TextAloud MP3

What works

Mostly everything, also tested version 2.303

What does not

The volume slider makes weird things, but it seems to be bound to the ubuntu volume slider, so does not represent any real problem.

 for example, the volume is set to 100%, and when the play button is pressed, slider changes to other volume, but the real output volume is the one in the Ubuntu volume slider. Moving the texxt aloud volume slider while it is playing, will affect the main volume output.

My suggestion, use the ubuntu volume slider, ignore the program volume slider.

 

The Sound sometimes gets muted, but not often..., pause-play and it will work again.

Workarounds

What was not tested

nothing

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

Ok The program actually installs fine, the problem is the SAPI5 engine. Here is how its done: first download these 2 files: http://www.1speechsoft.com/sapi51.msi http://www.nextup.com/files/FixRegistry.zip Change wine settings to Windows me. Install sapi51.msi, Use the fix-registry and patch, you might need to copy the 2 files to the wine-prefix drive c,and install them from there, since they don't run from Desktop. After patched, change wine to winxp again, install voices and text-aloud, everything should work fine. If you installed the engine with settings to xp, the patch wont work, reinstalling the engine wont also work unless you uninstall it first, in xp, and then change to WIN ME.

For those of you who can not figure out how to get TextAloud to work, I have the solution! You can now even have the SAPI5 and more advanced voices work!

Here are the steps that you take:

1) Download TextAloud and install it normally. (of course)
2) You must install SAPI4 and SAPI5. The problem is that neither of the official installers for either one seem to comply with wine, so I discovered that installing Speakonia also installs both SAPI4 and SAPI5 libraries with success. You can download Speakonia from here: http://www.cfs-technologies.com/home/?id=1.4
Installation of Speakonia is a piece of cake.

I'm not sure if you can uninstall it after you're done, since I'm not interested in going through the hassle again, but it's such a small app that I don't think it's worth uninstalling.

3) Now is the time to install any 3rd party voice add-ons. I installed the Jennifer voice from ScanSoft because it just sounds really good compared to the synthy voices that come with TextAloud. The higher quality 3rd party voices usually cost money though.

4) Open up TextAloud and it should load up normally. Don't be alarmed when you only find a few voices in the voice select and not the one you just installed. That means that TextAloud is only configured to use SAPI4 libraries, and most advanced voices require SAPI5. So in TextAloud, go to Options > Voice and File Options. Change to Use Both. A window might pop up, and just click ok. Now more voices including your 3rd party one (which was optional) will show up in the box underneath, so now you can exit out of the options.

There you have it! You should not be able to use TextAloud almost exactly like you were able to use it in Windows.