Say As

Nodes and Palette Options > Detailed Palette Option Descriptions > Say As

	Say As

Type

SSML item

Available from

Any level tab in the Prompt File Editor. For more information about the Prompt File Editor, see Using the Prompt File Editor.

Purpose

At times, the interpretation of a particular word, phrase, or number might depend on the context and the intention for how the word, phrase, or number is to be used. The Say As property makes it possible to specify the way in which a designated prompt segment is to be spoken.

For example, the text "Dr." might be interpreted a couple different ways, depending on the context. When used before a person's name, it is interpreted as "Doctor." When used at the end of a street name, it is interpreted as "Drive." To specify to the speech synthesis engine how this is to be interpreted and spoken, use a setting of name for the first case and a setting of address for the second case.

To give another example, a seven-digit number, 5551234, might have a variety of interpretations, depending what the number represents in context. This number might represent a telephone number, an amount of money, or a simple number:

If it is to represent a telephone number, you would select telephone. In this case, the speech synthesis engine might speak it as "five five five (pause) one two three four."

If it is to represent an amount of money, you would select currency. In this case, in U.S. currency, the speech synthesis engine might speak it as "five million, five hundred and fifty-one thousand, two hundred and thirty-four dollars."

If it is to represent a simple number, you would select number. In this case, the speech synthesis engine might speak it as "five million, five hundred fifty-one thousand, two hundred thirty-four."

Behavior

The exact behavior of the setting for the Say As item depends on a number of factors.

One factor is the language in which the application is developed. A currency amount, for instance, would be rendered as dollars with the U.S. English language as the default application language. If the application language, however, is U.K. English, the same currency amount would be rendered as pounds.

The default application language also affects which Interpret-As formats are supported. Different languages require and support different formats.

Probably the biggest factor that affects the behavior of the Say As item is the Interpret-As formats that the speech synthesis engine supports. For example, if you use an Interpret-As format of net, but the speech synthesis engine does not support that format, the system ignores the Say As setting. For the Interpret-As formats supported by your speech synthesis engine, see the documentation for your speech synthesis engine.

Properties

Interpret-As - Select the format the system is to use to render the text.