How do I test TTS markup with different voices?
Last reviewed: 11/19/2007
HOW Article ID: H110702
The information in this article applies to:
- SpeechKit 5, 6
- VoiceMarkupKit 2, 3
Summary
VoiceMarkupKit 2 supports generating TTS markup for a variety of speech synthesizers.
Within Chant Developer Workbench 2007, you can use VoiceMarkupKit 2 to generate Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) for SAPI 4, SAPI 5, W3C compliant (e.g., Cepstral) voices. With SpeechKit 5, you can synthesize the text and markup for playback.
More Information
Marking up text involves imbedding TTS markup tags in the text that control speech synthesis. Speaking qualities such as the speed, pitch, emphasis, and word pronunciation may be tailored in reproducing speech from text.
In the Chant VoiceMarkupKit editor, you may insert TTS elements as global by placing the text cursor at the location for the element and then by selecting the Speech - Insert Markup menu item or click any of the Speech TTS Markup toolbar buttons.
Some TTS elements may only be scoped and other may only be global. Chant VoiceMarkupKit editor intelliprompt automatically displays the appropriate markup elements to use.
To open an existing document for editing with Chant VoiceMarkupKit, select the File - Open menu item or click the 
Standard toolbar button and select the SSML file type to launch the open file dialog. Note if you do not see any SSML file types listed in the menu, then you need to run the Chant Software Unlock utility to begin your evaluation, your VoiceMarkupKit evaluation has expired, or you need to register and unlock your licensed copy with a serial number.
Chant SpeechKit provides a way for you to test your TTS markup without having to write any software.
To test TTS markup, simply Select the Speech - Start Playback menu item or click the 
Speech toolbar button. SpeechKit is required for TTS playback.
If you want to test specific TTS markup, you may select specific text within the document for playback.
You may change the voices by selecting one from the combobox in the Speech toolbar. You may need to resize the window for the complete toolbar to display. If you do not see any voices, then none were found on the system for this speech API.
To test different markup syntax, open or create a document for each markup syntax you want to support. Generate the markup and test within that document.
Your application can generate markup syntax appropriate for the selected voice at runtime with the ChantVM.GenerateMarkup method.