Agent Help

We have included MS Agent text-to-speech reader in this version of help.

Instructions

• Select the help text you want read. Select no text to read the entire page.
• Press F9 key to start reading the text. Press Esc to stop reading.
• Alternatively click the small blue tab (top right corner of each page) to show/hide the FAR reader toolbar.
• The FAR reader toolbar also allows you to choose an Agent Character and set some Agent properties.

What's Agent and where do I get it?

 

MS Agent is a programmable animated character usually installed with Windows 2000, Windows XP and Office.  MS Office assistant is a small and mute version of Agent.

For other operating systems you may need to download the Agent ActiveX control, Agent Characters and Text to speech engine. Win 2K and Win XP usually ship with a single Merlin Character. It's fun to download the 4 key characters. All these downloads are free on the MS web site.

• Microsoft Agent Home Page: http://www.microsoft.com/msagent/
• Agent Download Page: http://www.microsoft.com/msagent/downloads/

Download and install the following items:

• Microsoft Agent core component any required foreign language pack
• Agent Characters: Merlin, Peedy, Robby & Genie
• Text-to-speech engine
• SAPI 4.0 runtime support (unless you get this Agent may be mute under Win XP)
• Speech control panel

A speech recognition component is also available but not supported by this software.

Why is my Agent Character Silent?

Lips move but no sound? Under Windows XP you need to install SAPI 4.0 (Speech Application Programmer Interface Version 4).

Can I disable Agent in FAR?

There is a file called AgentConfig.INI in the help directory that is read by help. Open this in a text editor and set the variables to "false" to disable Agent in this FAR help. Be careful, this is a script file included by FAR and adding bad syntax will causes errors in FAR help.