This script enables any debian based GNU/Linux distribution to talk! Based on Google's text to speach Android application, it gives you a few commands to ease your TTS experience on Linux.

Setup

Prerequisites

Before installing the script, you will need to install a few dependencies:

libttspico-utils
sox
zenity
xsel

To install all of them at once type the following command:

sudo apt-get install libttspico-utils sox zenity xsel

Warning: As libttspico-utils is a non-free package, it may not be available in your default packqge repositories.

Install

To start installing the script simply type:

./say.sh install

This will go through a few operations required for it to work properly:

creating a /home/user/bin/say directory
copying the scripts to newly created directory
creating and setting config file within newly created directory
adding an instruction to /gome/user/.bashrc file
reloading .bashrc file

Uninstall

As easy as installing, to remove everything type:

./say.sh uninstall

This operation does not remove dependencies as some of them might be native.

Configuration

During setup a default configuration will be set. You still can change it using the saycfg command. This command takes 3 arguments: language, volume and speed.

Example:

This command sets language to US English, volume to 1.2 and speed to 0.8

saycfg en-US 1.2 0.8

The script supports over to 6 different languages. Volume variates from 0 to 2 and speed from 0.5 to 1.5.

Available languages

en-GB British English

en-US US English

fr-FR French

de-DE Deutsch

es-ES Spanish

it-IT Italiam

Keyboard shortcuts

A keyboard shortcut can be set to use TTS functionnalities puside terminal. Simply set a new keyboard shortcut with the following command:

./bin/say/say.sh say

This command will start reading any text selected with your mouse. To stop reading, press the keyboard shortcut again.

Other useful commands

In order to make your end experience even better a few additional commands related to graphical interfaces were made available. You can use then within keyboard shortcuts to open them indipendently.

Open a new window with program settings and graphical TTS reader

./bin/say/say.sh gui

Open a new window with program language settings

./bin/say/say.sh gui lng

Open a new window with program volume settings

./bin/say/say.sh gui vol

Open a new window with program speed settings

./bin/say/say.sh gui spd

Commands

The following commands are available in command line

say

Start text interpretation and reading.

Basic usage

say Hello World!

Live changing language

If default configuration language doesn't fit with given text, you can overwrite it in command call.

say it-IT Buongiorno a tutti!

Using standard input

echo "Salut tout le monde!" | say

Even using standard input, language can still be overwritten:

echo "I love this app!" | say en-GB

saygui

Provides a GUI window that allows you to manage TTS with your mouse

saygui

You can choose to open a specific window by using an option

saygui tts

Available options are:

saycfg

Set full configuration

saycfg es-ES 1 1

-d option can be set instead of language to reset system default language

saycfg -d 2 1.5

saylng

Sets current language in configuration

saylng de-DE

-d option can be set instead of language to reset system default language

saylng -d

sayvol

Sets current volume in configuration. Volume can be set from 0 up tu 2

sayvol 2

sayspd

Sets current speed in configuration. Speed can be set from 0.5 to 1.5

sayspd 1.2