Microsoft Word files to serve as talking books

Microsoft and open-source site SourceForge will offer a free plug-in early next year that will convert Office 2007 files to the DAISY format that translates text to speech.
The free tool will add a “Save as DAISY” option within Word 2007, 2003 and XP software. DAISY XML files can be “read” aloud by speech synthesizers, paired with audio narration and used to create electronic Braille. Users can navigate open-standard DAISY documents quickly by jumping between page elements, such as headers and indexes.