How to Proofread Perfectly

HeadphonesAnswer: Don’t read it… let the computer do it.

I find the best way to perfectly proofread a document, legal memo, or even an email is to have the computer read it back to me using a text-to-speech program while I follow along looking at the text. I currently use a free utility called “Ultra Hal Text-to-Speech Reader.” The voices in the reader are not the most human-like but it gets the job done.

ITConversations recently featured a talk by Kevin Lenzo who believes that the key speech technology is not speech recognition, but is text-to-speech (TTS). He presents “a long list of possible applications of TTS, including hands-free in-car navigation systems, location-based weather reporting, remote network monitoring, and just-in-time broadcasting.”