How to make Amazon Kindle Text to Speech skip over some text

xsaero00 · 04-25-2011, 07:34 PM

I am deploying some books to Amazon Kindle. The text has lots of numeric citations links at paragraph and sentence ends. How do I make kindle text to speech skip over those and not read them out lout. I tried to put them in <sub> element, but it did not help. Also tried using {speak:none} CSS property.

Example:

Code:

text ... <sub><a style="speak:none" href="Footnotes.html#ref1">[1]</a></sub>

Please help.

tomsem · 06-07-2011, 04:04 PM

I'm not surprised the CSS property does not work (or <sub> for that matter). In-line bitmap images (e.g. of number glyphs) can't be hyperlinked from what I remember, either.

You could use various symbols like '+' or '*' instead of numerals, of course, including any of a number of 'special' Unicode characters (see http://kindleformatting.com/book/fil...Characters.pdf for a 'starter' list). TTS will ignore these, though then you have to probably live with a list of citations whose labels cannot be located in the text (but these should have backlinks to take you to the reference in case you forget to use the Back button). Or you could use a citation style that includes a quote from the text that referenced it.

You might also check the KDP forums on Amazon.com to see if anyone there has other ideas.

But I would not worry about it that much, depending on the audience. Anyone who uses TTS enough will train themselves to ignore interjected numbers like this.

xsaero00 · 06-10-2011, 11:32 AM

Thanks for reply. I cannot really change the citation style. Sometimes I have multiple citations in a row like "[1,4,5,6,89]". I cant even imagine how to replace these with special character. Having a quote from citation in the text is not an option either.

Thanks again. I guess I'll just stick with what I have.

So you think number images will not work. Something like

Code:

<sub><a style="speak:none" href="Footnotes.html#ref1">[<img src="one.gif" alt="1"/>]</a></sub>

will not work?

tomsem · 06-18-2011, 07:09 PM

You should try that, because I'm working from fallible memory in thinking that it doesn't work. I may have tried it with a large image and they are handled differently than little ones (in particular they zoom).

04-25-2011, 07:34 PM	#1
xsaero00 Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 5542 Join Date: Apr 2011 Device: Kindle 3	How to make Amazon Kindle Text to Speech skip over some text I am deploying some books to Amazon Kindle. The text has lots of numeric citations links at paragraph and sentence ends. How do I make kindle text to speech skip over those and not read them out lout. I tried to put them in <sub> element, but it did not help. Also tried using {speak:none} CSS property. Example: Code: text ... <sub><a style="speak:none" href="Footnotes.html#ref1">[1]</a></sub> Please help.

06-10-2011, 11:32 AM	#3
xsaero00 Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 5542 Join Date: Apr 2011 Device: Kindle 3	Thanks for reply. I cannot really change the citation style. Sometimes I have multiple citations in a row like "[1,4,5,6,89]". I cant even imagine how to replace these with special character. Having a quote from citation in the text is not an option either. Thanks again. I guess I'll just stick with what I have. So you think number images will not work. Something like Code: <sub><a style="speak:none" href="Footnotes.html#ref1">[<img src="one.gif" alt="1"/>]</a></sub> will not work?

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06-07-2011, 04:04 PM	#2
tomsem Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,734 Karma: 26974049 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: USA Device: iPhone 15PM, Kindle Scribe, iPad mini 6, PocketBook InkPad Color 3	I'm not surprised the CSS property does not work (or <sub> for that matter). In-line bitmap images (e.g. of number glyphs) can't be hyperlinked from what I remember, either. You could use various symbols like '+' or '*' instead of numerals, of course, including any of a number of 'special' Unicode characters (see http://kindleformatting.com/book/fil...Characters.pdf for a 'starter' list). TTS will ignore these, though then you have to probably live with a list of citations whose labels cannot be located in the text (but these should have backlinks to take you to the reference in case you forget to use the Back button). Or you could use a citation style that includes a quote from the text that referenced it. You might also check the KDP forums on Amazon.com to see if anyone there has other ideas. But I would not worry about it that much, depending on the audience. Anyone who uses TTS enough will train themselves to ignore interjected numbers like this.

06-18-2011, 07:09 PM	#4
tomsem Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,734 Karma: 26974049 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: USA Device: iPhone 15PM, Kindle Scribe, iPad mini 6, PocketBook InkPad Color 3	You should try that, because I'm working from fallible memory in thinking that it doesn't work. I may have tried it with a large image and they are handled differently than little ones (in particular they zoom).

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