The Preferences

Enable Sound Effects: Hangman Pro includes a considerable amount of fun, digitized sound effects and speech synthesis. Use this checkbox to enable or disable these sound effects.

Stretch Photos - Photos displayed as part of the Photo Words feature of Hangman Pro can be stretched to fit the photo area, or displayed with the original aspect ratio intact. A stretched picture sometimes looks better (even though its aspect ratio may be distorted) just because it totally fills the photo area.

Clear Info on New Game: When checked, any information about the previously guessed word or phrase will be cleared when a new game begins.

Word Flashes - Choose 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 flashes. When a game is finished, the program will flash the word or phrase just guessed the number of times you select.

Allow Hints - Hangman Pro supports hints. If you enter your own words one at a time, or generate your own custom word lists you can always include hints, if desired. Some, but not all, built-in categories include hints. If there are hints available, you can use the Preferences to decide how to utilize these hints. You can choose NEVER (which will prevent a hint from being shown, even if it is available), ALWAYS (which will always allow a hint to be shown if it is available), or AS LAST CHANCE ONLY (which will only allow a hint, if available, when there is only one guess left before hanging...in other words, as a last resort.) 

Guess Letter Timer - Hangman Pro, by default, is NOT a timed game. You can take your time, play at your own pace, and take as long as you want to guess each letter. But, sometimes, to make the game more competitive and to make the game move faster, you might want to choose a timed game. Choose the 5, 10 or 20 second time limits to limit the amount of time you have before you must guess a letter. If the time limit expires without you guessing a letter, you will automatically lose one guess. In a timed game, the clock doesn't actually start until you make the first guess of a letter.

Speech Preferences - On the right side of the Preference Dialog, there are a series of Speech Preferences Checkboxes that you can use to customize how Hangman Pro uses Speech Synthesis. You can, for instance, have the speech synthesizer speak and/or spell the word or phrase when a game is won or lost. The Speech Synthesis capabilities and preferences were included mostly to help visually-challenged users enjoy Hangman Pro, but Speech Synthesis is really quite fun for everyone. I hope you'll give it a chance. You can even customize the words of encouragement (or discouragement) that are spoken. See the Speech Menu for more info.
