Newbie question about punctuation

[Chris Brannon]

Bill Cox wrote:
> Sorry for this newbie question.  I use espeakup and speechd-up, and no
> external devices.  What is the difference between punctuation and
> reading punctuation?

Hello,
Here's the difference.  The "punctuation level" setting that you control
with the speakup + f9 and speakup + f10 keys affects the punctuations
that Speakup reads when the application is writing text to the screen.
On the other hand, the "reading punctuation" level affects the punctuations
spoken when you read using the screen review commands.
Maybe an example will be useful.

First, get to a shell prompt.
Hit speakup + f10 until the punctuation level is at its maximum of 4.
Now, press speakup + f11 until reading punctuation is at its minimum of 0.
Echo something to the screen:
echo 'Hello, world!'
You should hear Speakup say
Hello comma world bang
Now, read the line just above your shell prompt with the review keys.
speakup + numpad 3, followed by numpad 7 should do it.
You won't hear the punctuations comma and bang.

There's a third punctuation setting, and this one is synth specific.
It can't be controlled by function keys.  You have to
set it by echoing a number from 0 to 3 to
/sys/accessibility/speakup/soft/punct.
When you change this setting, Speakup sends the "set punctuation" command
to the software synthesizer.
The two settings described in the last paragraph determine how much
punctuation is read by Speakup.
This third setting tells the synthesizer how to interpret raw punctuation
characters that it receives.

Hope this helps,
-- Chris