Other Speech Engine Support

Microsoft Corporation

Updated June 25, 1999

In addition to the Microsoft speech engines that are provided with and support Microsoft Agent, a number of companies also offer speech engines with support for Microsoft Agent. This page gives you a brief overview of such engines that may be available in U.S. English and other languages. Information about how to install and access, as well as license and redistribute the engines can be found at their Web sites.

Before installing any third-party speech engines, you should make sure that your machine already has the SAPI speech DLL installed. You can do this by checking "Show All Files" in Folder Options, and then searching for the speech.dll file from the Explorer. If you cannot find this file, you can get it by installing the Microsoft SAPI SDK from http://www.microsoft.com/iit/sapisdk.htm . Microsoft Agent also installs this DLL with the Microsoft Speech Recognition Engine, the Speech Control Panel, and the Agent Character Editor.

Please note that these links point to servers that are not under Microsoft's control. Please read Microsoft's official statement regarding other servers. Microsoft does not endorse the content nor the software provided at these Web sites. All technical and support questions should also be directed to the suppliers of the engines and not to Microsoft or the Microsoft Agent team.

IBM ViaVoice™ Outloud

IBM has developed several Microsoft Agent characters for use with ViaVoice Outloud. IBM ViaVoice Outloud is a text-to-speech (speech synthesis) technology and is available in French, German, Italian, Spanish, UK English and US English. When combined with Microsoft Agent, you can create vibrant applications in many languages and extend your sales opportunities to new worldwide markets.

For more information, or to download a free 90-day trial version of ViaVoice Outloud, see http://www.software.ibm.com/speech/dev/msagent.html .

Elan Speech Engine

Elan Speech Engine™ uses Elan’s Text To Speech™ technology and is available in seven languages: French, German, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish, Russian, U.K. and U.S. English. You can find sample sound clips of the engines, as well as technical and licensing information at the Web site .