speechd-el is an Emacs client to speech synthesizers, Braille displays and
other alternative output interfaces. It provides full speech and Braille output
environment for Emacs.

It is aimed primarily at visually impaired users who need non-visual
communication with Emacs, but it can be used by anybody who needs sophisticated
speech or other kind of alternative output from Emacs.  speechd-el can make
Emacs a completely speech and BRLTTY enabled application suitable for visually
impaired users or, depending on its configuration, it can only speak in certain
situations or when asked, to serve needs of any Emacs user.

For more information about speechd-el features see the Texinfo manual or the
project web page http://www.freebsoft.org/speechd-el (you can also find some
comparison with Emacspeak there).

Installation:

- If you use Emacs older than 23.2 then install the `eieio' Elisp library,
  available from http://cedet.sourceforge.net/eieio.shtml or perhaps from your
  favorite operating system distribution.

- Copy the speechd-el *.el files somewhere to your Emacs load path.  This may
  be typically the directory /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/.

- It is recommended to byte compile the *.el files, otherwise you may
  experience performance problems.  You can compile the files by running

    make compile

  Then copy the resulting *.elc files to your Emacs path as described in the
  previous step.

- Make sure all the installed files are world-readable at their target
  location, e.g.

    cd /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp
    chmod 755 *.el *.elc

- If you want to build online manual, run

    make info

  You need makeinfo from Texinfo package for this.  Then you can install the
  resulting *.info files by copying them to the location where *.info files
  reside on your system (typically /usr/share/info) and editing `dir' file
  there.  Alternatively you can open the manual directly in Emacs using
  `C-u C-h i'.

  In case you'd like to print the manual, run

    make pdf

  You need Texinfo to produce PDF version of the manual.

- Add the following line to your ~/.emacs:

    (autoload 'speechd-speak "speechd-speak" nil t)

- Install the `speechd-log-extractor' script somewhere to your shell PATH (this
  step is optional, the script is used only for bug reporting).

- Start Speech Dispatcher and/or BRLTTY.

- Start Emacs and call the commands

    M-x speechd-speak RET

  In case you do not use both speech and braille outputs and you'd like to get
  rid of the corresponding error messages, customize the variable
  speechd-out-active-drivers.

Now, your Emacs should speak and/or output to your Braille display.

See the Texinfo manual for complete documentation.

You can send bug reports, patches, suggestions, etc. to the mailing list
speechd@lists.freebsoft.org.

-- Milan Zamazal <pdm@zamazal.org>
