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After one year focusing on studying, recording and developing, Sao Mai now officially releases the final version of Sao Mai VNVoiceSapi5-based speech engine. You can download from Sao Mai Software Download Page.

Some main new features of the speech engine
- Adding one more new voice named "MaiDung" with more Vietnamese words compared with the "MinhDu" voice.
- Built-in one English voice named "Daniel", supporting about 12,500 popular English words.
- Beside differentiating Vietnamese and English words, the engine can analyze non-Vietnamese words and speak in Vietnamese pronunciation method.
- Allowing users to define the pronunciation for certain words. You can define in the file "MaiDung.pam" located in c:\Program Files\Common Files\VNVoice. You should open this file with a text editor like Notepad. The structure of one definition is: WordDefinition=WordDefinitionPronunciation. For example, ctrl=control.
- Fixing errors and bugs when running on Vista and some conflicts with applications on Windows XP.

Way of processing text and reading
Speech engine will read words if existing in Vietnamese sound database, if not:
Checking English sound database and read, if not:
Checking pronunciation definition file "MaiDung.pam" and read definition, if not:
Read words in defined pronunciation method of the Vietnamese speech engine

Installation
In order to use the speech engine, your Windows computer needs to have applications using Sapi5 TTS (Text To Speech) to output speech such as Jaws, NVDA... Note, one speech engine itself doesn't have feature to get the text on screen and read it.
After downloading, run file SaoMaiVNVoiceSetup.exe and complete the installation.
You should restart applications using the speech engine so it can detect the new Vietnamese engine. However, you also should unload applications using old Sao Mai VNVoice speech engine before the installation, to make sure that the installation can replace loaded files of old Vietnamese speech engine.
Now, the new Sao Mai VNVoice speech engine is ready to be used.
Below is the example of how to config Jaws to use the Vietnamese voice.

Go to the windows of Jaws, press Ctrl+Insert+s and select Sapi5
Go to menu Language (Alt+l) -> Synthesizer Language -> Vietnamese and enter. Note, since Jaws 10.x, the Synthesizer LanuLanguage menu item is removed and you can find it in the Voice Global Adjustment dialogue.
Go to menu Options -> Voice -> Global Adjustment. n this dialogue, you can choose Vietnamese voice at Voice Person tab item and adjust voice infomation such as rate, pitch, volume, punctuation mode. Note, to read Vietnamese unicode, there are two voices, "Minh Du" and "Mai Dung", Mai Dung is the new added voice in this release. Thanh Vi voice is for VNI charset and Thu An is for TCVN charset.
Note, with Jaws 10.x, you choose the Voice Profile Sapi5 and then tab to Synthesizer Language, choose Vietnamese.
Press ok to save the settings and now you are ready to use Vietnamese voices.
With Jaws, you just press Ctrl+Insert+s and select Sapi5 to switch to Vietnamese voice as reading Vietnamese text.

We will have articles guiding how to customize Jaws and other screen readers as NVDA to access Vietnamese documents better in upcoming issues of Sao Mai AccessTech.