Dejal Systems has released the first full version of Narrator 1.0. Narrator is a speech synthesis app designed for translating written text into speech. The app features character voices for different text parts and a read-along option for running lines with your Mac. According to Dejal Systems:
Dejal Systems today announced the immediate availability of Narrator 1.0b2, an upgrade to its first product for Mac OS X.
This application utilizes speech synthesis to read out the contents of a text document, using different voices for different parts. You have a range of "actors" that can portray any number of "characters", so various passages of your document are spoken with differing voices, pitches, inflections, etc.
You can have it read out a play or story with appropriate voices. The words are highlighted on-screen, and there is also a silent read-along option for stage directions, or for you to read out your own parts.
This new version includes several new features, including a Casting Assistant, that will automatically create Characters and mark up the text using a simple format of "<name>: <speech>", plus some new preferences, bug fixes, and other changes to further improve the intuitiveness, based on user feedback.
You can find more information about the Narrator release at the Dejal System Web site. Narrator 1.0 is available for US$24.95.