Hello guys, how you
doing? I am posting on the blog after a very long time. Sorry for that. So,
today I am going to explain you two things. One is Converting Text to Speech
& installing custom voices for Microsoft TTS Engine.
NOTE: This tutorial
will work only on Windows Vista & all the Windows released after it.
Windows Text To Speech
It
is a built-in TTS engine in Windows family from Windows 98. It synthesizes text
into voice. Every version of Windows comes with different Engines. Each engine
has improved the Speech quality. Here’s a list of default speech engines that
come with each Windows:-
1.
Windows XP –
Microsoft Sam
2.
Windows 7 –
Microsoft Anna
3.
Windows 8 –
Microsoft Mike
4.
Windows 10 –
Microsoft David & Microsoft Zira
After
the introduction of the Microsoft Speech API 5.0, the voices became more
natural sounding. Unfortunately, Windows 7 comes with Microsoft Anna Built-In
which sounds very Robotic.
1. Converting Text to Speech
So,
to convert Text to Speech, we’re going to be scripting one Batch File that will
accept some text & speak it aloud. If you are not familiar with Batch
Programming, go and see my Batch Programming Tutorial Series. We’re also going
to need to download one Software. It is known as NirCMD. To download it, click here(32-bit) OR click here(64-bit).
So,
after downloading it, you should get one file named ‘NirCMD.exe’, we only need
this file. Follow the below steps to create your own Text to Speech converting
Batch program.
Steps:-
1. Create a new
folder (for ex. TTS) at a convenient location.
2. Copy the ‘NirCMD.exe’
there.
3.
Open Notepad,
and type the following code into it
@echo off
Title Text to Speech Converter
set speech=start nircmd.exe speak text
Echo Enter Text to be converted into speech:
Set /p text=Enter Text:
Echo Speaking text aloud..
%speech% "%text%"
Pause
4.
Save the file
with any name (TTS.bat). Just make sure it has ‘.bat’ at the end to make it a
bath file. Save it in the same folder in which you copied the ‘NirCMD.exe’
file.
Now,
you’ve the Batch File ready. You can make many modifications like changing
colors, etc. to make it more user-friendly. Now, open the Batch File, &
type the text you want, and the computer will speak it aloud.
Now,
the problem is, if you’re on Windows 7, Microsoft Anna (the default voice)
sounds very Robotic. This brings us to the Second part of the Post, that is to
Add custom voices to Windows 7.
2. Adding Custom Voices to Win 7
To
add new voices, we will need to download some packages from Microsoft. One is
the Microsoft Speech API 5.0 voices & the voice itself. There are many voices
available for SAPI 5, but the are not free. Microsoft has 6 free voices(all
female). I will leave the links for all the stuff. Now, just installing these packages
don’t work(I don’t know Why?). We have
to make some changes to the registry, which is sometimes complex & if any
error occurs, it could fatally damage the system.
So,
I’ve picked one voice that is ZiraPro. It is the most natural sounding voice,
& I’ll provide the registry files that will automatically install. But, if
you want to learn how to do it for other voices, then comment down. With
sufficient comments, I’ll tell you how to do it.
Follow
the steps below correctly to make the voice Work
1.
Download &
install the Windows SAPI 5 voices.
2. Then download &
install the desired voice(ZiraPro Preferred).
2.1 Go Here & Click on Download. On the list that appears, look for 'MSSpeech_TTS_en- US_ZiraPro.msi'. Then click download & install it.
3.
Then download
the following registry entries.
4.
It’s a Zip. It contains
two files. Extract them. Open the first file & click Yes on the Dialog Box
that appears. Do the same for the 2nd file.
5.
Now, if you’re
running 32-bit Windows, simply search for TTS in he start menu. Then, click on ‘Change
Text To Speech Settings’.
6.
If you’re
running 64-bit windows, then you should run the following command ‘%windir%\SysWOW64\Speech\SpeechUX\sapi.cpl’ without
quotes in the Run Dialog Box.
7.
Then, select ‘Microsoft Server
Speech Text to Speech Voice (en-US, ZiraPro)’
from the list.
8.
Click on OK. You’re
Done.
Download Registries Here.
So,
that was for this post. If you want me to do more such posts about Text To
Speech, then let me know in the comments down below.
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