You've now successfully setup text to speech, using speech-dispatcher, espeak, mbrola, and mbrola-en1 using Okular through the Ubuntu Package Repository.

After the context menu appears, select 'Speak Text'.

Click & drag a box over a section of text you want Okular to read.

Press 'Ctrl+3' to set tool to 'Area Selection'.

If you're interested in using a PDF Reader that has a 'text to speech' feature, install Okular: sudo apt install okular I don't know how to test mbrola, so I will just continue on with my implementation of mobrola-en1. Testing the new British English voice in espeak will not produce your changes it will be the default espeak voice, not the 'en1', British English voice you're now using for mbrola. Start the daemon paste in the command: sudo speech-dispatcher -d Now comment it out by adding a hash at the beginning, like this: #DefaultModule espeak-ng Now search using 'Ctrl+W' and copy/paste: DefaultModule espeak-ng

LanguageDefaultModule 'en1' 'espeak-mbrola-generic' Paste the following at the top of the document: # Enable British English 'en1'ĪddModule 'espeak-mbrola-generic' 'sd_generic' 'nf' So open nf: sudo nano /etc/speech-dispatcher/nf To keep it simple, we'll paste our config at the top of nf and comment-out one setting in nf. Install the dependent applicatons: sudo apt install -y espeak mbrola mbrola-en1 speech-dispatcher speech-dispatcher-espeak-ng For this example, I'm going to use British English, which is 'en1'. This process works on 20.04.2 LTS (Focal Fossa): Find your voiceįind the desired mbrola voice by visiting the github: I still don't know how to employ the 'Variant' option. You should see the voice appear amongst the existing espeak voices in the language bar of Gespeaker.

Install a voice package.For example to install the US english female voice run You can view a list of available voice packages here: You should see something this if the install ran okayĪuthor : Thierry Dutoit with help of AC/DC adaptator Vincent PagelĬopyright (c) 95 Faculte Polytechnique de Mons (TCTS lab) - T.Dutoit.etc' First install the mbrola text-to-speech engine. I managed to add additional mbrola voices that can be used with Gespeaker. I don't know how to make use of this to add a variant (of a voice?). There is an option for variant in the voice section (where you have male and female - which work). To expand the text window to accommodate large chunks of texts click on the 'advanced settings' button (see image). It's easier to use especially for bits of text which you can cut and paste from a webpage and have read. I have been looking for ways to improve the espeak user experience including modifying/adding new voices and came across this article regarding Gespeaker which is a graphical interface for espeak.

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