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Immersive Reader, and PDF Read-Aloud to mp3 possible?

Anonymous
2022-05-12T23:47:58+00:00

Hello!

I noticed that there seems to be some text to speech engine that Microsoft Edge is using within its own immersive reader, I would like to know if it is possible to convert the entire audio of the immersive reader's text to speech into an mp3 file! It also seems to be able to be run locally, so I don't need to connect to the internet. Is there an API for this text to speech engine?

To those that are about to point me in the direction of Microsoft's Speech Services, I have already used it, and I love it! I am merely looking at other options of text to speech engines that can run locally (on my machine). I have looked into flite (CMU's text engine), mimic (AI-powered engine based off CMU's flite text engine), espeak-ng (extremely robotic, sadly), and other engines, but that is another story for another day.

Any suggestions?

Microsoft Edge | Read PDFs | Windows 10

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-05-14T17:19:08+00:00

    Well, I just had an interesting discovery... I found the exact text to speech engine that Microsoft Edge uses. Another interesting discovery is that the immersive reader and the read aloud for PDF seems to be running off different text to speech engines.

    The PDF Read-Aloud feature seems to be using Microsoft Azure's text to speech engine. What's interesting, is that the Azure text to speech engine requires the internet, but Microsoft Edge seems to be running a local copy to run the PDF Read-aloud text to speech. I wonder how to use a local copy instead of connecting to the internet, and converting it to mp3, similar to this: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive-services/speech-service/get-started-text-to-speech?tabs=terminal&pivots=programming-language-cliBut it seems the above link requires an internet connection for the API... How does Microsoft Edge do it locally?

    6 people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Anonymous
    2022-05-14T02:14:20+00:00

    I do not want to have to record the text to speech clip using audacity. Rather, I want to use the same text-to-speech engine on Microsoft edge to generate the audio file for me. This will save on both computation power, and time for generating the file.

    audacity + tts engine = audio

    vs

    tts engine’s API = audio

    5 people found this answer helpful.
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  3. Anonymous
    2022-05-13T23:37:09+00:00

    See if this helps, a recorder for Windows text to speech:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxINb9Cg9m0

    3 people found this answer helpful.
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  4. Anonymous
    2022-05-13T23:11:11+00:00

    As mentioned, I was particularly looking for an API for the text-to-speech engine. I am well aware that obs (screensharing tool) and ffmpeg and audacity all the other open-source tools exists, and can even save the audio. However, I want it to immediately run, so that I don't have to wait for a long time before it finally finishes...

    I am using the text to speech engine so that I can generate long audio clips without waiting that entire length.

    For example, if I wanted to say the sentence:
    The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

    I don't want to wait for 10 seconds of recording and another minute to export, etc. that's too much time, I wanted it to be instantaneously (or almost instant) generated, kind of like the other options I mentioned.

    3 people found this answer helpful.
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  5. Anonymous
    2022-05-13T00:37:01+00:00

    Hi Rubiks. I'm Greg, 10 years awarded Windows MVP, here to help you.

    Have you tried Audacity? See more about that recording option for Edge Read Aloud here:

    https://www.softwarert.com/record-audio-from-ed...

    https://www.tenforums.com/browsers-email/187363...

    https://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-10/the-best-wi...

    https://free-screen-recorder.en.softonic.com/wi...

    Feel free to ask back any questions. Based on the results you post back I may have other suggestions if necessary.

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    1 person found this answer helpful.
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