NC State University

Disability Services for Students Skip Navigation

Academic Accommodations for Students

Accommodations for Faculty, Staff, & Others

DSS Logo: An unlocked lock

 

Using EmacSpeak

What is it?

Emacspeak is a speech interface to Linux and Unix, which provides speech output solely within the Emacs environment. Emacs is essentially a text editor, but a large number of available extensions add to its functionality (including web browsing, etc.).

Availability

Emacspeak is available on all College of Engineering Realm Linux computers, and is installed in a locker for the Solaris platform.

Starting Emacspeak for Realm Linux

User accounts must be specifically configured to support Emacspeak for Realm Linux. Here's how:

  1. Configure your account to automatically start Emacspeak by typing the following commands:
    add emacspeak-linux

    2. configure_emacspeak_account

    OR

  2. Insert the following lines into the ~/.emacs file:
    ;; Emacs/W3 Configuration
    (require 'e3-auto "w3-auto")
  3. Insert the following lines into the ~/.Xstartup file:

    4. if (`uname` == Linux) then
    setenv LD_ASSUME_KERNEL 2.4.1
    sleep 5;emacspeak
    endif

Assuming the user's account has been appropriately configured, the application can be launched from the terminal command prompt by entering the following command:

emacspeak

For help setting up your account to support Emacspeak, contact ricky_lee@ncsu.edu. Much more detail about installing and configuring Emacspeak is available on the following web page: http://www.ncsu.edu/it/dss/help/emacspeak-install.html.

Starting Emacspeak for Sun Solaris

  1. Type the command: add emacs2070
  2. Launch Emacspeak with the command: emacspeak-solaris

If you would like to configure your account to automatically launch Emacspeak for Solaris and would like assistance, please contact Ricky Lee.

Operating Emacspeak

Emacspeak has many more features than can be covered in this document. To help you get started, the following is a summary of some of the more common commands. For additional information, including a complete Users Guide, see the Emacspeak web site.

Note that the following commands are case sensitive. Also, a note regarding convention: C refers to the Control key, and M to the Meta key (ALT on most keyboards).

Emacspeak Tutorial: C-h C-e
Emacs Tutorial: C-h t
C-h c <any character> tells you the function performed by that character

Stop Speech: C-e s

Toggle character echo: C-e d k
Toggle line echo: C-e d l
Pronunciation mode: C-e d m
Set punctuation: C-e d p
Set rate of speech: C-e d r (30 to 100 is a reasonable rate)

Read a character at a time: arrow left and right -
Read current word: C-e w
Spell current word: C-e W
Read a word at a time in either direction: M-arrow
Move to end of line: C-e e
Read a line at a time: arrow up and down -
Read page: C-e [
Read paragraph: C-e {
Read page interactively: C-e ]

Current window information: C-e C-w
Percentage into the current buffer: C-e %

Shell command: C-e !
Login to a remote terminal (e.g., telnet): C-e C-r
View man pages: M-x man
Terminal: M-x term
Run w3 (web browser): M-x w3
Kill emacs: C-e ESC C-k

Time: C-e t
Version: C-e v

Common Emacs keystrokes

Open file: C-x c-f (If the file doesn't yet exist, you'll create a new file with the name you enter.)
Save file: C-x c-s
List buffers: C-x C-b
Quit emacs: C-x C-c
Undo: C-x u
Number of windows: C-x #

Replace a string (with prompts): M-x repl s
Search: C-s
Reverse search: C-r

Using w3 for web browsing

By default, w3 launches with its help file as the home page. Read this for more information. Here are some of the more common keystrokes:

tab - navigate through links
M-tab - navigate in reverse through links
B - back to previous document
F - forward to next document
b - back to previous link within document
f - forward to next link within document
Return - activates a link (must be on link; use tab)
s - source
l - last buffer
q - quits WWW mode
p - prints the current document

Last Updated: September 27, 2004