METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SYNCHRONIZATION OF TEXT AND AUDIO DATA

A method and apparatus for synchronizing audio data to text data in which the text is manually or automatically divided into an arbitrary number of sections and a text section is selected for display and presented to a narrator for audio input. A human narrator reads the displayed selected section of text into a computer to form an audio data portion for the selected section that is linked to the text by entering synchronization marks to the computer. The sections of text may be selected for reading and audio input in any order and by any number of narrators. Each recorded audio portion is converted to an audio data file and the audio data files are re-sequenced to conform to the original order of the text based on a playback control file. A plurality of narrators may contribute audio data from separate workstations of a network, or workstations which are connected to a central server over a communications network, such as the Internet. After the sections of text and accompanying audio have been properly sequenced and assembled into a single audio/text program, it is stored on a portable computer-readable medium (e.g. a CD-ROM) and a user may select from the playback control file any portion of the text for view and/or select any portion of viewed text and hear the audio portion corresponding thereto.