Not trying to throw everybody for a loop, but this is a speechd-el with emacs question rather than a speechd-up with speakup question. I've been searching for a line to put in my .emacs file to set the voice. Even though I now have "Emily" as the default in my speechd.conf, and that works with theta by itself and with speechd_up, frank still comes up in emacs with speechd-el. Once in emacs, I can change it easily by doing ctrl-e d v and then at the "voice" prompt, typing female1 but I don'[t seem to be able to get the syntax right for putting the command in my .emacs file. I want the command in the .emacs file so that if I obtain other voices and want to change the occasionally, I only have to change the variable in the .emacs file. can somebody supply me with the correct .emacs line for this/ Thanks. -- Cheryl "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."