Make the computer speak

Here is a GUI program which will speak out the text entered into the textbox or speak out the contents of a specified text file. This simple HTML application or hta file coded in VBScript has a stop button to stop the speaking once it has started. Sadly there is no function to pause the speech. :(

<html><head><title>SpeakIt</title><HTA:APPLICATION APPLICATIONNAME="SpeakIt" ID="SpeakIt" VERSION="1.0" MAXIMIZEBUTTON="no" SCROLL="no"/></head> <script language="VBScript"> Sub Window_OnLoad Dim width,height width=460 height=470 self.ResizeTo width,height End Sub Function PInt() Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") Set fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") If (boxa.value = "") Then X = MsgBox("Enter the path for the text file to speak!", 48, "ERROR!") Else If Not (fs.FileExists(boxa.value)) Then X = MsgBox("The specified file does not exist!", 48, "ERROR!") Else path = WshShell.SpecialFolders("Templates") Set a = fs.CreateTextFile(path & "\Script.vbs") a.WriteLine("Set fs = CreateObject(" & Chr(34) & "Scripting.FileSystemObject" & Chr(34) & ")") a.WriteLine("Set WshShell = CreateObject(" & Chr(34) & "WScript.Shell" & Chr(34) & ")") a.WriteLine("path = WshShell.SpecialFolders(" & Chr(34) & "Templates" & Chr(34) & ")") a.WriteLine("Set sapi = CreateObject(" & Chr(34) & "sapi.spvoice" &Chr(34) & ")") a.WriteLine("Set a = fs.OpenTextFile(" & Chr(34) & boxa.value & Chr(34) & ")") a.WriteLine("text = a.ReadAll") a.WriteLine("sapi.Speak text") a.Close X = SetTimeOut("Speak()", 500) End If End If End Function Function Intialize() If (box.value = "") Then X = MsgBox("Enter the text to speak!", 48, "ERROR!") Else Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") Set fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") path = WshShell.SpecialFolders("Templates") Set a = fs.CreateTextFile(path & "\Script.vbs") Set b = fs.CreateTextFile(path & "\XFile.txt") b.Write(box.value) a.WriteLine("Set fs = CreateObject(" & Chr(34) & "Scripting.FileSystemObject" & Chr(34) & ")") a.WriteLine("Set WshShell = CreateObject(" & Chr(34) & "WScript.Shell" & Chr(34) & ")") a.WriteLine("path = WshShell.SpecialFolders(" & Chr(34) & "Templates" & Chr(34) & ")") a.WriteLine("Set sapi = CreateObject(" & Chr(34) & "sapi.spvoice" &Chr(34) & ")") a.WriteLine("Set a = fs.OpenTextFile(path " & Chr(38) & " " & Chr(34) & "\XFile.txt" & Chr(34) & ")") a.WriteLine("text = a.ReadAll") a.WriteLine("sapi.Speak text") a.Close b.Close X = SetTimeOut("Speak()", 500) End If End Function Function Speak() Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") path = WshShell.SpecialFolders("Templates") X = WshShell.Run(path & "\Script.vbs") End Function Function StopSpeaking() Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") X = WshShell.Run("taskkill /im wscript.exe /f", 7) End Function </script> <body bgcolor="white"><table align="center"><caption><hr><b>SpeakIt</b><hr></caption><tr><td>Enter the text file path to speak:</td></tr><tr><td align="center"><input type="text" id="boxa" size="65"></td></tr><tr><td align="center"><input id="BTNA" type="button" value="Speak it!" onclick="PInt()" style="width:420px;height:30px;"></td></tr><tr><td>Enter the text to speak:</td></tr><tr><td align="center"><textarea cols="50" rows="10" id="box">