, they’re tested for comprehension after listening to each document. The study concludes that nearly everyone, including people with dyslexia, can double their reading speed and retaining the same amount of information. The technique is simple: increase speed until you’re slightly uncomfortable, and when you get comfortable with the new speed, increase it again until you’re uncomfortable. The research is written about in Scientific American and you can find it on our Website.
Hot Tips
AirDrop to Voice Dream
It’s easy to send a file to Voice Dream Reader using AirDrop. First, make sure AirDrop is enabled on the target device with Voice Dream Reader. (To enable AirDrop, go to Settings – General – AirDrop and select either Contacts Only or Everyone.) Then, from the source device, send the file to the target device with Voice Dream Reader using Share – AirDrop. On the target device, you’ll see the option to open the file directly in Voice Dream.
Focused Reading Mode
Many people prefer a distraction-free screen without a lot of text. Enter Focused Reading Mode, designed to reduce the amount of text shown on the screen at any given time! To activate, pinch the screen with two fingers, and the speech text area will be reduced to about a third of the screen in the middle. In addition, the text will be scrolled automatically so that the word and line being spoken is always in the middle. To bring back the full screen, un-pinch or expand the text area with two fingers. You can also achieve these settings by going to the Visual Settings menu, setting Lines Visible to 5, 3, or 1, and simultaneously setting Cursor Position to Centered.