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#1 |
Grand Sorcerer
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[GUI Plugin] TTS to MP3: Create MP3 audiobook using Windows TTS
*** May 15, 2022
Unfortunately, due to issues at home, I will no longer be providing ongoing support for this plugin. Hopefully the latest version will work OK in calibre v5.xx and the upcoming calibre v6.xx *** Feb 2024: Still working OK in calibre v7.xx *** Purpose: This plugin can record a set of audiobook MP3 files for a non-DRM ebook in your calibre library. For most retail fiction ebooks this is likely to equate to one MP3 per chapter. The selected book needs to be available in EPUB, AZW3 or KEPUB format. Notes:
Pros: Free. Can be played on any MP3 player or smartphone app. No waiting for a publisher to decide if/when an audiobook will be available. Cons: Obviously, automated TTS is not as good as a reading by a good professional voice artiste. Background: The original idea came from Doitsu's Sigil plugin, Windows TTS output. This was a fun project for me which provided a personal challenge to create a plugin which can run in the background. I'm sharing it here with Doitsu's permission. Features: See first attached screenshot for main GUI screen.
How to install: Preferences - Get plugins to enhance calibre Select TTS to MP3 then press Install How to use: Spoiler:
Configuration: See third attached screenshot. Spoiler:
Testing: All testing was done on a Windows 10 x64 PC running calibre x64 and using voices of various dialects of English. The plugin may work on Windows 8 but I'm not sure. Credits: Thanks to Doitsu for the original Sigil work and for beta-testing. Thanks to chye who didn't hang around MobileRead for long but did create a TTS plugin for the calibre Viewer. This code was very helpful. Thanks, as always, to kovidgoyal for fast help with technical issues. The plugin uses LAME for generating MP3 files. Version History: Spoiler:
Last edited by jackie_w; 02-16-2024 at 08:18 AM. Reason: Added note re: calibre v7 |
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#2 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Join Date: Sep 2009
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Device: Kobo: KA1, ClaraHD, Forma, Libra2, Clara2E. PocketBook: TouchHD3
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More about TTS Voices
On a Windows 10 64-bit PC running calibre 64-bit, for any Voice to appear in this plugin's Voice list it needs to be installed in the Windows registry under this key (see second screenshot):
Code:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Speech\Voices\Tokens] On a Windows 10 PC running calibre 32-bit (including Calibre Portable) the Voices you can access will depend on which version of this plugin you're using:
Attached at the end of this post is a zip file for the old version of TTS to MP3 which works on calibre v3.41-v5.3 inclusive. If you are new to this plugin and are running a version of calibre <v5.4 then you can download this zip file and install it manually via calibre: Preferences > Plugins > Load plugin from file ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Windows users can install additional Voices, both Microsoft (and 3rd-party purchases). For details see this website. For my testing I was able to install all these MS English dialect voices quite easily using standard Windows settings options: Voices marked with * are Cortana Speech Assistant voices. English - GB: Hazel, Susan, George, Sarah* N.B. Cortana Eva (US) and Cortana Eva (Canada) are stored as separate files so don't assume they are the same thing.English - US: Zira, David, Mark, Eva* English - Canada: Linda, Richard, Eva* English - Australia: Catherine, James, Matilda* English - India: Heera, Ravi, Koyal* English - Ireland: Sean The installed MS Voice files are stored in C:\Windows\Speech_OneCore\Engines\TTS\ Each language/dialect has its own sub-directory e.g. English US voices are stored in C:\Windows\Speech_OneCore\Engines\TTS\en-US\ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now comes the tricky part. Just because you installed some voices doesn't necessarily mean this plugin (or the Sigil one) can automatically see them. Unfortunately, solving this problem requires editing your Windows Registry. *** This is most definitely not something you should undertake lightly *** There is a tutorial here which tells you how to enable the English US voices Mark and Eva. Windows Registry (.reg) update files are provided. Before you run them you should make sure that your directory C:\Windows\Speech_OneCore\Engines\TTS\en-US actually contains files for Mark and Eva (see first attached screenshot) Using the Eva/Mark .reg files and a bit of Sherlock-ian extrapolation I was able to create similar .reg files to enable all the voices listed above for this plugin and the Sigil one. For anyone who is comfortable with Windows Registry editing and its potential risks I'm happy to share all the .reg files I created. You need to PM me as I'm not happy posting them in public without a lot more testing by others. Last edited by jackie_w; 10-28-2020 at 07:01 PM. Reason: Attached v0.4.1 of the plugin for users of calibre <v5.4 |
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#3 |
US Navy, Retired
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Location: North Carolina
Device: Icarus Illumina XL HD, Nexus 7
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Looking forward to experimenting with this. Thanks.
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#4 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Join Date: Sep 2009
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Device: Kobo: KA1, ClaraHD, Forma, Libra2, Clara2E. PocketBook: TouchHD3
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#5 |
Grand Sorcerer
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update v0.1.1
Sigh ... unfortunately it appears that some of the Microsoft Speech interface will only run on 64-bit Windows/calibre. This will exclude the plugin from running on calibre Portable.
This update will fail in a slightly more graceful way if a 32-bit user tries to use it. At the moment I don't have any realistic hope that I'll be able to work around this limitation. |
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#6 |
creator of calibre
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@jackie_w: Can you change PLUGIN_DESCRIPTION in __init__.py to be a plain string, without using %. This is because the scraper that reads plugin metadata to build the index of plugins cannot handle that. Once you make the change, the scraper will be able to pick up your plugin and it will appear in calibre.
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#7 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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Quote:
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#8 |
Grand Sorcerer
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update v0.1.3
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#9 |
Connoisseur
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Join Date: Jul 2018
Location: CA, USA.
Device: Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition and Samsung 10.1 tablet
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I have a question is it possible to use this plug in to access new voices that our new chrome edge has in windows 10 I would like to use calibre and this plugin to use these voices that somehow our new edge has access to, but for whatever reasons they didn't make it easy to access outside of read aloud in Microsoft new edge software I think. it would be great if I could access Jessa Online (natural) english voice from outside of edge, any ideas how I could go about making the normal tts access it under windows 10 without having to use edge's new chrome browser to access it, I can get it to read text in edge but have not been able to use it outside of that software yet. microsoft added neural text-to-speech which are based on this information about in below a link to a page on this new voices.
https://www.neowin.net/news/microsof...ium-based-edge The cloud-powered voices in Read Aloud are categorized into two styles – Neural Voices and Standard Voices. Neural voices – Powered by deep neural networks, these voices are the most natural sounding voices available today. Microsoft Jessa Online (Natural) English (United States) Microsoft Guy Online (Natural) English (United States) Last edited by KindleAZWorKFX; 02-10-2020 at 02:42 AM. Reason: added more detail on this topic |
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#10 |
Connoisseur
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I want to get calibre to be able to use or select the Neural voices with the TTS to MP3 plugin for calibre if that's even possible any ideas how to go about accessing the voices that our new edge has in it outside of the new Chromium-based Edge browser?
https://www.neowin.net/news/microsof...ium-based-edge The cloud-powered voices in Read Aloud are categorized into two styles – Neural Voices and Standard Voices. Neural voices – Powered by deep neural networks, these voices are the most natural sounding voices available today. Microsoft Jessa Online (Natural) English (United States) Microsoft Guy Online (Natural) English (United States) Last edited by BetterRed; 02-10-2020 at 04:10 PM. Reason: Moved into the relevant plugin thread. |
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#11 |
null operator (he/him)
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Moderator Notice
@KindleAZWorKFX - please don't post duplicates, see ==>> Posting Guidelines -- #3. BR |
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#12 | ||
Grand Sorcerer
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Quote:
![]() In the short term, the answer is 'No'. The last I heard about MS Edge was when MS removed the ability to use it to read EPUB files. If the new Edge voices are only available to those who sign up to the MS beta programme then I can confirm that this plugin won't work with them. I can't currently see them on my Win10 PC. I don't know about longer term because I won't see them until they become part of standard Windows 10. However, I don't want to raise your hopes that it's only a matter of time. This extract from your link doesn't make me very hopeful (bolding mine): Quote:
The plugin as-is has 3 components:
To do what you've asked for (if it's even possible) I suspect that item 1. would need to be replaced with a brand new component using this new JavaScript SpeechSynthesis API rather than the old MS SAPI5 Text-to-Speech. Unfortunately the technical stuff in the existing item 1. was not even written by me. I re-used some existing code found in an old calibre Viewer TTS plugin. The user who actually wrote it (and presumably understood it ![]() TL: DNR; I'll take a closer look when these new voices become part of mainstream Windows 10 but without help from a volunteer technical guru, who fancies an interesting little side project, I'm not particularly hopeful. ![]() Last edited by jackie_w; 02-10-2020 at 12:20 PM. |
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#13 |
null operator (he/him)
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Just a thought : I use Balabolka to listen to e-books via calibre's built-in Open With, it may have plans to incorporate MS's latest TTS offering.
BR |
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#14 |
Connoisseur
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so I tried to find that app called Balabolka, what I found didn't seem to run on windows 10, it install but didn't load correctly.
also as far as I know these two voices are only available so far in read aloud in the new Chromium-based Edge browser, I don't think Microsoft is going to put them into the text to speech feature of windows 10 as far as I know. anyway if you could make an chrome edge supported plugin that works with an chrome epub reader since the text to speech seems to work somewhat in this new edge you can load some of the google chromes stores plugins in the edge browser, it supports EPUB READER plugin in the new edge browser and it can be used with epub files and read aloud using the voices, I just can't get it to convert them to mp3 files as far as I know. its plugin Version: 1 . 0 . 3. and please note that some of the chrome plugins don't work in our new edge browser, for example google play ebooks plugin works in chrome browser but it will not load and install in this new edge browser, so its only somewhat compatible with googles chromes plugins. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions https://chrome.google.com/webstore/d...pjimakkbocjgkh if you can make a chrome store TTS to mp3 plugin work with the an epub reader then the voices below could in theory be used to make files of the ebooks maybe. Neural voices – Powered by deep neural networks, these voices are the most natural sounding voices available today. Microsoft Jessa Online (Natural) English (United States) Microsoft Guy Online (Natural) English (United States) also this plugin in new edge you can read google play books and use the TTS with them under new edge you can select these neural voices and use this plugin below seems to work to read the google play ebooks. below pluging has try before you buy option its not fully freeware, but it does seem to work when using the Jessa voice below with google's epub ebooks from there website, in the website view of the ebooks the below plugin seems to work with the read aloud software in the new edge, thats also something that says you should be able to get an TTS to MP4 plugin working with either plugins ebooks readers I would think maybe if someone created some plugins to do the work of converting TTS to MP3 in a chrome plugin if thats something you want to even try to do. TTS Reader: Speak Google Books Aloud https://chrome.google.com/webstore/d...nchmipiafijikf ![]() Last edited by KindleAZWorKFX; 02-17-2024 at 03:01 AM. Reason: added detail to this topic, added more stuff in this topic. |
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#15 |
null operator (he/him)
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Balabolka has been running here since XP, then Win 7, now on Win 10 1909. Did you get it from the Balabolka site or elsewhere -- I am always wary of 'elsewhere' download sites? I mainly use Balabolka to create MP3's to I play on my pod or phone.
Maybe MS will resurrect the EPUB reader in Edge and fold in the TTS technology you want. The pre-chrome Edge Epub Viewer had TTS, which was quite good. Not sure if it was SAPI or this new stuff… or something else entirely. BR |
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Tags |
calibre, mp3, neural, tts, voices |
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