It is a simple matter to use the default dictionary to deal with this if you have material that you read frequently that uses separator lines, regardless of the character used.

 

I long ago added an entry to the speech dictionary to handle lines of repeated asterisks, dashes, or plus signs, when there are more than three in a row.  I've extracted the component parts here:

 

Comment:  Announce any long string of hyphens, plus signs, or asterisks as "separator line"

 

Pattern:  (\+|-|\*){3,}

 

Replacement:  Separator Line

 

Type:   Regular Expression

 

If that is included in the speech dictionary any line consisting of 3 or more of those characters, in any combination, will be announced as "Separator Line."   One could, of course, elect to have no replacement, but I never do that.  I want to know that something has been encountered, and what the nature of it was.

 

I'll include a couple of examples, with a description of what follows before each.  They will all read as "separator line."

 

All Hyphens:

-----------

 

All Asterisks:

**********

 

All Plus Signs:

++++++++++

 

All three characters in repeating combination:

-*+-*+-*+-*+-*+-*+-*+-*+-*+-*+