TextAloud MP3

What works

All functions within Wine.

What does not

Out of the box no (see howto below).

Under Wine The full Textaloud features of click-to-speak in Firefox & auto speak from copy only function under Wine. If you wish to send text to Textaloud from locations outside of Wine you must manually copy & paste.

Workarounds

What was not tested

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

Install Wine.‭ ‬Wine provides a microsoft-free Windows API needed to run TextAloud on Linux.‭ ‬If Wine is not installed yet on your system,‭ ‬you will have to download and install appropriate package‭ (‬download is free‭) ‬from‭ ‬http://www.Winehq.com/site/download See Wine User Guide for detailed instructions: http://www.winehq.org/site/docs/wineusr-guide/index Configure Wine.‭ ‬Newest builds have graphic interface and are easy to configure.‭ ‬Just run‭ '‬winecfg‭' ‬command to invoke the configuration applet.‭ ‬Some Windows versions are toucher than others.‭ ‬Make sure Wine is set to use appropriate sound drivers.‭ ‬Older Linux distributions‭ (‬kernel‭ ‬2.4‭) ‬typically used OSS drivers,‭ ‬while‭ ‬2.6‭ ‬kernels have switched to ALSA.‭ ‬Also set Acceleration to‭ ‘‬Standard‭’ ‬and uncheck‭ ‘‬Driver Emulation‭’ ‬box under audio settings tab.‭ ‭ Install the SAPI5 interface. SAPI5 interface is required for NeoSpeech premium voices to be used in TextAloud on Linux. SAPI5 download is free and is available at http://www.webaloud.com/files/Microsoft ... TTS-51.msi or http://www.webaloud.com/files/Microsoft-English-TTS-51.msi) Also, the Microsoft Sapi5 versions of Mary and Mike voices are available at (http://www.nextup.com/files/MarMike5.msi) Note that these voices do not work with Windows Vista and later,‭ ‬so you probably should set your Windows emulation to XP before installing these.‭ ‭ Install TextAloud. ‭ Launch TextAloud to verify it works ok with free Microsoft voices bundled with SAPI5 package and then exit. If you see the splash screen but TextAloud freezes at the initialization stage, you should try to change audio settings in Wine. The problem is that TextAloud just can’t find appropriate audio driver. So try switching to a different audio driver in Wine. ‭ Sttill problems? The sapi.dll sometimes fails to install. The sapi.dll should be here .wine/drive_c/‭´‬Program Files‭´‬/‭´‬Common Files‭´‬/‭´‬Microsoft Shared‭´‬/Speech‭ ‬If sapi.dll is there,‭ ‬you can try registering the dll manually,‭ ‬using regsvr32.‭ ‬Run regsvr32‭ ‬in the terminal window,‭ ‬like this:‭ ‬$‭ ‬regsvr32‭ ‬sapi.dll ‭* I had the sapi.dll fine on 1 system others no (or I just did not find it (installed to wrong folder?). I emailed the sapi.dll to myself and put it in the correct folder. Then I ran‭ ‬egsvr32‭ ‬sapi.dll‭ ‬.‭ ‬ALL systems are running Wine‭ (‬XP‭) ‬Textaloud fine‭ ‬.‭ The sapi setup installs several dll's, and writes lots of registry entries. The sapi.dll file seems to be the only install faulure. Other potential souces: Starting with Windows XP, Sapi 5 is built into the Windows operating system. On actual XP system, you can do a low level reinstall of sapi5 using setup files in the folder c:\windows\inf (with a Windows XP install cd). I don't see these setup files in windows\inf on Ubuntu. Make sure you're using XP emulation. The dll is an XP dll, and the dll location is for XP only. The dll version and location is different in Vista / Win 7. Contact Nextup.com tech support & ask them to email the sapi.dll you need to you so that you can patch it in. ‭Install the voices that you want NeoSpeech , Microsoft , AT&T, etc. ‭ ‬Launch TextAloud and enjoy using premium voices with this great text-to-speech application on Linux.‭ Hopefully a Textaloud DEB package will be developed.

2014-11-08 Admin note: the following was extracted from a user comment made on 2013-11-04, and may or may not be relevant to current Wine. 

TextAloud installs as usual in a 64-bit system, but some voices are picky.
The 3 Cereproc voices I have (Adam, Kathrine, William) will not install with wine 1.4 but are OK with wine 1.6

AT&T voices will not install normally from OLD CDs. They want a 32-bit system (not 16-bit?) The solution is to install Textaloud, MS sapi, and voices in a new wineprefix that has been set to win32 with WINEARCH.