About
We believe there is a strong cultural and educational imperative for pupils and students in Scotland to be able to read and listen to Scottish curriculum and educational resources spoken using a Scottish synthetic voice.
The Scottish Government funds CALL Scotland to provide a Scotland-wide schools licence for 'Heather' - a high quality Scottish computer voice from CereProc in Edinburgh. A Scotland-wide license for Further Education colleges is provided by the JISC Regional Support Centre Scotland North and East.
Heather can be downloaded from this web site and is also available on CD from CALL Scotland (schools only). Heather is free to Scottish schools, colleges and support services and pupils and students can also install the voice on home computers.
Once installed on your computer, you can use Heather with most 'text-to-speech' programs to read: electronic books; PDF files (such as SQA exam papers); worksheets and other documents in Microsoft Word. You can also create audio files using the voice.
The Scottish Voice can also be used on talking internet browsers to help pupils and students read materials made available on and through Glow.
For more information about text-to-speech programs for reading the internet, Word or PDF files and for making audio MP3, see the FAQ section on this web site.
At this point in time Heather is available for Windows PCs, Intel based Apple Mac (10.4 or above) and Power PC Apple Mac (10.4 only). We are also intending to obtain funding to develop a male Scottish voice.
The CereProc voices can be used by a wide range of different Text to Speech programs, both free and commercial, to read a very wide range of learning resources in different formats
Digital Exam papers in Adobe PDF read with built-in Acrobat reader or PDFaloud
Reading book in e.g. Microsoft Reader
Textbook in Daisy format
Textbook in PDF read with built-in Acrobat reader or PDFaloud
Windows or Mac with CereProc voices
Exercise book or worksheet in Microsoft Word read with WordTalk (PC) or built-in Mac reader
Web pages read with talking browser or e.g. Browsealoud
MP3 audio book created with e.g. WordTalk (PC) or iSpeak (Mac)
You might be interested in some of CALL Scotland's other web sites:
- Adapted Digital Exams (information on SQA Adapted Digital Question papers)
- WordTalk (a free text-to-speech program for reading Microsoft Word documents (with Heather))
- Books for All (information about curriculum resources in accessible formats )
- CALL Scotland (the main CALL Scotland web site)
You might be interested in further resources from the JISC Regional Support Centre Scotland North and East:
- AccessApps (a collection of open source and freeware Windows applications, which run from a USB stick. A range of solutions is available for supporting writing, reading and planning as well as sensory, cognitive and physical difficulties).
- MyStudyBar (a floating toolbar of free resources that support literacy)
- MyVisBar (a floating toolbar of free resources that support students with a visual impairment)
- MyAccess (a desktop application which provides a straightforward gateway to the accessibility options that are built into Windows computers)
