In the great Indie Revolution, typos are the enemy. Whether you are Print Publishing, E-Publishing or Indie Publishing, everyone needs editing. When you don’t think you need editing, that’s when you need it the most. Other eyes must see your manuscript before it goes out into the world.
This week, in the fight against Typos, I discovered Text to Speech software in the form of Natural Reader. You can find it here. I paid for the upgraded voices, but Microsoft Anna isn’t bad either.
IMPORTANT: You must know about The Contractions.
These particular computer voices can only read STRAIGHT QUOTES. Not the CURLY QUOTES which are also called SMART QUOTES. You will need to set your Word Document to STRAIGHT QUOTES.
How to change to STRAIGHT QUOTES instead of CURLY QUOTES
- Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click Word Options
- Click Proofing, and then click AutoCorrect Options
- In the AutoCorrect dialog box: Click the AutoFormat As You Type tab, and under Replace as you type, clear the check box for: Straight Quotes with Smart Quotes
- ALSO: Click the AutoFormat tab, and under Replace, clear the check box for: Straight Quotes with Smart Quotes
I recommend that you paste your manuscript into a new document and make the curly to straight changes there. Otherwise you may end up with a document that has a mixture of curly and straight.
In the “reading” document, do a Find & Replace for the single quotation mark of the contraction. That is, put the single quote in both the Find Box and the Replace Box and hit Replace All.
Natural Reader can now read without tripping over the contractions.
You can change the speed of Natural Reader. I listen on -1 and this makes missed words more obvious to my ear.
When Natural Reader exposes an error, correct the error in your good copy—the one that’s ready to go to formatting and wants to have curly quotes. Because curly quotes, although they are misunderstood creatures, are prettier than their straight quote counterparts.
So this week I used Natural Reader to listen to my latest manuscript. I caught the missed “a” that my silent-reading-brain filled in. I also caught the double “her her” and I realized that “certainty” was really supposed to be “certainly”. (T for L)
Writers have a saying: The only thing better than typos is . . . no typos. But some typos are just charming. Here are a few of my favourites:
He headed for the panty. (pantry)
Mary goes to pubic school. (public)
She got on her house and rode out of the corral. (horse)
Christie McFee looked for clues in the newspaper, old photographs and dairies. (Instead of DIARIES, although those cows could have important clues in their DAIRIES.)
Cute as they are, Typos knock you out of the story and you need to track them down. Use text to speech software, and several extra sets of eyeballs.
So what are some of your favourite typos?
Letter B from photos.com #86809761
mine are always “From” becomes “Form” and “and” is often typed “Adn” just comes from typing too fast (and having no real typing skills!) lol
Text to speech software sounds so cool! I haven’t tried it yet but now I totally want to. I’m sure I would have tons of awkward typos with that. 🙂
Michelle & Tami – I’m really liking this new tool. Sure, it’s a computer-type voice, but it definitely helps with missed and/or wrong words. Our brains are so good at filling in the blanks so we miss that stuff. Try the Free Version. See if you like it.
I have no favourite typos, Suzanne, because they’re not allowed in my documents. I love the idea of the speech software. I was thinking of getting my Kindle to read the next manuscript to me, but perhaps I’ll try this program instead, thanks for the recommendation!
Stripped instead of striped. And when the lead character changes names.
Sheila – I thought about using Kindle to read to me. But I think it’s only certain Kindles that do that. Mine is not one of them.
Roxy – changing lead character names is a problem! Hopefully it can be noticed by having Microsoft Anna, or Crystal or Mike read to you.
The worst one I ever saw was in a government report:
PUBLIC misspelled as PUBIC <;-0