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Adobe Reader 8 "Read Out Loud" Speed - Waaay Too Fast!

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Pittsbur...@adobeforums.com

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Dec 18, 2006, 2:44:08 PM12/18/06
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Just installed Adobe Reader 8 today (12/18) and was browsing the menus. Tried "Read Out Loud," found it racing, so I visited "Preferences." The default is 150 words per minute! Tried changing it to a lower number, but the program popped up with a box that reported the valid values were between 150 and 650. I wish I could understand 650 words per minute, but it's just plain gibberish.

Then--even more fun--I tried to report this to Adobe Support. Adobe isn't interested, without my paying a $39.00 support charge!!!! Well, I'm not interested in paying to report bugs on new-launched software. I'm also going to keep Adobe's "customer-friendly" procedures in mind in my next corporate purchase.

At least the technician did confirm that the range of 150 to 650 is the program's settings, so it isn't an installation issue on my machine.

How could this obviously-erroneous range get through both Alpha and Beta testing?

Mar...@adobeforums.com

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Dec 18, 2006, 5:04:11 PM12/18/06
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How could this obviously-erroneous range get through both Alpha and Beta
testing?


It's that way in Acrobat 7 as well. Why do you think it's erroneous?

Pittsbur...@adobeforums.com

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Dec 18, 2006, 8:14:38 PM12/18/06
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Since I've already uninstalled Acrobat Reader 7.0.8 or whatever it was, I cannot verify if the last/latest version had the same range. But at some point in Acrobat Reader history there was an intelligible Read Out Loud function that was at a reasonable pace. Perhaps in one of the Acrobat Reader updates this latest, faster-than-intelligible range snuck in.

I really don't care what the numerical parameters are. All I know is that the new default, lowest value is too fast, and the top end is ludicrously unintelligible gibberish. If this is not erroneous, I don't know what is.

graffiti

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Dec 19, 2006, 10:59:41 AM12/19/06
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What's wrong with 150 WPM? Seems like a good speed to me.

Philip...@adobeforums.com

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Dec 21, 2006, 5:02:43 PM12/21/06
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150 words per minute sounds reasonable to me. Isn't that fairly close to normal conversational levels?

I also do not see how it could be a bug, if there is a message saying it has to be a certian level. An oversight, maybe (if you could call it that!) But it could only be a bug if it did something out of the ordinary, like let you choose a lower speed and nothing happened, or it sped up.

Bugs are uninentional. This was clearly programmed in.

graffiti

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Dec 21, 2006, 5:27:16 PM12/21/06
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150 words per minute sounds reasonable to me.


I probably hit twice that when I've had too much coffee.

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