Talking Emails

Do you want your emails to talk? Or do you want to listen to your emails?

Although they sound like the same thing they are actually different. One involves sending a sound file as part of the email and the other involves converting a text email to sound.

Creating Talking emails

It is very easy to create an email that talks.  In order to do that you simply need to create an audio message in the correct format using standard voice recording software that you have on your system and add it as a background sound to you email.

On windows systems you will find a sound recorder under accessories. There are also numerous dedicated stand alone systems that will create the sound file and send it as email (see list at bottom of the page).

Create a Talking Email in Outlook Express

Outlook Express will send talking emails. All you need to do is to record your message, and then provided your it is configured to send HTML email you can add sound file as a background to the email, so that when the email is opened the sound file (message) is played.

It is best to keep to .wav files or Midi files as they are supported by windows without the need for real media download (see supported files)

To Create a Talking Email:

1.Start with a new message in HTML format (select Format>rich text).
2.Select Format > Background >Sound... from the menu then use the browse button to select the sound file you want to play (Make sure the file is of a supported sound format).
3 Specify the sound options

•  played continuously 
• a certain number of times.

4.Click OK.

5. If you want to always add the same background sound then you need to save the message as a email stationary.
 

Supported Files for background email sounds:

1. .wav, .au, .aif, and .snd ---wave files
2. .mid and .rmi ----------MIDI files
3. .ra, .rm, .ram and .rmm ---------Real Media files

Creating Talking Email In Incredimail

IncrediMail premium has this facility built in . Just create a new messages and select the record message option and your done.

Getting Your Text Email to Talk

It is possible to listen to your email even though it was sent as ordinary text email. To do this you need text to speech conversion software. There are several vendors offering this type of software.

There are general purpose offerings which can read text on the clipboard and from text files. There are also plug-in type add-ons which introduce icons in the application (like outlook express and Internet explorer) so that you can simply click a button to listen to the text.

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Related Articles and Resources:

• Email sound notifications

Here are list of text to speech software providers - most offer a free trial so that you can try before you buy.

• Text aloud
• http://www.neurospeech.com
• http://www.4developers.com/talkmail/
• http://www.uk-software.com/
• http://www.speechtoolscenter.com/
• http://www.bobsoft.com/ - offers free text to speech tool.