=====Speaking the contents of a file=====

//by Richard Russell, October 2008//\\ \\  The supplied example program **SPEAK.BBC** illustrates how you can use Windows' built-in speech synthesis capabilities to speak a string (or strings) provided by your program, but what if you want to speak the contents of a text file? You could, of course, load the file into a set of strings and speak those, but the **SAPI 5** speech system (typically available in Windows 2000, XP and Vista) provides a more direct method.\\ \\  The code below speaks the text in the specified file:

<code bb4w> 
        INSTALL @lib$+"COMLIBA"

        ON ERROR PRINT 'REPORT$ : PROC_comexit : END
        ON CLOSE PROC_comexit : QUIT

        filetospeak$ = "C:\test.txt"

        PROC_cominit
        voice% = FN_createobject("SAPI.SpVoice")
        PROC_callmethod(voice%, "Speak("""+filetospeak$+""", 12)")
        PROC_releaseobject(voice%)
        PROC_comexit
</code>

The value **12** in the **PROC_callmethod** line specifies that the file may contain embedded //tags// to control parameters such as speed, volume and voice (see [[/Setting%20speech%20parameters|this article]] for details). If you don't want such tags to be acted upon change this value to **4**.