About Rendering Text Variables

Working with Variables > Employing Variables in Applications > Using the Prompt File Editor to Employ Variables > About Rendering Text Variables

	About Rendering Text Variables

Text variables render variable information of various formats as audible output using Text-to-Speech speech synthesis technology.

Almost any variable can be used as a text variable, though you must exercise some caution in selecting a variable to be rendered with TTS. Basically, what Dialog Designer does is take the value of the variable and pass it along, in string format, to the TTS server for rendering. Therefore, if you use a variable whose contents consist of a Java object reference, for instance, you might get unexpected results when the TTS server renders the content as synthesized speech.

Be aware also that not all TTS servers render the same variable values in the same way. One TTS server, for instance, might render the date 05-25-2005 as "May twenty-fifth, two thousand five." A different TTS server might render the same date as "oh five dash twenty-five dash two thousand and five." This fact means that, to use text variables most effectively, you must know the formats and functions of your TTS server.

See Text Variable.