Appendix 3. A Few Words on the Rhythm of Poetry              Appendix 4. Reading Poetry Using Computer Voices It's better  to hear  poetry  once   than to read it a hundred times.   Aphorism

•   Rhythm check of poems; •   Meter detection; •   Built-in dictionary:     English: 44,500 words     (109,300 word forms);     Ukrainian: 136,300 words     (1,959,400 word forms);     Russian: 137,800 words     (2,967,100 word forms), •   User and online dictionaries     (English, Ukrainian, Russian); •   Rhyme markup; •   Spell check; •   Number of syllables per line; •   Service for working     with poems from the Internet.

Only through poetic hearing can you determine whether a poem is rhythmically correct or not. And, ideally, with verification by reading it aloud. Below (for the especially lazy, as well as for those who can tolerate robotic pronunciation pearls), we describe how to assign poetry reading to a robot. Starting with v6.0, the program features a "Read" function (F7), which allows you to play back the text entered into the editor window with a machine voice (either in full or in a selected fragment). This allows you to hear your poems spoken from a different perspective, without the human-like need to adjust to the poetic rhythm, only with the actual stresses.

Poetry reading is implemented in the program in two ways:

The "Stress Wizard" button is useful if you want to listen to poetry but don't want to bother with stress marks. Of course, there's a similar button in the editing window (see p.2.2.3, the "Rhythm" Button Panel), and if stress marks in the text have clearly not been addressed, this function is launched automatically (the frame turns green afterward). However, you can also perform the recommended procedure in the editing window for each new poetry text with a single click from the reading form. A yellow frame indicates that the "wizard" was not launched automatically because it detected traces of your work with stress marks or line types.

Without linking stress marks to poetic meter, reading poetry using a computer program is no different from reading prose in terms of resolving problems with homographs—words that are spelled the same but have different stress marks ("`content / con`tent")—as well as (partially) with author-specific stress marks. Accordingly, calling a "wizard" is contraindicated if you've already worked with the text yourself, as some of the stress marks you've placed may be distorted.

In English poetry, stress placement doesn't affect a robot's pronunciation.
I hope to figure this out.

Reading Poetry via Online Services

When you select the "from the internet" option, a window opens for accessing online text-reading services. There are currently a number of them, and some are included in the program's list of links. The list line indicates the limit on the number of free characters read by the service and its address.

Playback is started by clicking the button

The services are built on a similar principle: there is a text input field and a set of voices for playback. The visitor is given a certain limit for the trial period, after which they are asked to either leave the service or pay. To inform you of the expected usage volume for a specific resource, the number of characters prepared for reading is indicated. These characters are pasted into the input field (Ctrl-V) and the audio is played or saved to a file.

If the Edge browser (or rather, the MS Edge WebView2 runtime) is installed on your computer, you can do this in the program's built-in browser (without opening the browser in a separate window). Otherwise, you can only work in the system browser (there is no switch).

The fragment of the work on the left is purely illustrative, but the number of characters in the clipboard may be significant for you.

The difference between the built-in and system browsers is measured in two mouse clicks: the built-in browser automatically clears the input window and pastes the text of the work into it with stress marks placed for the robot to read (in the system browser, the user has to paste the text of the work from the clipboard into the input field themselves). Then it's the same: select a voice, configure its parameters, and start playback. Of course, the built-in browser can be trained to do this, but linking online text readers to various website structures hardly makes sense.

The advantage of such services is the ability to explicitly indicate stress positions in words (after pasting text from the clipboard, you can see the corresponding icons), which helps solve the problem of homographs. A fairly wide range of voices of varying quality and price allows users to optimize their spending.

The disadvantages include the fee, some unreliability (the online service may be unavailable at any time), and sluggishness (depending on the internet quality and the amount of advertising on the site).

Furthermore, if you want to use the built-in Edge browser, you will first need to ensure that the Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime is installed in the list of applications. It's most likely already installed, but you can install it manually by downloading the appropriate version (x86 or x64) from

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/#download-section

Edge is a heavyweight, so sometimes you need to speed up the process of closing RitmInMe by checking "Force quit program" and "Clear cache after program quit" in the Settings - General tab.

Reading Poetry Using Local Computer Resources

When you select the "installed on the computer" option, a window for built-in playback of poems opens:

At the initial stage, the fragment of the work located on the left is purely illustrative, as it requires preliminary settings before playback. On the right is a list of voices (with a transcript of the selected voice above it). If the "Read only poetry" mode is disabled, a column appears to the right of the list of voices with a mark for selecting a voice for reading prose lines. Perhaps, in addition to poetry lines, the work also contains character names, chapter titles, and any comments (changes to line numbers can also be voiced, but this is a matter of taste). The selected voices are transcribed above the list.

Below the list are two buttons: playback (speaker) and saving the recording to a file (floppy disk). Below these are two controls for controlling the volume and playback speed. Below them is information about the set volume and speed, and below that is the text tracking mode button (more on that below). In the lower right corner is a button for resetting the mode to its initial state.

After clicking the play button, part of the screen becomes invisible, but a "player" appears, with buttons that allow you to control the reading process:

Pause/Resume and Stop Reading

Clicking the pause button stops the reading of the text, and the button changes its appearance and tooltip from "Pause" to "Reading." Clicking it again resumes playback. During the pause, you can (and even better – there will be fewer inaccuracies and errors in the sound) change settings: voice selection, volume, playback speed, text navigation, and repeat sections.

Clicking the "Stop" button stops reading the same way as at the end of the text: the "player" disappears, part of the screen becomes visible again, and the section of the work located on the left loses its navigation function. You can also stop reading by simply closing the reading form with the "×" button.

Navigating the Text

Navigation refers to moving through the text using buttons or other controls.

This pair of buttons moves to the previous or next stanza of the text. Stanzas, in this case, are understood in a simplified way: stanzas are groups of poetic lines, framed by blank lines or lines of prose. Reading continues from the beginning of the stanza that has become current.

This pair of buttons moves to the previous or next line. If the button is clicked during reading, the current line is interrupted.

Below the "player" buttons is a reading progress bar, whose main function is to show the percentage of the text read. However, when you hover over it, the cursor changes shape, and a line of text appears above the progress bar. This line can be made current by clicking the mouse.

During reading, the section of the work located on the left becomes a navigational element (although only within the displayed text). If you place the cursor over it, it changes shape, and the line under the cursor can be made current by clicking the mouse. For clarity, this line is displayed above the progress bar.

Note: The cursor's path and speed across the screen are inscrutable, and under certain circumstances, the program may not notice that the cursor is already over the text and not change its shape to a pointing finger. If you prefer to navigate this way, you should return the cursor to the player screen area and move over its border (which turns it blue) more slowly.

The player plays the text of the poem aloud, but you'd like to track the reading position with your eyes. This is what the section of the poem on the left is for. Here, you have several tracing options available.

Switching is done using the button located at the bottom/center of the right side of the screen. The first option ("brick") corresponds to synchronous tracking of the poem's reading word by word. The rest track the line being read (as the illumination decreases): the second ("row of bricks") highlights the entire current line; the third ("pointer on a waypoint") highlights the current line; the fourth (empty) highlights no tracing (although the text scrolls when it reaches the edge of the screen, at which point the current line becomes the bottom line).

Note: This variation of tracing works if the cursor is on the right half of the screen. If it hovers over the text with its pointing finger, the current line is highlighted. The change in tracing mode takes effect once the current line is finished reading.

Repeating Fragments

I suspect that sometimes people want to listen to a single line several times. Or a stanza. Or an entire piece. The following button, in its four forms, is intended for this purpose:

The first button type corresponds to the normal state – nothing is repeated. The button with a 1 corresponds to repeating a single line, the button with a 4 corresponds to repeating a stanza, and the button with a scroll corresponds to repeating the entire verse. Clicking on the empty button offers a choice of these states; clicking on the non-empty button cancels the repeat. After canceling a line or stanza repeat, playback begins with the next line or stanza (respectively). Cancelling the entire verse repeat is the same as clicking the "Stop" button.

Voice Change

You can select a poetry reading voice by clicking in the list of voices, and a prose reading voice by clicking the checkbox next to the corresponding line in the list. During reading, the voice change begins with the next line (therefore, if a pause was set, the current line will not be read to the end).

Volume and Speed

These controls occupy a significant portion of the screen (for ease of use):

To change the parameter, you can:
    • drag the indicator point to the desired position;
    • click the desired position on the dial or on the dot after it;
    • use the "+" and "-" buttons for incremental changes.

The result will be the same: the indicator point will move to the desired position, and the corresponding value will be displayed below the control.

Note: You can't move the pointer into the dead zone. In the lower right corner is a "Default" button. Clicking it restores the default settings for reading poetry locally.

Saving an audio recording of a piece to a file only makes sense after first listening to it and adjusting the voice, volume, and reading speed. After clicking this button, you'll be prompted to save the audio (WAV) file. After selecting a name, the file takes some time to be generated. During this time, only the stop recording button, the selected voices, and a window for tracking blocks of text being read are visible (the recording is not particularly fast—about a hundred lines per minute). Once recording is complete, the WAV file closes and the window is restored.

The advantage of reading poetry locally is that it's free and reliable—all you need is the ability to run the program on a working computer. The downside is that the voices included with Windows don't allow explicit control over stress, leaving it entirely up to the voice engine creators. The voice selection isn't particularly extensive.

In "demo" mode, capabilities are limited to four lines (no stanzas).

However, using third-party voices from Olga Yakovleva's RHVoice suite solves the stress issue. But whether you'll want to install voices from the list at https://rhvoice.org/ru-voices/ – is another matter. Accordingly, registering your license (with the same caveat) solves the "demo" issue. ;)

Additional Voices

Firstly, it's impossible to eat,
and secondly, why so few?
A diner in a restaurant

Voice engines are included in language packs for Windows:

https://support.microsoft.com/ru-ru/windows/языковые-пакеты-для-windows-a5094319-a92d-18de-5b53-1cfc697cfca8#WindowsVersion=Windows_10

It is highly recommended to install language packs for your preferred languages. You can check whether a language pack is installed by looking at the list of languages under "START - Settings - Time & Language - Language & Region - Add a Language": languages not currently listed will say "Language Pack Available." After selecting such a language and activating it through "Settings," you should download the "Language Pack" and "Speech Features" (Handwriting is optional). There is also an option to "Add additional voices," but it is not required to include voices for your chosen language.

In any case, in the initial state for Windows 10/11, we have, at a minimum, Microsoft Zira – English (US).

Expanding the list of available MS voices

But even after this, Windows is asking for a beating: if you select START – Settings – Ease of Access – Narrator – Voice, you'll get a list of available voices, of which RitmInMe likely only has a few (they can be seen in the list via Main Menu – Help – Friendly Resources or in the list of voices for specific languages when trying to read).

The registry editing procedure isn't particularly labor-intensive, but it's not exactly pleasant either. So, first, I launched RegEdit (START - Run) and used it to export the registry key to the file pavel.reg:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Speech_OneCore\Voices\Tokens\MSTTS_V110_ruRU_PavelM

I had to repeat the text in this text file (except for the first line) and change "Speech_OneCore" to "Speech" twice in the first block, and in the second block, add "WOW6432Node" before "Microsoft." As a result, the edited file creates two registry branches:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Speech\Voices\Tokens\MSTTS_V110_ruRU_PavelM
and
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Speech\Voices\Tokens\MSTTS_V110_ruRU_PavelM
with a copy of the original information.

Unfortunately, it's best to create a .reg file for activating an existing voice by exporting and then editing it – only Saint Connectius knows what and when.

After running the pavel.reg file and rebooting, the Microsoft Pavel (RU) voice appeared in the RitmInMe program list, although I wasn't particularly pleased with its pronunciation.

Installing Third-Party Voices

I was a little more pleased with the third-party voices—for example, Olga Yakovleva's RHVoice list has a fair number of them. Follow one of the links on the website, download, and install the voice. No additional software is required; everything is included in the voice installer.

However, when using RHVoice voices, I can't get a complete silence when the volume control is at zero (Microsoft voices work fine at zero), but I think this is tolerable. It's best to download the voices from the developer (https://rhvoice.org/en-voices/), but just in case, there is also a copy of the English language voices (with the developer's permission) on the RitmInMe website as of December 24, 2025:

Naturally, when viewing .exe files (and this is how the voices are supplied), the question of the safety of such a step arises. You can check the provided files for viruses at https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/upload before downloading them to your computer by providing the link to the relevant file as the URL.

Note: These voices are provided here simply for the sake of completeness, since at this time I have not yet learned how to control stress in English text (as opposed to texts in East Slavic languages).

Defects

I'm not sure how popular this feature will be, so I'm posting a beta version that hasn't been fully polished. Among the defects I've noticed when playing voices installed on Windows, I'll note:

1). Inconsistency in the display of author stress marks and colored lines in the text.

2). It's necessary to avoid jumping too quickly to the text window for subsequent navigation. As a temporary workaround, a border has been added that becomes more visible when activating navigation by clicking on the text, and the cursor shape has been changed. Accordingly, if the border and cursor are not activated, you should return to the right half of the screen and repeat the movement, but more slowly. This also applies to those who are too clever and have bypassed this control strip from above.

3). In the text window, only clicks on visible lines are possible – text navigation using the keyboard and mouse scrolling does not work.

Please send your suggestions to Этот адрес электронной почты защищен от спам-ботов. У вас должен быть включен JavaScript для просмотра. .

Hotkeys

In addition to mouse clicks, sometimes it's convenient to control something using the keyboard. From the editing window, text reading is started by pressing F7, which remains dominant, but in different environments.

Reading Poetry Via Online Services

Reading Poetry Via Local Computer Resources

The F1 key (help with the poetry reading tab using local computer resources) is always available, as it opens the program website page in the system browser. Other keys are used depending on the circumstances.

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Appendix 3. A Few Words on the Rhythm of Poetry