Here is a better way using the terminal:
say -f <text file> -o <output aiff>
Simple, and effective. Uses the speech speed from the Speech System
Preferences.
Now, want to get more complicated? You could use a unix application
called PDF2TXT which will convert a file from pdf to text. Then you
could use say to read that text file, convert the audio to aiff. Then
you could use sox to change the file from aiff to wav. Finally, encode
that wav with LAME or FLAC, maybe even faac.
To figure this out took me a full afternoon one day in college. I
wanted to load up my etexts provided to me as a PDF, into my iPod
Shuffle. That way I could do my laundry while reading my boring
management books. Not only did I read my management books while doing
laundry, I also did my homework at the gym, on the bus, at Walmart
while shopping with friends, etc.
So, I understand exactly why you would want to make this happen.
Ryan
On Nov 4, 2007, at 8:38 AM, jesus hernandez wrote:
hello darcy it is jessie. loved your podcast and got leopard it
rocks.
On Nov 3, 2007, at 8:32 PM, Darcy Burnard wrote:
Hi. I've decided to learn to use automator. I played with it
briefly a little while ago, but never did much with it.
I was thinking that I wanted to make an automator workflow that
could use Alex to convert the contents of a text file to an aac
file that I could then put on my ipod.
I have a couple questions about the text to audio file automator
action. First and foremost, is there any way to change the speed
of the voice? It defaults to a very slow setting. I thought this
might be changed under the speech section of system preferences,
but no go.
Also, is there a way of getting the contents of a text file in to
that action without having to use text edit? I was thinking there
must be an action that could get the contents of a text file and
pass that text along to the following action. The only action I
could find was one that got the contents of the front most text
edit document.
Anyway, as I said I'm just learning automator, so it's very
possible that the answers to my questions are obvious, but I'm
currently stumped.
Thanks.
Darcy
