Text+Fairy

flat =About= [|Text Fairy] is an app by Renard Wellnitz for Android devices that scans a photograph of a text and does its optical recognition in several languages. You can correct possible errors in the resulting digital text, then share it straight, or first create a searchable PDF from both the picture and the text. You can also have the digital text read aloud with text to speech. Note: there are other apps - both for Android and for IOS - that do the same thing, but I haven't tried them yet. =Example= The text that follows is produced by Text Fairy from a photograph, unedited. Source: Kazuo Ishiguro. //The Remains of the Day//. London. Faber and Faber.1989. p. 3.

//It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days. An expedition, I should say, which I will undertake alone, in the comfort of Mr Farraday's Ford; an expedition which, as I foresee it, will take me through much of the finest countryside of England to the West Country, and may keep me away from Darlington Hall for as much as five or six days. The idea of such a journey came about, I should point out, from a most kind suggestion put to me by Mr Farraday himself one afternoon almost a fortnight ago, when I had been dusting the portraits in the library. In fact, as I recall, I was up on the step-ladder dusting the portrait of Viscount Wetherby when my employer had entered carrying a few volumes which he presumably wished returned to the shelves. On seeing my person, he took the opportunity to inform me that he had just that moment finalized plans to return to the United States for a period. of five weeks between August and September. Having made this announcement, my employer put his volumes down on a table, seated himself on the chaise-longue, and stretched out his legs. It was then, gazing up at me, that he said: '// //’You realize, Stevens, I don’t expect you to be locked up here in this house all the time I'm away. Why don’t you take the car and drive off somewhere for a few days? You look like you could make good use of a break.’// //Coming out of the blue as it did, I did not quite know how to reply to such a suggestion. I recall thanking him for his//

And here is a recording of Text Fairy's text-to-speech output (with some external noises edited out):

media type="file" key="ishiguro.mp3" Download as (852kb) or as  (673kb)

This is not very sexy, granted. However text-to-speech is meant for reading with your ears, not for pleasure listening: what matters is that the output be very clear. The speed of Text Fairy's is a compromise: a bit slow for people used to text-to-speech, a bit fast for newbies. But while it cannot be changed within Text Fairy, it could with an audio editing software. =Possible uses= This app is obviously very useful for people who are blind or otherwise print-disabled. It is also handy for people who are learning the language the printed text is written in: once they have it as a digital text, it is way easier to check the words they don't know with an online dictionary. And the text-to-speech function will show them the correct pronunciation.