I am completely incapable of understanding all this stuff. Can someone
simply tell me if there is a pitch or an intonation parameter similar to the
rate parameter?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Esther" <[email protected]>
To: "Mac OSX & iOS Accessibility" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2013 5:17 PM
Subject: Re: Text to Speech parameters
Hi Phil,
Well you can find the original post by using the mail archive search and
typing in:
from:Esther add spoken track
But I'll paste in the information again from my reply to your question
about adding spoken tracks to iTunes, starting from the developer
documentation link, and giving an example of using the "say" command. On
the developer's web page, you can use the web rotor set to links to
navigate to the section (e.g., with QuickNav on, press VO-U, then use your
Up+Left or Up+Right arrow keys to move to "Links" and type a few letters
from the section name to find it in the menu), or you can simply use item
chooser menu (VO-I), and type in a few search terms, pause, then type the
beginning letters of the word "link" to find it in the menu. There's also
a table (3-1) of the commands. By the way, the reason that you can use
the "say" command in Terminal the way that Sarah describes to start
speaking a really long piece of text is that the "say" command processes
the text as it goes. There's no way to back up or control the process
once you start -- short of killing the process. You do
n't have to store the sounds because you're recording. It's a bit like
the way previewing audio files and documents by selecting them in Finder
and pressing space bar works -- the content just keeps getting piped
through. You can't go in and edit an audio file or change your position,
but it's low impact on the system.
I also test most of the commands by using the "say" command in Terminal.
You can type them in TextEdit or copy some of the examples that Sarah gave
from mail, then switch to the Terminal app with Command-Tab, paste in the
line with Command-v, and press return to have it take effect.
<begin excerpt from my previous post>
If you want to learn more about the command arguments that can be used to
control speech, check out the guide at the Apple Developer's Web site for
information on how to embed commands into the text to speed it up or
change other attributes:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/SpeechSynthesisProgrammingGuide/index.html
Embedded commands are described in the section titled "Techniques for
Customizing Synthesized Speech" > "Use Embedded Speech Commands to
Fine-Tune Spoken Output". There are a number of four-letter commands in
addition to "rate" that will let you do things like increase or decrease
volume ("volm"), change the way numbers are spoken ("nmbr" with the LTRL
argument to speak digit by digit, as in phone numbers, or with the NORM
argument to go back to the default mode). They can all be used together,
enclose within two left and two right brackets, and separated by
semi-colons. You have to read the strings character by character to hear
the arguments.
If you're comfortable using the Terminal command line, you can test out
commands on speech strings by enclosing them in quotation marks, and using
the unix "say" command. Note that embedded commands cannot be used to
select a voice, although the "v" switch of the "say" command can accept an
argument for the voice.
For example, here's the command to get Fred rather than Alex, speaking
fast at slightly boosted volume, with the "say" command. Open up
Terminal, paste the string in, and press "return" to hear the results:
say -v Fred "[[rate 400; volm +0.2]]Am I speaking too fast?"
<end excerpt>
You can use these commands to speak acronyms letter by letter, or speak
phone numbers. Again, try pasting this into Terminal and pressing return:
say "Please call me at [[nmbr LTRL]] 5551990 [[nmbr NORM]]."
Here's an incomplete list of some of the four-letter embedded commands for
controlling speech:
char speaks the following word letter by letter
cmnt lets you insert a comment that isn't spoken
ctxt identifies a context for speech synthesizer pronunciation (I've
never tried this)
dlim lets you change the delimiter characters used for embedded speech
commands
emph lets you increase or decrease emphasis of the next word (takes an
argument of "+" or "-")
inpt lets you change the pronunciation model from straight text to
options like phonetic (takes an argument)
nmbr lets you speak numbers digit by digit if you use the LTRL argument
instead of NORM
pbas changes current speech pitch (takes an argument with "+" or "-")
pmod changes pitch modulation range (takes an argument with "+' or "-")
rate sets the speaking rate; can be used either with a value or by
increasing or decreasing (with "+" or "-")
rset resets speech parameters to default values (may need to be "rset 0")
slnc lets you add a period of silence (takes an argument)
volm lets you set or increase/decrease volume (takes an argument)
You really have to read through Apple's Developer's document to understand
how to use these, and the general background concepts for controlling
speech.
HTH. Cheers,
Esther
Sarah k Alawami wrote:
and I think it's limited. You cannot for example do a 40 page txt file
spoken to iTunes. lol! with the say command it does not even bad an
eye. It might take a hwioe to voice the file but it works for what i
need it to do.
Take care.
Phil Halton wrote:
I don't believe I got that message with the link to the apple article.
If I had I would have read it thoroughly before asking.
Can you provide that link?
Travis Siegel wrote:
The document that Esther pointed to in a previous message in this
thread from apple that describes the speech generation process,
contains the whole list of codes you can use during your speech
generation process. Feel free to take a look at that document, and if
you still have questions, I'm sure we'd be happy to assist. If I
remember correctly, there's something like 15 or 20 different commands
that can be used. It's been quite some time since I read the document
though, so I could be exaggerating a bit.
However, you can't go wrong with the link that was posted, it's the
documentation apple themselves wrote on how the process works, and
what commands are available.
hth
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