<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//KDE//DTD DocBook XML V4.2-Based Variant V1.1//EN" "dtd/kdex.dtd" [
<!ENTITY ktts "<application>KTTS</application>">
<!ENTITY kappname "&ktts;">
<!ENTITY package "tdeaccessibility">
<!ENTITY mbrola "<application>MBROLA</application>">
<!ENTITY % imageobjectco.module "INCLUDE">
<!ENTITY % addindex "IGNORE">
<!ENTITY % English "INCLUDE">
]>
<!-- Note to translators: KTTSD is meant to be built under KDE
versions 3.2 and later. Please avoid entities that won't
be defined under those KDE versions. Thanks.
-->
<!-- kdoctemplate v0.9 January 10 2003
Changes to comments to clarify entity usage January 10 2003
Minor update to "Credits and Licenses" section on August 24, 2000
Removed "Revision history" section on 22 January 2001
Changed to Installation/Help menu entities 18 October 2001
Other minor cleanup and changes 18 October 2001
FPI change and minor changes November 2002 -->
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<book lang="&language;">
<!-- This header contains all of the meta-information for the document such
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<bookinfo>
<title>The &ktts; Handbook</title>
<authorgroup>
<author>
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and use `&George.N.Ugnacious; &George.N.Ugnacious.mail;' in the author element.
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<personname>
<firstname>Gary</firstname>
<othername>R.</othername>
<surname>Cramblitt</surname>
</personname>
<email>garycramblitt@comcast.net</email>
</author>
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</authorgroup>
<copyright>
<year>2004-2005</year>
<holder>Gary R. Cramblitt</holder>
</copyright>
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<date>2005-07-31</date>
<releaseinfo>1.05.00</releaseinfo>
<!-- Abstract about this handbook -->
<abstract>
<para>
&ktts; - the &kde; Text-to-Speech system - is
a plugin based service that
allows any &kde; (or non-&kde;) application to speak using the &DCOP; interface.
</para>
<para>&ktts; intends to be the implementation for the &kde; Text-to-Speech API.</para>
</abstract>
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<keywordset>
<keyword>KDE</keyword>
<keyword>accessibility</keyword>
<keyword>tdeaccessibility</keyword>
<keyword>TTS</keyword>
<keyword>Text-to-Speech</keyword>
<keyword>KTTSD</keyword>
<keyword>kttsmgr</keyword>
<keyword>festival</keyword>
<keyword>flite</keyword>
<keyword>hadifix</keyword>
<keyword>MBROLA</keyword>
<keyword>freetts</keyword>
<keyword>epos</keyword>
<keyword>SSML</keyword>
</keywordset>
</bookinfo>
<!-- The contents of the documentation begin here. Label
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consistent documentation style across all KDE apps. -->
<!-- ====================================================================== -->
<chapter id="introduction">
<title>Introduction</title>
<!-- The introduction chapter contains a brief introduction for the
application that explains what it does and where to report
problems. Basically a long version of the abstract. Don't include a
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<para>&ktts; is a subsysem within &kde; for producing
Text-to-Speech (TTS). It provides a common API for &kde; programmers to give
TTS capabilities to their applications. It provides some
nice capabilities for end users as well.</para>
<para>User features:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Speak contents of a text file.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Speak &kde; notification events (KNotify).</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Speak all or part of the text of a web page in &konqueror;.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Speak all or part of the text in &kate; text editor,
including instances where &kate; is embedded in another &kde; application.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Long text is parsed into sentences. User may backup by sentence
or paragraph, replay, pause, and stop playing.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Audio output via &arts;, ALSA, GStreamer (version 0.8.7 or later), or aKode.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>User-configurable filters for substituting misspoken words, choosing
speech synthesizers, and transforming XHMTL/&XML; documents.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>Programmer features:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Priority system for screen reader outputs, warnings and messages, while still playing regular texts.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Plugin-based architecture for support of a wide variety of speech synthesis engines and drivers.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Permit generation of speech from the command line (or via shell scripts) using the &kde; &DCOP; utilities.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Provide a lightweight and easily usable interface for applications to generate speech output.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Applications need not be concerned about contention over the speech device.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>FUTURE: Provide support for speech markup languages, such as VoiceXML, Sable, &Java; Speech Markup Language (JSML), and Speech Markup Meta-language (SMML).</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>FUTURE: Provide limited support for embedded speech markers.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Asynchronous to prevent system blocking.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>&ktts; actually consists of several programs:
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><command>kttsd</command></term>
<listitem><para>the &kde; Text-to-Speech Daemon, which is a non-&GUI;
application that provides TTS services to applications via &DCOP;.
</para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><command>kttsmgr</command></term>
<listitem><para>a &GUI; application for configuring and controlling
kttsd. kttsmgr sits in the system tray.
</para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><command>libtdehtmlkttsdplugin</command></term>
<listitem><para>A plugin for the &konqueror; web browser that permits you
to speak all or a portion of the text on a web page.
</para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><command>tdetexteditor_kttsd</command></term>
<listitem><para>A plugin for the &kate; text editor that permits you to speak
all or a portion of a text file.
</para></listitem></varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="support">
<title>Support</title>
<para>
In addition to the &kde; Bugzilla database (
<ulink url="http://bugs.trinitydesktop.org/">http://bugs.trinitydesktop.org/</ulink>
), discussions for &ktts;
currently take place in the kde-accessibility mailing list. Subscribe at
<ulink url="https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-accessibility">
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-accessibility</ulink>. Developers
also hang out in IRC (irc.kde.org, channel #kde-accessibility).
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<!-- ====================================================================== -->
<chapter id="using-kapp">
<title>Using &ktts;</title>
<para>
<warning><para>Before you can use &ktts;, you must install at least one speech
synthesis engine and make sure it is working. See <xref linkend="installation" />.
</para></warning></para>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="starting-kttsmgr">
<title>Starting <command>kttsmgr</command></title>
<para>
To start the &ktts; system, type the following command in a &konsole;
</para>
<para><userinput>kttsmgr</userinput></para>
<para>or click on kttsmgr in the &kde; Menu.</para>
<para>If this is the first time running <command>kttsmgr</command>, or
if you have not yet configured any talkers, the <guilabel>Talkers</guilabel>
screen appears. See <xref linkend="configure-plugin" />.
If you have already configured at least one talker, the <guilabel>General</guilabel>
screen appears. See <xref linkend="general" />.</para>
</sect1>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="configure-plugin">
<title>Configuring Synthesis Plugins (Talkers)</title>
<para>Most text-to-speech (TTS) synthesizers offer multiple languages and voices
and may offer multiple speaking genders, volumes, and rates. You may configure more than
one instance of a synthesizer. Each combination of language, synthesizer, voice,
gender, volume, and rate is called a talker. You must configure at least one talker
before you can start &ktts; and begin speaking text.</para>
<note><para>Multiple talkers for the same synthesizer is similar to multiple print
queues for a single physical printer.</para></note>
<para>When applications send text to &ktts;, they may specify the
attributes of the preferred talker to do the synthesis. For example,
an application may request an English language female talker. If you have
configured a talker with both the English language and female gender, that
talker will be used, otherwise the closest matching talker will be automatically
picked. To learn more about how &ktts; picks talkers, see
<xref linkend="filters" />.</para>
<para>When you click the <guilabel>Talkers</guilabel> tab in <command>kttsmgr</command>,
the <guilabel>Talkers</guilabel> screen appears. This screen also automatically
appears if you start <command>kttsmgr</command> and you have not yet configured
any talkers.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The &kde; Text-to-Speech Manager (Talkers tab).</screeninfo>
<mediaobjectco>
<imageobjectco>
<areaspec units="calspair">
<area id="pt-talker-1" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-talker-2" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-talker-3" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-talker-4" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-talker-5" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-talker-6" coords="1 1"/>
</areaspec>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="talkers.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
</imageobjectco>
<textobject>
<phrase>The &kde; Text-to-Speech Manager (Talkers tab)</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobjectco>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
<calloutlist>
<callout arearefs="pt-talker-1"><para>Click to add a new talker.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-talker-2"><para>All the configured <guilabel>Talkers</guilabel> are listed here. Highest priority <guilabel>Talkers</guilabel> are listed at the top. The top-most talker will be used to do the speaking when an application does not specify a talker.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-talker-3"><para>Click on a talker in the list to highlight it and click this button to remove it.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-talker-4"><para>Click on a talker in the list to highlight it and click this button to display the synthesis plugin's configuration dialog. See below.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-talker-5"><para>Click on a talker in the list to highlight it and click this button to move it down one row in the list. The lower a talker appears in the list, the lower its priority.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-talker-6"><para>Click one of these buttons to apply the changes you have made to the running &ktts; system.</para></callout>
</calloutlist>
</para>
<para>When you click the <guibutton>Add</guibutton> button, the <guilabel>Add Talker</guilabel> screen appears.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>Add Talker screen.</screeninfo>
<mediaobjectco>
<imageobjectco>
<areaspec units="calspair">
<area id="pt-addtalker-1" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-addtalker-2" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-addtalker-3" coords="1 1"/>
</areaspec>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="addtalker.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
</imageobjectco>
<textobject>
<phrase>Add Talker screen</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobjectco>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
<calloutlist>
<callout arearefs="pt-addtalker-1"><para>You can select a speech synthesis
plugin by either <guilabel>Synthesizer</guilabel> name, or by the <guilabel>Language</guilabel> the synthesizer can speak.
Check the radio button next to the corresponding box. When the
<guilabel>Language</guilabel> radio button is checked, the
<guilabel>Language</guilabel> box displays all the languages supported by
all available synthesizers, and the <guilabel>Synthesizer</guilabel> box
displays only those synthesizers that support the chosen language.
When the <guilabel>Synthesizer</guilabel> radio button is checked,
the <guilabel>Synthesizer</guilabel> box displays all available
synthesizers, and the <guilabel>Language</guilabel> box displays
only the languages supported by the chosen synthesizer.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-addtalker-2"><para>Choose the language and
synthesizer plugin here.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-addtalker-3"><para>When you click here,
most synthesizer plugins will automatically configure themselves,
choosing a default setup. A new talker
will appear in the list in the <guilabel>Talkers</guilabel> screen.
Click the <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button to display or edit the talker's
configuration.</para></callout>
</calloutlist>
</para>
<para>When you click the <guibutton>Add</guibutton> button on the
<guilabel>Talkers</guilabel> tab and add a talker that cannot
automatically configure itself, or click the
<guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button,
the <guilabel>Talker Configuration</guilabel> screen appears.
Each speech synthesis plugin has a different
<guilabel>Talker Configuration</guilabel> screen. The following is an example for
configuring the Festival Interactive plugin. For specifics for each
kind of plugin, see <xref linkend="configuration" />.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>Talker Configuration</screeninfo>
<mediaobjectco>
<imageobjectco>
<areaspec units="calspair">
<area id="pt-prop-1" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-prop-2" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-prop-3" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-prop-4" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-prop-5" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-prop-6" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-prop-7" coords="1 1"/>
</areaspec>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="festivalintconf.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
</imageobjectco>
<textobject>
<phrase>Talker Configuration</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobjectco>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
<calloutlist>
<callout arearefs="pt-prop-1"><para>Specify the path to the Festival executable program.
If Festival is in your PATH environment variable, just enter
<userinput><replaceable>festival</replaceable></userinput>.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-prop-2"><para>Click to scan for available voices.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-prop-3"><para>Select a voice.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-prop-4"><para>Select a character encoding for text sent to Festival.
For voices that are known to &ktts;, this setting will be picked for you automatically. In general, western languages use ISO 8859-1. Eastern European languages such
as Czech or Slovak use ISO 8859-2.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-prop-5"><para>Click to test. You should hear a test sentence spoken.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-prop-6"><para>Use these controls to set the volume, talking speed, and
pitch (tone) of the synthesized speech. If any of these are disabled (grayed), the chosen
voice does not support changing them.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-prop-7"><para>Some voices, such as the MultiSyn voices, are so large
that they require several seconds to load. Checking this box will cause them to be loaded
when KTTSD is started, thereby saving time (at the expense of using more memory)
before the first sentence is synthesized.</para></callout>
</calloutlist>
</para>
<para>Click the <guibutton>OK</guibutton> button to save the talker configuration settings.</para>
<warning><para>
Be sure to click the <guibutton>Apply</guibutton> button, otherwise your
changes will not take effect in the running &ktts; system.
</para></warning>
<para>Assuming the test worked, you are almost ready to begin using &ktts;.
Now go back to the <guilabel>General</guilabel> tab and check the
<guilabel>Enable Text-to-Speech System (KTTSD)</guilabel> box. This
will start the &kde; TTS Daemon. See <xref linkend="general" />.
You may now begin using &ktts; to
speak text. Click the <guilabel>Jobs</guilabel> tab to create and manage text jobs.
See <xref linkend="jobmgr" />.
</para>
</sect1>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="general">
<title>Starting KTTSD and Setting General Options</title>
<para>Once you have configured at least one talker,
you can start the &kde; Text-to-Speech System. Click on the
<guilabel>General</guilabel> tab. The <guilabel>General</guilabel>
screen appears. You can also set some general options on this screen.
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The &kde; Text-to-Speech Manager (General tab).</screeninfo>
<mediaobjectco>
<imageobjectco>
<areaspec units="calspair">
<area id="pt-gen-1" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-gen-2" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-gen-3" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-gen-4" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-gen-5" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-gen-6" coords="1 1"/>
</areaspec>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="general.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
</imageobjectco>
<textobject>
<phrase>The &kde; Text-to-Speech Manager (General tab)</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobjectco>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
<calloutlist>
<callout arearefs="pt-gen-1"><para>Check this box to activate the &ktts; system.
This starts the &kde; TTS Daemon (KTTSD). If KTTSD starts successfully,
the <guilabel>Jobs</guilabel> tab will appear.
Once KTTSD has been started, you can begin creating and speaking text jobs.
See <xref linkend="jobmgr" />. Unchecking will stop KTTSD and deactivate the &kde; TTS system.
<note><para>If this box is disabled, you have not yet configured any talkers
(or you forgot to click the <guibutton>Apply</guibutton> button).
See <xref linkend="configure-plugin"/>.</para></note>
</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-gen-2"><para>When this box is checked, an icon appears
in the system tray whenever <command>kttsmgr</command> is running. In this
mode, clicking <guibutton>OK</guibutton> or <guibutton>Cancel</guibutton> does
not cause <command>kttsmgr</command> to exit. Instead, the screen
disappears but <command>kttsmgr</command> continues running in the system
tray. Click the icon to restore the screen. To quit <command>kttsmgr</command>,
right-click on the icon in the system tray and choose <guilabel>Quit</guilabel>.
When unchecked, an icon does not appear in the system tray. Clicking <guibutton>OK</guibutton>
or <guibutton>Cancel</guibutton> quits <command>kttsmgr</command>.
<note><para>When <command>kttsmgr</command> exits,
&ktts; keeps running if the <guilabel>Enable Text-to-Speech System (KTTSD)</guilabel> box is checked.</para></note>
<note><para>This option does not take effect until the next time
<command>kttsmgr</command> is started.</para></note>
<note><para>This option has no effect when <command>kttsmgr</command> is
running in the &kcontrol;.</para></note>
</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-gen-3"><para>When this box is checked, the <command>kttsmgr</command> screen appears when you start <command>kttsmgr</command>. If unchecked, the
<command>kttsmgr</command> icon appears in the system tray when
<command>kttsmgr</command> is started, but the screen does not appear.
Click the icon in the system tray to make the screen appear.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-gen-4"><para>When this box is checked, and <command>kttsmgr</command> is
not already running, it will appear in the system tray whenever KTTSD is speaking.
This gives you an opportunity to stop or otherwise manage the speaking.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-gen-5"><para>When this box is checked, and <command>kttsmgr</command>
automatically appears in the system tray whenever speaking, it will also disappear
automatically when speaking has finished.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-gen-6"><para>Be sure to click here to save your settings.</para></callout>
</calloutlist>
</para>
</sect1>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="jobmgr">
<title>Managing Text Jobs</title>
<para>When you click the <guilabel>Jobs</guilabel> tab in <command>kttsmgr</command>,
the <guilabel>Jobs</guilabel> screen appears.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The &kde; Text-to-Speech Manager (Jobs tab).</screeninfo>
<mediaobjectco>
<imageobjectco>
<areaspec units="calspair">
<area id="pt-jobmgr-1" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-jobmgr-2" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-jobmgr-3" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-jobmgr-4" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-jobmgr-5" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-jobmgr-6" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-jobmgr-7" coords="1 1"/>
</areaspec>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="jobs.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
</imageobjectco>
<textobject>
<phrase>The &kde; Text-to-Speech Manager (Jobs tab)</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobjectco>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
<calloutlist>
<callout arearefs="pt-jobmgr-1"><para>All of the text jobs currently in the queue
are listed here, together with the application that queued the job,
the current job state, number of sentences in the job,
and current sentence number. The <guilabel>Talker ID</guilabel> corresponds to the
<guilabel>ID</guilabel> column on the <guilabel>Talkers</guilabel> screen.
</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-jobmgr-2"><para>The buttons in this row permit you to start,
delete, and pause text jobs. Select a job in the list above, then click
one of these buttons.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-jobmgr-3"><para>The buttons in this row permit
you to advance or rewind by sentence within the job selected in the list
above. (Not all jobs have multiple parts.)</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-jobmgr-4"><para>The buttons in this row permit
you to speak the text currently in the &kde; clipboard, or open a text file
for speaking. You can also refresh the list of text jobs or
change the talker for a job. See <xref linkend="selecttalker" />.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-jobmgr-5"><para>The currently-speaking sentence
appears here.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-jobmgr-6"><para>When you click <guibutton>OK</guibutton>,
all changes to settings on other screens are applied (if any) and
<command>kttsmgr</command> minimizes to the system tray. Click on the icon
in the system tray to restore the screen.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-jobmgr-7"><para>Drag this divider to resize
the jobs listing and <guilabel>Current sentence</guilabel> panels.</para></callout>
</calloutlist>
</para>
<note><para>The <guilabel>Jobs</guilabel> tab only appears when KTTSD is running. If you do not see the <guilabel>Jobs</guilabel> tab, click on the
<guilabel>General</guilabel> tab and check the
<guilabel>Enable Text-to-Speech (KTTSD)</guilabel> box.</para>
</note>
<note><para>If you do not have the &arts; audio subsystem installed, but you
do have ALSA, GStreamer, or aKode installed, click the <guilabel>Audio</guilabel> tab.
See <xref linkend="audio" />.</para></note>
<note><para>Only Text jobs are listed and controlled on this screen.
Screen Reader Output, Warnings, and Messages are not displayed. For more information
about &ktts; message types, see <xref linkend="filters" />.</para></note>
</sect1>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="audio">
<title>Audio Settings</title>
<para>When you click the <guilabel>Audio</guilabel> tab in <command>kttsmgr</command>,
the <guilabel>Audio</guilabel> screen appears.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The &kde; Text-to-Speech Manager (Audio tab).</screeninfo>
<mediaobjectco>
<imageobjectco>
<areaspec units="calspair">
<area id="pt-audio-1" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-audio-2" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-audio-3" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-audio-4" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-audio-5" coords="1 1"/>
</areaspec>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="audio.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
</imageobjectco>
<textobject>
<phrase>The &kde; Text-to-Speech Manager (Audio tab)</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobjectco>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
<calloutlist>
<callout arearefs="pt-audio-1"><para>Select the method of audio output here.
If a component is is grayed, either &ktts; was compiled
without that support for that audio plugin, or &ktts; was unable to load the
necessary libraries.
</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-audio-2"><para>If GStreamer or aKode is selected for audio output,
choose the audio sink method here. If no sinks are listed, you need
to install at least one. If ALSA is selected, choose the PCM device here. See <xref linkend="requirements" />.
</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-audio-3"><para>Adjust the speed of talking here.
50% is approximately twice as slow as normal while 200% is approximately
twice as fast. You must have the <command>sox</command> utility installed for this setting
to work.
</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-audio-4"><para>When this box is checked, &ktts; will
copy temporary audio files (.wav files) into the indicated folder. Choose
any folder on your hard drive you like, but you must have write access to it.
This can be useful for creating audio files of speech for other purposes.
The files will have names of the form <filename>kttsd-J-SS</filename> where
<filename>J</filename> is the job number and <filename>SS</filename> is the sentence number.
Existing files with the same name will be deleted.
<emphasis>Do not forget to uncheck this box, otherwise your hard drive will fill up!</emphasis>
</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-audio-5"><para>Be sure to click <guibutton>Apply</guibutton>
to apply the new settings to the running &ktts; system.
</para></callout>
</calloutlist>
</para>
<note><para>There are two ways to adjust the speed of speech in &ktts;.
Many of the <guilabel>Talkers</guilabel> have a <guilabel>Speed</guilabel>
setting in their configuration dialogs, which you can display by clicking
<guibutton>Edit</guibutton> on the <guilabel>Talkers</guilabel> screen. This
<guilabel>Speed</guilabel> setting on the <guilabel>Audio</guilabel> screen
is in addition to the talker speed setting and generally can be used
even if the talker does not support a speed setting. For this speed setting
to work, you must have the <command>sox</command>
utility installed on your system (Debian users:
<command>apt-get install sox</command>). Also, this speed setting is ignored
when speaking text containing SSML. (See <xref linkend="ssml" />)</para></note>
<note><para>The list of ALSA devices includes all the ALSA PCM devices and
plugins configured in your system. Many of the choices will not work.
You must experiment to find a device that works for you. If in doubt,
choose <guilabel>default</guilabel>.</para></note>
</sect1>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="interruption">
<title>Text Interruption Settings</title>
<para>When you click the <guilabel>Interruption</guilabel> tab in <command>kttsmgr</command>,
the <guilabel>Interruption</guilabel> screen appears.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The &kde; Text-to-Speech Manager (Interruption tab).</screeninfo>
<mediaobjectco>
<imageobjectco>
<areaspec units="calspair">
<area id="pt-interruption-1" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-interruption-2" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-interruption-3" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-interruption-4" coords="1 1"/>
</areaspec>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="interruption.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
</imageobjectco>
<textobject>
<phrase>The &kde; Text-to-Speech Manager (Interruption tab)</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobjectco>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>This screen permits you to specify special actions to be taken whenever
a text job is interrupted by another, higher priority, message. There are
four kinds of speech jobs that &ktts; handles:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Regular text.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Messages.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Warnings.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Screen Reader Output.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<para>Screen Reader Output has the highest priority. It is reserved for use
by Screen Reader applications. Screen Reader Output preempts all other
messages, causing those jobs to pause. Once the Screen Reader Output has
been spoken, the preempted jobs will automatically resume.
</para>
<para>Warnings are the next highest priority. It is reserved for high-priority
messages, such as "CPU is over-heating." A Warning will preempt Messages
and regular text, causing those jobs to pause. Once the Warning has been
spoken, the preempted jobs will automatically resume.</para>
<para>Messages are the next highest priority. A Message will preempt regular
text jobs. &kmouth; is an example of an application that uses Messages.
For example, while reading out long text from a web page,
&kmouth; can be used to greet someone who walks into the room.</para>
<para>All four kinds of jobs are queues, except for Screen Reader Output.
If a Screen Reader Output is sent from an application while
&ktts; is speaking another Screen Reader Output, the speaking message
is stopped and discarded.</para>
<para>When a text job is interrupted by a Message, Warning, or Screen Reader Output,
&ktts; will add the audio outputs on this screen to the stream.</para>
<para>
<calloutlist>
<callout arearefs="pt-interruption-1"><para>This message is spoken whenever a regular text job is interrupted.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-interruption-2"><para>This audio file is sounded whenever a regular text job is interrupted. If both a <guilabel>Pre-sound</guilabel>
and a <guilabel>Pre-message</guilabel> are specified, the
<guilabel>Pre-sound</guilabel> is sounded before the <guilabel>Pre-message</guilabel>.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-interruption-3"><para>This message is spoken whenever an
interrupted text job resumes.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-interruption-4"><para>This audio file is sounded whenever an
interrupted text job resumes. It is sounded last.</para></callout>
</calloutlist>
</para>
<note><para>The settings on this screen apply only to regular text jobs.
Messages, Warnings, and Screen Reader Outputs have no special actions when
they are preempted by a higher-priority message.</para></note>
</sect1>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="web">
<title>Speaking Text from Web Pages</title>
<para>While running the &kde; &konqueror; web browser, you can speak the text
of the web page displayed. First ensure that &ktts; is running.
Highlight the text you want spoken and choose
<menuchoice>
<guisubmenu>Tools</guisubmenu>
<guisubmenu>Speak Text</guisubmenu>
</menuchoice> on the main menu.
<action>After a moment, the highlighted text should begin speaking.</action>
</para>
<tip><para>It is almost always a good idea to highlight the text on the
web page you want spoken. You can skip this step, but you will
hear a lot of &HTML; headers and other invisible tags spoken.</para></tip>
</sect1>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="kate">
<title>Speaking Text from &kate; Text Editor</title>
<para>While running the &kde; Advanced Text Editor (&kate;), you can speak the text
displayed. First ensure that &ktts; is running.
Highlight the text you want spoken and choose
<menuchoice>
<guisubmenu>Tools</guisubmenu>
<guisubmenu>Speak Text</guisubmenu>
</menuchoice> on the main menu.
<action>After a moment, the highlighted text should begin speaking.</action>
</para>
<tip><para>You do not have to first highlight text. In this case, the entire
file will be spoken.</para></tip>
<tip><para>This also works when &kate; is running embedded in another application,
such as &konqueror; or &quanta;.</para></tip>
</sect1>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="knotify">
<title>Speaking Notifications (KNotify)</title>
<para>KNotify is the notification subsystem within &kde;, which alerts you
to events you configure within the &kde; system. You can configure
&ktts; to speak text notifications.</para>
<para>For example, &konversation;, a &kde; IRC application, permits you
to configure a wide variety of notifications. For instance, you can tell
&konversation; to notify you whenever a message appears in an IRC channel
with your nickname in it. Together with &ktts; you can
have &kde; speak the text of the IRC message to you.</para>
<para>In general, if a &kde; application supports KNotify, a
<guilabel>Notifications</guilabel> menu item will appear under the
application's <guilabel>Settings</guilabel> menu. The specifics for configuring
each application with KNotify vary from application to application.</para>
<para>To enable &ktts; to speak KNotify text notifications,
start <command>kttsmgr</command> and click the <guilabel>Notifications</guilabel> tab.
The <guilabel>Notifications</guilabel> screen appears.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The &kde; Text-to-Speech Manager (Notifications tab).</screeninfo>
<mediaobjectco>
<imageobjectco>
<areaspec units="calspair">
<area id="pt-notify-1" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-notify-2" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-notify-3" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-notify-4" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-notify-5" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-notify-6" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-notify-7" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-notify-8" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-notify-9" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-notify-10" coords="1 1"/>
</areaspec>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="notifications.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
</imageobjectco>
<textobject>
<phrase>The &kde; Text-to-Speech Manager (Notification tab)</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobjectco>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
<calloutlist>
<callout arearefs="pt-notify-1"><para>Check this box to enable speaking of
&kde; notifications. If unchecked, everything else on this screen is disabled
and &ktts; does not speak any notifications.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-notify-2"><para>When checked, any application
that sends an event with a sound will not be spoken by &ktts;.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-notify-3"><para>Use these buttons to add or delete
application events from the list below. When you click
the <guibutton>Add</guibutton> button, a screen appears in which
you select the application and event you want to add to the list.
</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-notify-4"><para>This event will speak the message
&konversation; sends when someone mentions your nickname in an Internet Relay Chat message.
</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-notify-5"><para>For all other events coming from
&konversation;, no action will be taken in &ktts;.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-notify-6"><para>For all events not otherwise
specified in the list, no action will be taken in &ktts;.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-notify-7"><para>Use this box to specify what
&ktts; should do when it receives an event. Your choices are:</para>
<para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Speak event name</term>
<listitem><para>Speaks the name of the event; what you see listed in the
event list on this screen.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Speak the notification message</term>
<listitem><para>Speaks the message as it is sent from the application.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Do not speak the notification</term>
<listitem><para>Does not speak this event at all.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Speak custom text</term>
<listitem><para>Speaks the text you enter in the box to the right.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
</callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-notify-8"><para>If the action is
<guilabel>Speak custom text</guilabel>, enter the text of the message
you would like spoken here. Within the message, you may use the following
substitution strings:</para>
<para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>%e</term>
<listitem><para>The name of the event</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%a</term>
<listitem><para>The name of the application that sent the event</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%m</term>
<listitem><para>The message the application sent</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
</callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-notify-9"><para>Test the message by clicking here.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-notify-10"><para>You may specify the attributes of the
desired talker to speak the notification message here.
<command><userinput>default</userinput></command>
will use the topmost talker listed in the <guilabel>Talkers</guilabel>
screen. See <xref linkend="selecttalker" />.
</para></callout>
</calloutlist>
</para>
<para>Notice there are three levels of events. If an action for a specific event
of a specific application is specified, that action is taken. Otherwise, if
an action for all other events of a specific application is specified, that
action is taken. Otherwise, the action specified for all other events
under <guilabel>Default (all other events)</guilabel> is taken.</para>
<para>The event <guilabel>all notifications</guilabel>
for application <guilabel>Default (all other events)</guilabel>
may not be deleted from the list. For the default all other events,
you may specify the kind of notifications that are spoken, as follows:</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>none</term>
<listitem><para>None will be spoken.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>notification dialogs</term>
<listitem><para>Notifications that display a dialog on your screen, that you must then
dismiss, will be spoken.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>passive popups</term>
<listitem><para>Notifications that display a passive dialog on your screen,
that automatically disappear after a moment, will be spoken.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>notification dialogs and passive popups</term>
<listitem><para>Notifications that display on screen, passively or not,
will be spoken.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>all notifications</term>
<listitem><para>All notifications, regardless of whether they produce
a display on screen, will be spoken.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<tip><para>String Replacer filters are a good way to clean up messages
sent from applications if they are mispronounced or misspoken in
&ktts;. The <filename>kmail.xml</filename> file, which
comes with &ktts;, is a good example. It removes <command>br</command>,
and <command>b</command> tags from the &kmail; notification messages and also removes the
phrase <command>/local/inbox/</command>, since this
may be safely assumed in most cases. See <xref linkend="stringreplacer" />.
</para></tip>
<para>Use the <guibutton>Save</guibutton> button to save your
notification settings to a file. Use the <guibutton>Load</guibutton>
button to load saved settings from a file. The loaded events are merged
with existing events in the list. If you want to start with
an empty event list, click the <guibutton>Clear</guibutton>
button first. All events except for <guilabel>all notifications</guilabel>
will be erased.</para>
<note><para>Be sure to click <guibutton>Apply</guibutton>
or <guibutton>OK</guibutton> to save your settings.</para></note>
</sect1>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="ssml">
<title>SSML</title>
<para>The Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) is a W3C standard
for marking up text for speech output. It provides tags for controlling
voices, rate of speech, volume, gender, and pitch (tone). It also
provides tags for controlling how words are spoken, for instance
spelling out abbreviations. SSML is part of the VoiceXML specification,
which is also a W3C standard.</para>
<para>At this time, &ktts; provides limited and very basic support for
SSML. It currently has the following restrictions.</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Works only with the Festival Interactive and Hadifix Talkers.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>You must install the <command>rab_diphone</command>
(British male) voice, as this is the default voice Festival uses when speaking
SSML.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>Speed</guilabel> setting on the <guilabel>Audio</guilabel>
screen is ignored when speaking text containing SSML.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>If the <guilabel>Speed</guilabel> or <guilabel>Pitch</guilabel>
settings in the Festival configuration dialog are not set to 100%, it
will usually cause the SSML text to be spoken in a monotone.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>The following sample text can be used to experiment with SSML.</para>
<programlisting><![CDATA[
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE speak PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SYNTHESIS 1.0//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/speech-synthesis/synthesis.dtd">
<speak version="1.0" xml:lang="en-US">
<prosody pitch="low">
Who's been sleeping in my bed?
</prosody>
said papa bear.
<prosody pitch="medium">
Who's been sleeping in my bed?
</prosody>
said momma bear.
<prosody pitch="high">
Who's been sleeping in my bed?
</prosody>
said baby bear.
</speak>
]]></programlisting>
<para>More robust support for SSML is planned for the next version of
&ktts;.
</para>
</sect1>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="filters">
<title>Filters (Advanced)</title>
<para>Filters are an advanced feature of &ktts;. For the
basic operation of &ktts;, they are not needed.</para>
<para>Filters are used to pre-process text before it is sent to the
speech synthesis engine. They are useful for enhancing speech,
substituting for misspoken words or abbreviations, choosing the
appropriate language and talker to do the speaking, or working around
certain limitations of speech synthesizers and their voices.</para>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect2 id="msg-types">
<title>Types of &ktts; Messages</title>
<para>To understand how to use filters, it is
helpful to first understand how text is processed by &ktts;.
Text spoken by &ktts; is of four possible types.</para>
<para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Screen Reader Output.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Warnings.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Messages</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Text Jobs</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<para>The type is determined by the application that sends the text
to &ktts;.</para>
<para>Screen Reader Output has the highest priority. It is reserved for use
by Screen Reader applications. Screen Reader Output preempts all other
messages, causing those jobs to pause. Once the Screen Reader Output has
been spoken, the preempted messages will automatically resume.
</para>
<para>Warnings are the next highest priority. It is reserved for high-priority
messages, such as "CPU is over-heating." A Warning will preempt Messages
and regular text, causing those jobs to pause. Once the Warning has been
spoken, the preempted messages will automatically resume.</para>
<para>Messages are the next highest priority. A Message will preempt regular
text jobs. &kmouth; is an example of an application that uses Messages.
For example, while reading out long text from a web page,
&kmouth; can be used to greet someone who walks into the room.
&kde; Notifications are also Messages (see <xref linkend="knotify" />).</para>
<para>The rest are ordinary Text Jobs. Any job you initiate from the
<guilabel>Jobs</guilabel> tab is a Text Job. KSayit is an example
of an application that uses Text Jobs. Text Jobs are intended for
longer speech output that is not urgent.</para>
<para>All four kinds of jobs are queues, except for Screen Reader Output.
If a Screen Reader Output is sent from an application while
&ktts; is speaking another Screen Reader Output, the speaking message
is stopped and discarded.</para>
</sect2>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect2 id="filter-types">
<title>Types of Filters</title>
<para>The first thing you must know about filters is that they are
never applied to Screen Reader Output. They are applied to
Warnings, Messages, and Text jobs, and also &kde; notifications (KNotify).</para>
<para>There are two kinds of filters --
ordinary filters and Sentence Boundary Detector (SBD) filters.
SBDs break text up into individual sentences. This allows
&ktts; to begin speaking faster because it need only
synthesize the first sentence; not the entire Text Job.
It also permits you to advance or rewind by sentence in the
<guilabel>Jobs</guilabel> tab, or to stop or pause Text Jobs when
the speech synthesizer does not directly support stopping of speech.
</para>
<para>Ordinary filters process the text and pass it on to the
next filter. There are currently three kinds of ordinary filters.
</para>
<para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>String Replacers.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>&XML; Transformers</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Talker Choosers.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<note><para>Filters are implemented using a plugin architecture.
In the future, there may be additional kinds of filters.</para></note>
<para>String Replacer filters substitute pieces of text with
other text. The replaced pieces are matched either as words or
as regular expressions. &ktts; comes with pre-defined
String Replacer filters for speaking abbreviations, speaking
chat emoticons, such as ":-)", or reformatting notification
messages from &konversation; or &kmail; into a more understandable
form.
</para>
<para>&XML; Transformers use an &XML; Style Language - Transforms (XSLT)
file to convert &XML; of one format to another format.
&ktts; comes with a couple of XSLT files for converting
&XHTML; into SSML.
</para>
<para>Talker Choosers permit you redirect jobs to a talker
based on the contents of the text, or upon the application that sent it
to &ktts;. For example, if you have configured a female talker
in the <guilabel>Talkers</guilabel> tab, you can direct text coming from
KSayIt to that talker. See <xref linkend="configure-plugin" />.
</para>
<para>Each of these kinds of filters has configurable rules for when
the filter should apply itself to the text to be spoken. If the
filter determines that it should not apply itself, the text
is passed on to the next filter unaltered.</para>
<para>When a Text Job, Message, Warning, or &kde; Notification message is sent to &ktts;,
it passes through each of the enabled filters you have configured in the
screen below. The order is from top to bottom. After passing through
each of the ordinary filters listed in the top portion of the screen, Text Jobs
are passed to the <guilabel>Sentence Boundary Detector</guilabel> (SBD) filters.
(&kde; Notifications, Warnings, and Messages never pass through SBD filters.)
Unlike ordinary filters, the first SBD filter that makes changes to the text
stops any further filtering.
</para>
</sect2>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect2 id="configure-filters">
<title>Configuring Filters</title>
<para>To use filters, click the <guilabel>Filters</guilabel> tab in <command>kttsmgr</command>.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The &kde; Text-to-Speech Manager (Filters tab).</screeninfo>
<mediaobjectco>
<imageobjectco>
<areaspec units="calspair">
<area id="pt-filters-1" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-filters-2" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-filters-3" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-filters-4" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-filters-5" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-filters-6" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-filters-7" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-filters-8" coords="1 1"/>
</areaspec>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="filters.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
</imageobjectco>
<textobject>
<phrase>The &kde; Text-to-Speech Manager (Filters tab)</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobjectco>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
<calloutlist>
<callout arearefs="pt-filters-1"><para>This is the list of configured ordinary filters.
If unchecked, the filter is inactive and will be bypassed.
Filters are applied in the order specified here, top to bottom.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-filters-2"><para>Click here to add a new filter. You will
be prompted for the kind of filter to add. After choosing the kind,
see the configuration dialogs below.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-filters-3"><para>Click here to remove a filter.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-filters-4"><para>Click here to change the configuration
of a filter. See the configuration dialogs below.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-filters-5"><para>Click these buttons to move a filter
up or down in the list.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-filters-6"><para>These are the Sentence Boundary Detector
filters. When you first start &ktts;, the Standard Sentence Boundary Detector
is automatically configured for you. You can change this filter's configuration,
or add additional Sentence Boundary Detectors, but we advise beginners not
to change them.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-filters-7"><para>This drop-down button permits you
to add, remove, edit, or change the order of Sentence Boundary Detector filters.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-filters-8"><para>Be sure to click here, otherwise your
settings will not take effect.</para></callout>
</calloutlist>
</para>
</sect2>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect2 id="stringreplacer">
<title>Configuring String Replacer Filters</title>
<para>You configure String Replacer filters by supplying
a list of words or regular expressions to be matched.
When the matched words or regular expressions are found in the
text, each is replaced by a substitute string you supply.
Matching is case insensitive.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>String Replacer</screeninfo>
<mediaobjectco>
<imageobjectco>
<areaspec units="calspair">
<area id="pt-stringreplacer-1" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-stringreplacer-2" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-stringreplacer-3" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-stringreplacer-4" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-stringreplacer-5" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-stringreplacer-6" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-stringreplacer-7" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-stringreplacer-8" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-stringreplacer-9" coords="1 1"/>
</areaspec>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="stringreplacer.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
</imageobjectco>
<textobject>
<phrase>String Replacer</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobjectco>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
<calloutlist>
<callout arearefs="pt-stringreplacer-1"><para>Enter a name for your filter. Use any
name you like that distinquishes it from all other filters.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-stringreplacer-2"><para>This is the list of words
and regular expressions. The filter searches for matches on each string in
the <guilabel>Match</guilabel> column, replacing the matched string
with the string in the <guilabel>Replace With</guilabel> column. The list
is processed in the order displayed, top to bottom.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-stringreplacer-3"><para>Click here to add another word or
regular expression to the list.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-stringreplacer-4"><para>Click here to move the currently
highlighted word or regular expression up or down in the list.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-stringreplacer-5"><para>Click to change an existing word
or regular expression in the list.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-stringreplacer-6"><para>Click to remove the currently
highlighted word or regular expression from the list.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-stringreplacer-7"><para>Use these buttons to load
a list of words or regular expression from a file, save the current list to
a file, or clear the entire list. When loading from a file, the items in the
file are appended to the existing list.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-stringreplacer-8"><para>If not blank, the filter will
apply itself only if the job's talker language matches
the language you enter here. Click the button to display a list of languages.
You may select more than one language by pressing
<keycap>&Ctrl;</keycap> while clicking.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-stringreplacer-9"><para>If not blank, the filter will
apply itself only if the text came from one of the applications listed.
You may enter more than one application separated by commas.
Example: <command><userinput>konversation,kmail</userinput></command></para>
<tip><para>You can discover the <guilabel>Application ID</guilabel>
of running programs using the <command>&kdcop;</command> program.
You should leave the &DCOP; numbers out. For example, if &kdcop; shows
an Application ID of <command>kopete-3432</command>, you would just
enter <command><userinput>kopete</userinput></command>.</para></tip></callout>
</calloutlist>
</para>
<para>The String Replacer filter will only apply itself to the text
if all non-blank conditions are met in the
<guilabel>Apply This Filter When</guilabel> box.
if all the boxes are blank, the filter will apply to all text.</para>
<para>All matching is case insensitive.</para>
<para>When matching words, the String Replacer filter internally uses a
regular expression of the form <command>\s<userinput>word</userinput>\s</command>.
In other words, the word must have word boundaries (spaces) on either side of it.</para>
<para>A discussion on how to write regular expressions is outside the scope
of this handbook. If you have the &kde; Regular Expression editor installed,
there is a button available on the <guilabel>Add</guilabel> or
<guilabel>Edit</guilabel> screens that will assist you at
constructing regular expressions. The &kde; Regular Expression Editor is part
of the <command>tdeutils</command> package.</para>
<para>&ktts; comes with a few word list files, including a list
of emoticons, such as ":-)", some abbreviations typically used in IRC or
instant messaging applications, and a list of other abbreviations.
There is also a list of special characters which the current version
of the Polish Festival voice cannot handle.
If you develop useful word lists of your own, use the <guibutton>Save</guibutton>
button to save them to a file and send them to the
&ktts; team for inclusion in the next version.</para>
</sect2>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect2 id="xmltransformer">
<title>Configuring &XML; Transformer Filters</title>
<para>The &XML; Transformer filter uses XSLT files to transform &XML; from
one format to another. XSLT, the &XML; Style Language - Transforms, is a W3C
standard language for performing such transformations.
It can only be used on well-formed &XML;. You must have the
<command>xsltproc</command> utility installed.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>&XML; Transformer</screeninfo>
<mediaobjectco>
<imageobjectco>
<areaspec units="calspair">
<area id="pt-xmltransformer-1" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-xmltransformer-2" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-xmltransformer-3" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-xmltransformer-4" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-xmltransformer-5" coords="1 1"/>
</areaspec>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="xmltransformer.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
</imageobjectco>
<textobject>
<phrase>&XML; Transformer</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobjectco>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
<calloutlist>
<callout arearefs="pt-xmltransformer-1"><para>Enter a name for your filter. Use any
name you like that distinquishes it from all other filters.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-xmltransformer-2"><para>Enter the full path
to an existing XSLT file, which will perform the transformation.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-xmltransformer-3"><para>Specify the path to the
<command>xsltproc</command> utility. If xsltproc is in your environment
PATH, simply enter <command><userinput>xsltproc</userinput></command>.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-xmltransformer-4"><para>If not blank, the filter
will apply itself only if the &XML; has the specified root element
or a <command><![CDATA[<!DOCTYPE]]></command> specification
beginning with the entered string. This distinquishes one
form of &XML; from another. For example,
<command><userinput>html</userinput></command> in the
<guilabel>DOCTYPE</guilabel> box will match
<command><![CDATA[<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">]]></command>.
</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-xmltransformer-5"><para>If not blank, the filter will
apply itself only if the text came from one of the applications listed.
You may enter more than one application separated by commas.
Example: <command><userinput>konversation,kmail</userinput></command></para>
<tip><para>You can discover the <guilabel>Application ID</guilabel>
of running programs using the <command>&kdcop;</command> program.
You should leave the &DCOP; numbers out. For example, if &kdcop; shows
an Application ID of <command>kopete-3432</command>, you would just
enter <command><userinput>kopete</userinput></command>.</para></tip></callout>
</calloutlist>
</para>
<para>The &XML; Transformer filter will only apply itself to the text
if the specified root element or DOCTYPE are met and if the
application ID is met in the
<guilabel>Apply This Filter When</guilabel> box. If an item in this
box is blank, the test is not performed, so if all the
boxes are blank, the filter will apply itself to all text. However,
you should fill in at least one box, since many text jobs will not be in
&XML; format.</para>
</sect2>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect2 id="talkerchooser">
<title>Configuring Talker Chooser Filters</title>
<para>Talker Chooser filters are used to direct the text to a desired
talker configured in the <guilabel>Talker</guilabel> tab, or to any
talker having specified attributes. For example,
you can specify that text coming from <command>kmail</command>
should be spoken using a talker configured with a female voice.
See <xref linkend="configure-plugin" />.</para>
<para>Just before &ktts; begins sending text to each of the
filters, it picks a talker to speak the text. The talker chosen is
based on the talker attributes specified by the application that sent
the text to &ktts; and the attributes of the talkers that
you have configured on the <guilabel>Talkers</guilabel> tab.
The Talker Chooser filter permits you to override the
chosen talker.
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>Talker Chooser</screeninfo>
<mediaobjectco>
<imageobjectco>
<areaspec units="calspair">
<area id="pt-talkerchooser-1" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-talkerchooser-2" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-talkerchooser-3" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-talkerchooser-4" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-talkerchooser-5" coords="1 1"/>
</areaspec>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="talkerchooser.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
</imageobjectco>
<textobject>
<phrase>Talker Chooser</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobjectco>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
<calloutlist>
<callout arearefs="pt-talkerchooser-1"><para>Enter a name for your filter. Use any
name you like that distinquishes it from all other filters.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-talkerchooser-2"><para>If not blank, the filter will apply
itself only if the text contains the entered regular expression. If it is installed,
click the browse button to launch the &kde; Regular Expression Editor to assist you at entering
the regular expression.</para>
<tip><para>For better performance, try to "anchor" the regular expression to the
start of the string. In other words, start your regular expression with
<command><userinput><![CDATA[^]]></userinput></command>.</para></tip></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-talkerchooser-3"><para>If not blank, the filter will
apply itself only if the text came from one of the applications listed.
You may enter more than one application separated by commas.
Example: <command><userinput>konversation,kmail</userinput></command></para>
<tip><para>You can discover the <guilabel>Application ID</guilabel>
of running programs using the <command>&kdcop;</command> program.
You should leave the &DCOP; numbers out. For example, if &kdcop; shows
an Application ID of <command>kopete-3432</command>, you would just
enter <command><userinput>kopete</userinput></command>.</para></tip></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-talkerchooser-4"><para>Specify the attributes of the
talker you prefer to speak the text here. If the text meets the filter
conditions above, a talker will be chosen that most closely matches
the attributes you specify here. Click the button at the right to
display the <guilabel>Select Talker</guilabel> screen.
See <xref linkend="selecttalker" />.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-talkerchooser-5"><para>Use these buttons
to save your Talker Chooser settings, load settings from a saved file,
or clear all the settings.</para></callout>
</calloutlist>
</para>
<para>The Talker Chooser filter will only apply itself to the text
if all non-blank conditions are met in the
<guilabel>Apply This Filter When</guilabel> box. You must fill in
at least one of the boxes.</para>
<para>The easiest way to learn how to configure Talker Choosers is
to experiment. Disable the Talker Chooser and submit some text.
In the <guilabel>Jobs</guilabel> tab, note the talker that
&ktts; chooses. Click the <guibutton>Change Talker</guibutton>
button, enter some attributes, and try again to see how the choice is affected.
Of course, you must have more than one talker configured for
the Talker Chooser to do anything.</para>
</sect2>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect2 id="sbd">
<title>Configuring Sentence Boundary Detector Filters</title>
<para>Sentence Boundary Detector (SBD) filters break text up into individual sentences.
This is important because it</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>allows &ktts; to begin speaking faster
because it need only synthesize the first sentence, rather than the entire
block of text, which might be very long, and</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>allows you to rewind and advance by sentences in the
<guilabel>Jobs</guilabel> tab, and</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>allows you to pause or stop Text Jobs in the
<guilabel>Jobs</guilabel> tab even if the speech synthesizer is not
capable of being stopped.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>For these reasons, the Standard Sentence Boundary Detector filter
is automatically configured the first time you run <command>kttsmgr</command>
and cannot be disabled (although you can remove it). We advise you
not to modify this filter unless you know what you are doing.</para>
<para>You can, however, add additional SBD filters to solve certain
problems. For example, as of February 2005, the Polish Festival voice
has the annoying attribute of speaking sentence punctuation. It will
speak the periods at the end of each sentence, for instance. You cannot solve this problem
by creating a String Replacer filter to remove the sentence punctuation,
because doing so will prevent the Standard SBD from recognizing any
sentences. Instead, you can create a modified version of the
Standard SBD that recognizes sentences while simultaneously removing
the sentence punctuation. To do this, add an SBD filter and use the
<guibutton>Load</guibutton> button to load the <filename>polish_festival_sbdrc</filename>
file that comes with &ktts;.</para>
<para>SBD filters work by matching an end-of-sentence regular expression
and inserting Tab (decimal 8) characters at the sentence boundaries.
(All Tab characters are automatically stripped from text before filtering begins.)
Note that the Standard SBD preserves the sentence punctuation.
</para>
<para>SBD filters are never applied to &kde; Notification messages (knotify),
Warnings, Messages, or Screen Reader Outputs.</para>
<para>If you accidentally remove the Standard Sentence Boundary Detectory filter,
you can get it back by loading the <filename>standard_sbdrc</filename> file,
which comes with &ktts;.</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="selecttalker">
<title>Selecting Talkers (Advanced)</title>
<para>You can configure
any number of talkers in the <guilabel>Talkers</guilabel> tab.
See <xref linkend="configure-plugin" />. When applications send text
to &ktts;, they may specify the attributes of a desired
talker to speak the text. &ktts; will pick the closest
matching talker from among the talkers you have configured to satisfy
the application's request. For example, an application might request
the text be spoken by an English female voice. If you have configured
a talker with English language and female gender, that talker will be used.
If you have configured all English male talkers, one of those talkers
will be used. If an application specifies no attributes,
the default (topmost) talker listed in the <guilabel>Talkers</guilabel>
tab is used.</para>
<para>When applications specify the attributes of the desired talker,
they may indicate that certain attributes are "preferred" over other
attributes. For example, an application may specify that it wishes
that a female loud voice speak the text, and that the loud attribute is
"preferred" over the female attribute. If you had a female soft talker
and a male loud talker configured, &ktts; will choose the male
loud talker to do the speaking. Since language is a critical parameter
in making speech understandable, it is always a "preferred" attribute.</para>
<para>Using the <guilabel>Select Talker</guilabel> screen, you may
override application talker settings. The screen is displayed</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>when you click the <guibutton>Change Talker</guibutton>
button on the <guilabel>Jobs</guilabel> tab, or</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>when you click the <guilabel>Talker</guilabel> button
on the <guilabel>Filter Configuration</guilabel> dialog for
a Talker Chooser filter, or</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>when you click the <guilabel>Talker</guilabel> button
on the <guilabel>Notifications</guilabel> tab.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>Select Talker</screeninfo>
<mediaobjectco>
<imageobjectco>
<areaspec units="calspair">
<area id="pt-selecttalker-1" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-selecttalker-2" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-selecttalker-3" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-selecttalker-4" coords="1 1"/>
<area id="pt-selecttalker-5" coords="1 1"/>
</areaspec>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="selecttalker.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
</imageobjectco>
<textobject>
<phrase>Select Talker</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobjectco>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>The screen offers three methods to specify desired talker
attributes:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Use the default talker (topmost in the
<guilabel>Talkers</guilabel> tab). In other words, no talker attributes
are specified.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Use the closest matching talker having one or more specified attributes.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Use the closest matching talker having all the attributes
of a configured talker. If you don't delete or modify the talker's settings,
&ktts; will pick that specific talker. If you delete or modify the
talker's settings, then &ktts; will pick the closest matching talker
having the talker's original attributes.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
<calloutlist>
<callout arearefs="pt-selecttalker-1"><para>Choose the method for entering
the desired talker attributes by clicking one of these radio buttons.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-selecttalker-2"><para>Choose the attributes of the desired
talker here. Leave an attribute blank if you do not care about that attribute.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-selecttalker-3"><para>Check this box if you wish the
attribute to be "preferred" over other attributes. You may check more than one
box.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-selecttalker-4"><para>Since language is a critical factor
in making speech understandable, it is always a preferred attribute. It is rare
that you will use this attribute. The only time you might specify the language
attribute is when you know a specific application sends text in a language
different from your desktop.</para></callout>
<callout arearefs="pt-selecttalker-5"><para>This is a list of the talkers
you currently have configured in &ktts;. By choosing one of these,
in effect, you are specifying all the attributes of that talker. If that
talker is still configured when text is sent, you'll get an exact match and that
talker will be chosen. However, if you later delete the talker, or modify
its settings, it might not be the chosen talker anymore. The talker
most closely matching the original attributes will be chosen.</para></callout>
</calloutlist>
</para>
<para>The <guilabel>Language</guilabel> attribute is special because
text will probably be unintelligible if spoken by a talker that
speaks a language different from the text. Therefore, language
is automatically a "preferred" attribute. If you specify a language,
it will override the chosen language, but if you leave it blank,
the existing language setting will be used. If the application that sent the
text to &ktts; did not specify a language, &ktts; assigns
the language of the topmost talker you have configured in the
<guilabel>Talkers</guilabel> tab. In other words, the topmost
talker is assumed to speak the language of your desktop.</para>
<tip><para>To clear all the attributes in the
<guilabel>Use closest matching Talker having</guilabel> section,
first click the <guilabel>Use default Talker</guilabel> radio button,
then click the <guilabel>Use closest matching Talker having</guilabel>
radio button.</para></tip>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<!-- ====================================================================== -->
<chapter id="commands">
<title>Command Reference</title>
<!-- (OPTIONAL, BUT RECOMMENDED) This chapter should list all of the
application windows and their menubar and toolbar commands for easy reference.
Also include any keys that have a special function but have no equivalent in the
menus or toolbars. This may not be necessary for small apps or apps with no tool
or menu bars. -->
<para>TODO</para>
</chapter>
<!--
<sect1 id="kapp-mainwindow">
<title>The main &ktts; window</title>
<sect2>
<title>The File Menu</title>
<para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><menuchoice>
<shortcut>
<keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>N</keycap></keycombo>
</shortcut>
<guimenu>File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>New</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice></term>
<listitem><para><action>Creates a new document</action></para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><menuchoice>
<shortcut>
<keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>S</keycap></keycombo>
</shortcut>
<guimenu>File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Save</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice></term>
<listitem><para><action>Saves the document</action></para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><menuchoice>
<shortcut>
<keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>Q</keycap></keycombo>
</shortcut>
<guimenu>File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Quit</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice></term>
<listitem><para><action>Quits</action> &ktts;</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
</sect2>
-->
<!-- ====================================================================== -->
<chapter id="developers">
<title>Developer's Guide to &ktts;</title>
<para>&ktts; has two Application Programmer Interfaces (APIs):
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>The &kde; Text-to-Speech API, which is used by application
programmers to give their applications TTS capabilities. Applications
communicate with KTTSD via &DCOP;.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The KTTSD Plugin API, which is used to add speech
synthesis plugins to KTTSD so that &ktts; will work with
a new speech synthesis engine.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>The following section gives a short description of the &kde; Text-to-Speech API
&DCOP; Interface.
Full documentation for both APIs is available online at the
<ulink url="http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/kttsd/">
&kde; Accessibility</ulink> web site (http://accessibility.kde.org).
</para>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="dcop-interface">
<title>The &ktts; &DCOP; Interface</title>
<para>Applications communicate requests for Text-to-Speech services via the
&kde; &DCOP; interface to program <command>kttsd</command> object <command>KSpeech</command>.
</para>
<para>Enter the following commands in a &konsole;.</para>
<para>If KTTSD is not already running</para>
<para><userinput>kttsd</userinput></para>
<para>To queue a text job to be spoken</para>
<para><userinput>dcop kttsd KSpeech setText "<replaceable>text</replaceable>" "<replaceable>talker</replaceable>"</userinput></para>
<para>where <userinput><replaceable>text</replaceable></userinput> is the text to be spoken, and <userinput><replaceable>talker</replaceable></userinput> is a language code
such as <userinput><replaceable>en</replaceable></userinput>, <userinput><replaceable>cy</replaceable></userinput>, &etc; This command does
not speak the text; instead it queues a text job for speaking.</para>
<para>Example.</para>
<para><userinput>dcop kttsd KSpeech setText "This is a test." "en"</userinput></para>
<para>To speak the last queued text job</para>
<para><userinput>dcop kttsd KSpeech startText <replaceable>0</replaceable></userinput></para>
<para>In this case, <userinput>0</userinput> refers to the last text job queued.
You may also specify a specific job number. (If no job number is given, a <userinput>0</userinput> is required.)</para>
<para>To stop the currently speaking text job</para>
<para><userinput>dcop kttsd KSpeech stopText 0</userinput></para>
<para>Depending upon the speech plugin used, speaking may not immediately stop.</para>
<para>There are many more commands that can be sent. To see a list of possible
commands,</para>
<para><userinput>dcop kttsd KSpeech</userinput></para>
<para>or read the
<ulink url="http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/kttsd/">
&kde; Text-to-Speech API</ulink> online.</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<!-- ====================================================================== -->
<chapter id="faq">
<title>Questions and Answers</title>
<!-- (OPTIONAL but recommended) This chapter should include all of the silly
(and not-so-silly) newbie questions that fill up your mailbox. This chapter
should be reserved for BRIEF questions and answers! If one question uses more
than a page or so then it should probably be part of the
"Using this Application" chapter instead. You should use links to
cross-reference questions to the parts of your documentation that answer them.
This is also a great place to provide pointers to other FAQ's if your users
must do some complicated configuration on other programs in order for your
application work. -->
&reporting.bugs;
&updating.documentation;
<qandaset id="faqlist">
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para><command>kttsmgr</command> immediately crashes when I start it. I
compiled with debug support and I don't even get a backtrace.</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>GStreamer has crashed taking &ktts; down with it. You most
likely need to "register" GStreamer. For GStreamer 0.8x, the command is
<command>gst-register-0.8</command>. If this doesn't solve the problem,
you may have an incompatible version of GStreamer installed. You could
try upgrading or uninstalling GStreamer.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para>ALSA audio output is not working if I am playing music in another
application at the same time. When I pause a text job, &ktts;
freezes. I notice "unable to open PCM" in the &konsole; output.</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>You have the ALSA device contention problem, which prevents opening
more than one PCM device at one time. See the ALSA website (dmix) for
possible solutions. <ulink url="www.alsa-project.org">www.alsa-project.org</ulink>
</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para>I need to start over. How do I get &ktts; completely terminated?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>Enter the following commands in a &konsole;:
<programlisting>
killall kttsd
killall kttsmgr
</programlisting>
</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para>How can I see debugging output from <command>kttsd</command>?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>Open two &konsole; windows. First start <command>kttsd</command> in one
window, then start <command>kttsmgr</command> in the second.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para>I have an additional Festival voice I downloaded from the Internet.
I installed it, and I can use it in Festival, but it does not show up in <command>kttsmgr</command>.</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>Edit file <command>$TDEHOME/share/apps/kttsd/festivalint/voices</command> to
add the new voice. The other entries can be used as a guide. If you
successfully add a voice, please send a patch to the developers along
with the &URL; from which you obtained the voice file.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para>None of the supported speech synthesizers support the language I need.
Where can I get a synth for my language?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>Google(tm) is your friend. This
<ulink url="http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis/mbrola/mbrtts.html">link</ulink>
might also help. If you find a free synthesis engine that supports your
desired language, and want to add support for it to &ktts;, please
contact the development team. Open source engines are especially welcome.
If you know of a commercial synth, perhaps you can pursuade the vendor
to donate a free copy to the &ktts; development team.
In the meantime, you may be able to get
the synth working using the <guilabel>Command</guilabel> plugin.
See <xref linkend="using-with-command" />.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para>&ktts; is speaking too slow. How can I speed it up?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>There is a <guilabel>Speed</guilabel> setting on the <guilabel>Audio</guilabel>
tab. For this to work, you must have the <command>sox</command> utility
installed and available in the PATH. Some synthesis plugins, such as
Festival Interactive also provide a <guilabel>Speed</guilabel>
setting in the talker configuration dialog. Depending upon the
voice used, it may or may not be enabled.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para>OK, that works for some things, but web pages are still spoken too slow.</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>The speed settings are ignored when &ktts; is speaking
&HTML;. (This is because the &HTML; is converted into SSML, which has its own
"rate" tags.) Either disable the &HTML; &XML; Transformer filter
(see <xref linkend="filters"/>), or if you are brave, edit the .xsl file
in the &HTML; to SSML Transformer filter and increase the default talking rate.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para>I cannot get web pages to speak in a female voice. I have female Festival talker
configured, but &ktts; always speaks web pages in a male voice.</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>As of Festival 1.95 beta, the SABLE GENDER tag doesn't seem to be working.
To keep Festival from producing errors, the SSML to SABLE .xsl file strips the
gender tags out. The same applies to voice tags as well.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para>I have the &HTML; &XML; Transformer filter configured, but web pages are not spoken at
all using the Festival plugin.</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>Due to a bug in Festival 1.95 beta, you must install the
<command>rab_diphone</command> (British male) voice for SABLE to work at all, even
if you are not using that voice to speak the web pages. Also,
make sure the <command>xsltproc</command> utility is installed and in the PATH.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para>Certain characters or punctuation seem to be producing errors in the synthesizer,
making it skip entire sentences, or pronounce gibberish. What can I do?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>First, make sure the <guilabel>Character encoding</guilabel> option in the
talker's configuration dialog is properly set for the language. If certain words
or characters are causing problems, a String Replacer filter might help.
If certain sentence punctuation characters are confusing the synth, you'll need to
configure a Sentence Boundary Detector filter. See <xref linkend="filters" />.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para>I added a String Replacer filter of my own and now &ktts;
will not allow me to rewind or advance by sentence. On the <guilabel>Jobs</guilabel>
tab, it claims each job has only one sentence. What did I do wrong?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>You must not filter out sentence punctuation characters (period, question mark,
exclamation mark, colon, and semicolon).
For these characters, use a Sentence Boundary Detector filter instead.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
</qandaset>
</chapter>
<!-- ====================================================================== -->
<chapter id="credits">
<!-- Include credits for the programmers, documentation writers, and
contributors here. The license for your software should then be included below
the credits with a reference to the appropriate license file included in the KDE
distribution. -->
<title>Credits and License</title>
<para>
&ktts;
</para>
<para>
Program Copyright © 2002 José Pablo Ezequiel "Pupeno" Fernández <email>pupeno@kde.org</email>
</para>
<para>
Current Maintainer: Gary Cramblitt <email>garycramblitt@comcast.net</email>
</para>
<para>
Contributors:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Olaf Schmidt <email>ojschmidt@kde.org</email></para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para>Gunnar Schmi Dt <email>gunnar@schmi-dt.de</email></para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para>Paul Giannaros <email>ceruleanblaze@gmail.com</email></para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<para>
Documentation Copyright © 2004 Gary R. Cramblitt <email>garycramblitt@comcast.net</email>
</para>
<!-- TRANS:CREDIT_FOR_TRANSLATORS -->
&underFDL; <!-- FDL: do not remove -->
<!-- Determine which license your application is licensed under,
and delete all the remaining licenses below:
(NOTE: All documentation are licensed under the FDL,
regardless of what license the application uses) -->
&underGPL; <!-- GPL License -->
<note><para>Speech synthesis engines used by &ktts; have their own
licenses. See each engine's documentation or website for details.
Some voices also have their own licensing.</para></note>
</chapter>
<!-- ====================================================================== -->
<appendix id="installation">
<title>Installation</title>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="getting-kapp">
<title>How to obtain &ktts;</title>
<!-- This first entity contains boiler plate for applications that are
part of KDE CVS. You should remove it if you are releasing your
application -->
<para>
&install.intro.documentation;
</para>
<para>(FUTURE) Debian Install Command: <command>apt-get install tdeaccessibility</command></para>
<note>
<para>You will find links to source and binary packages
on the <ulink url="http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/kttsd/">
&kde; Accessibility</ulink> web site (http://accessibility.kde.org).</para>
<para>If you have access to the &kde; code repository, you can download &ktts;
by checking out the <command>tdeaccessibility</command> module. &ktts;
will be found in the <command>kttsd</command> folder. You can also
download tarballs of the tdeaccessibility source code from
<ulink url="ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/">
ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/</ulink></para>
</note>
</sect1>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="requirements">
<title>Requirements</title>
<para>Mandatory requirements:</para>
<para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>&kde; version 3.2 or later.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>A speech synthesis engine. The following engines
and spoken languages are currently supported.</para>
<para>
<informaltable id="synth-engines">
<tgroup cols="2">
<tbody>
<row>
<entry>Festival</entry>
<entry>American English, British, Spanish, German, Finnish, Czech, Polish, Russian,
Italian, French Canadian, Kiswahili, Zulu, and Ibibio</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>Festival Lite (flite)</entry>
<entry>English</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>Hadifix (&mbrola; and txt2pho)</entry>
<entry>German, Hungarian</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>Epos</entry>
<entry>Czech, Slovak</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>FreeTTS</entry>
<entry>English</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</informaltable>
</para>
<para>It also works with any synthesis engine that can be run from a command in
a &konsole;.</para>
<note><para>
The languages listed above may not be comprehensive or up-to-date.
Check the specifications for each engine for a complete list of supported
languages. Also check the
<ulink url="http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/kttsd/index.php">
&ktts;</ulink> website for additional
information that might not have made it into this handbook.
</para></note>
<note>
<para>&ktts; uses a flexible plugin architecture for
speech synthesis engines. If you
want to enhance &ktts; to support another engine, contact the
development team.
</para>
</note>
<para>
See <xref linkend="configuration" /> for specific instructions for each
of these engines.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>At least one of the following audio subsystems:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>&kde; &arts; Soundsystem. &arts; is usually installed with &kde;.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>ALSA (Advanced &Linux; Sound Architecture). ALSA is installed with
most &Linux; systems. (<ulink url="www.alsa-project.org">www.alsa-project.org</ulink>)</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>GStreamer version 0.8.7 or greater. <emphasis>Note</emphasis>:
Be sure to register your GStreamer plugins by running the <command>gst-register</command>
command prior to using GStreamer in &ktts;.
(<ulink url="http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org">
http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org</ulink>)</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>aKode library. aKode is a decoder library that is part of &kde;.
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<note><para>The &kde; project plans to drop &arts; starting in version 4.</para></note>
<note><para>Some users experience device contention with ALSA. If your system
has this problem, you will not be able to simultaneously play music while speaking.
&ktts; will also freeze if you pause a text job and then
start another. See the ALSA website (dmix) for possible solutions.</para></note>
<note><para>As of July 2005, aKode does not support a true pause capability.
When you pause a text job in &ktts; it will finish speaking the
current sentence.</para></note>
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<para>Optional components:</para>
<para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>The <command>sox</command> audio utility is needed for
adjusting overall speech speed, but not required. Debian users can install
sox with the command <command>apt-get install sox</command>.
Sox is included on most &Linux; distribution CDs.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The <command>xsltproc</command> utility is needed for
SSML support and for the &XML; Transformer filter, but not required. Debian users can install
xsltproc with the command <command>apt-get install xsltproc</command>.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</sect1>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="compilation">
<title>Compilation and Installation</title>
<!-- This entity contains the boilerplate text for standard -->
<!-- compilation instructions. If your application requires any -->
<!-- special handling, remove it, and replace with your own text. -->
<!-- &install.compile.documentation; -->
<para>In order to compile &ktts;, you must have a
recent (&kde; 3.4 or greater) copy of the &kde; development files,
including tdelibs and arts.</para>
<para>If you downloaded &ktts; as a tarball, log in
as a normal user and untar the tarball to a suitable folder,
change to that folder, and enter the following commands.</para>
<programlisting>
./configure
make
</programlisting>
<para>The following <command>configure</command> options are available:</para>
<para>
<informaltable id="configure-audio-options">
<tgroup cols="3">
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><emphasis>Default Option</emphasis></entry>
<entry><emphasis>Description</emphasis></entry>
<entry><emphasis>Alternate</emphasis></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>--with-arts</entry>
<entry>Builds the arts audio plugin.</entry>
<entry>--without-arts</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>--with-alsa=check</entry>
<entry>Builds the ALSA audio plugin.</entry>
<entry>--with-alsa=no</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>--with-gstreamer=no</entry>
<entry>Does not build the GStreamer audio plugin.</entry>
<entry>--with-gstreamer=check</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>--with-akode=no</entry>
<entry>Does not build the aKode audio plugin.</entry>
<entry>--with-akode=check</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</informaltable>
</para>
<note><para>
In &kde; 4, the &arts; plugin will likely be removed or at least not built by default.
</para></note>
<para>The following speech synthesizer plugins are all built by default.
Some of them are runtime only dependent upon non-free software.
(Non-free according to Debian Policy). The "Configure Option to
not build" column shows the configure command to not build the plugin:</para>
<para>
<informaltable id="configure-synth-options">
<tgroup cols="3">
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><emphasis>Synth</emphasis></entry>
<entry><emphasis>License</emphasis></entry>
<entry><emphasis>Configure Option to not build</emphasis></entry>
</row>
<row><entry>Festival</entry><entry>free</entry><entry>--disable-kttsd-festivalint</entry></row>
<row><entry>Festival Lite</entry><entry>free</entry><entry>--disable-kttsd-flite</entry></row>
<row><entry>Epos</entry><entry>free</entry><entry>--disable-kttsd-epos</entry></row>
<row><entry>Command</entry><entry>free</entry><entry>--disable-kttsd-command</entry></row>
<row><entry>Hadifix</entry><entry>non-free</entry><entry>--disable-kttsd-hadifix</entry></row>
<row><entry>FreeTTS</entry><entry>non-free</entry><entry>--disable-kttsd-freetts</entry></row>
</tbody></tgroup></informaltable></para>
<para>By default, the commands above will install &ktts; to
<filename>/opt/trinity</filename>. If this folder is not in your
$<envar>TDEDIRS</envar> path, you may need to add a
<userinput>--prefix=<replaceable>target</replaceable></userinput> option.
For example,</para>
<programlisting>
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
</programlisting>
<note><para>On Debian systems, <filename><replaceable>/usr/local</replaceable></filename>
is the usual place to install applications compiled from source code.
</para></note>
<para>Login as root and install the compiled &ktts;
using the following commands.</para>
<programlisting>
su
make install
</programlisting>
<para>If you downloaded the &ktts; source from the
<filename>tdeaccessibility</filename> code repository module, or downloaded the nightly
tarball, use the following commands to compile and install.
</para>
<programlisting>
cd tdeaccessibility
echo kttsd>inst-apps
make -f Makefile.cvs
./configure
cd kttsd
make
su
make install
</programlisting>
</sect1>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect1 id="configuration">
<title>Configuration</title>
<para>Make sure your speech synthesis engine is working before using
&ktts;. Follow the instructions that came with the engine.</para>
<tip>
<para>In some cases, you may need to grant write access to the audio device.</para>
<para><userinput>chmod a+rw <replaceable>/dev/dsp*</replaceable></userinput></para>
</tip>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect2 id="using-with-festival">
<title>Using with Festival (Interactive)</title>
<para>Festival is one of the best free and open source TTS
engines available. Voice quality is generally good and there are quite
a few languages and voices supported.
For many voices, you can control the volume,
speed of the generated speech, and pitch (tone) from &ktts;.</para>
<para>Synthesizer Name: <guilabel>Festival Interactive</guilabel></para>
<para>&URL;: <ulink url="http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/">
http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/</ulink>
</para>
<para>Debian Install Command: <userinput>apt-get install festival</userinput></para>
<para>
You will need to install at least one language. Follow the instructions
that come with Festival. If you will be speaking web pages,
you must install the <command>rab_diphone</command> (British Male)
voice.
</para>
<para>Additional English festival voices are available from</para>
<para><ulink url="http://hts.ics.nitech.ac.jp/">http://hts.ics.nitech.ac.jp/</ulink>.
</para>
<para>Additional Spanish, English, and German voices are available from</para>
<para><ulink url="http://cslu.cse.ogi.edu/tts/download/">
http://cslu.cse.ogi.edu/tts/download/</ulink></para>
<para>You must compile an additional module
for these voices, therefore, you must have the Festival source code.
The German voices have limited distribution.
</para>
<para>A Finnish male voice is available from </para>
<para><ulink url="http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/suopuhe/download/">
http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/suopuhe/download/</ulink>.
</para>
<para>A Polish male voice is available from </para>
<para><ulink url="http://www.artegence.com/download/voicexml/speech/festival_polish_voice.tgz">
http://www.artegence.com/download/voicexml/speech/festival_polish_voice.tgz</ulink>.
</para>
<para>A Russian male voice is available from </para>
<para><ulink url="http://nshmyrev.narod.ru/festival/festival.html">
http://nshmyrev.narod.ru/festival/festival.html
</ulink></para>
<para>You must have Festival 1.95 beta or later to use this voice. The voice
is still in early development. Untar to
<filename>festival/lib/voices/russian/</filename>. When you configure the Russian
talker, the voice code is <userinput>msu_ru_nsh_diphone</userinput>. Be sure to
select an 8-bit cryllic encoding, such as <userinput>KOI8-R</userinput>.</para>
<para>Italian voices for Festival 1.95 beta are available at</para>
<para><ulink url="http://www.csrf.pd.cnr.it/TTS/It-FESTIVAL-download.htm">
http://www.csrf.pd.cnr.it/TTS/It-FESTIVAL-download.htm</ulink>.</para>
<para>If you get CRC errors when you unzip, try downloading again.</para>
<para>Kiswahili, Zulu, and Ibibio voices for Festival 1.95 beta are available at</para>
<para><ulink url="http://www.llsti.org/">http://www.llsti.org/</ulink>.</para>
<para>Unfortunately, the Hindi voice also available there will not work with
&ktts;.</para>
<para>Commercial voices, including a French Canadian voice,
can be purchased from Cepstral, LLC at</para>
<para><ulink url="http://www.cepstral.com/">http://www.cepstral.com/</ulink></para>
<para>The FAQ on their Support page has information about using their voices
in Festival.</para>
<para>Festival is typically included with &Linux; distributions. Check your
distro CDs to see if it is included.</para>
<note>
<para>When using the Polish, Hungarian, or Czech languages, be sure the <guilabel>Encoding</guilabel>
option is set to <userinput>ISO 8859-2</userinput>.
</para>
<para>When using the Russian voice, be sure the <guilabel>Encoding</guilabel>
option is set to an 8-bit cryllic encoding, such as <userinput>KOI8-R</userinput>.
</para>
</note>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect3 id="festival-with-mbrola">
<title>Using Festival with &mbrola;</title>
<para>Festival can be used in combination with the &mbrola; synthesizer.
In this mode, Festival does the lexical analysis and &mbrola; produces the
audio. The &mbrola; binary and &mbrola; voice files can be downloaded from</para>
<para><ulink url="http://festvox.org/mbrola/">http://festvox.org/mbrola/</ulink>.</para>
<para>Follow the instructions in the <filename>readme.txt</filename> that comes with
the download.</para>
<para>Note that &mbrola; is not a complete Text-to-Speech system. &mbrola; synthesizes
speech from diphone files. You must have additional software that can produce
the diphones. When combined with Festival, Festival produces the diphones needed
by &mbrola;. <command>txt2pho</command> can also be used to produce diphones
from German text. See <xref linkend="using-with-hadifix"/> for more information.</para>
<para>There are three methods of combining Festival with &mbrola;.</para>
<para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para><link linkend="mbrola-wrappers">&mbrola; Wrappers</link>.
At the time of writing this Handbook,
this method is limited to English voices.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><link linkend="ims-german-festival">IMS German Festival</link>.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><link linkend="festival-czech">Festival-Czech</link>.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect4 id="mbrola-wrappers">
<title>Using Festival with &mbrola; Wrappers</title>
<para>In this method, additional
wrapper code is added to Festival to enable speech synthesis using
&mbrola; voice files. Note that the &mbrola; voice files are <emphasis>not</emphasis>
installed in the &mbrola; folder tree. Instead, they are installed
in the <filename>festival/lib/</filename> folder tree. For instructions, see</para>
<para><ulink url="http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/mbrola.html">
http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/mbrola.html</ulink></para>
</sect4>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect4 id="ims-german-festival">
<title>Using IMS German Festival</title>
<para>IMS German Festival is a modified version of Festival that uses German &mbrola;
voices. It works with either Festival version 1.4.1 or Festival 2.0 (1.95beta).
First install Festival and &mbrola;, if you have not already done so.
Next, download IMS German Festival, from</para>
<para>
<ulink url="http://www.ims.uni-stuttgart.de/phonetik/synthesis/festival_opensource.html">
http://www.ims.uni-stuttgart.de/phonetik/synthesis/festival_opensource.html</ulink>.</para>
<para>Follow the instructions in the <filename>README</filename> that comes with the
download. (Note, if using in combination with Festival 2.0, it is <emphasis>not</emphasis>
necessary to apply the <filename>fixes</filename> tarball, but you must still
rebuild festival.) Finally, add the following
lines to the <filename>festival/lib/siteinit.scm</filename> file.</para>
<para>
<programlisting>
(voice-location "german_de1_os" "/usr/local/mbrola/de1"
"German Female, IMS Festival de1")
(voice-location "german_de2_os" "/usr/local/mbrola/de2"
"German Male, IMS Festival de2")
(voice-location "german_de3_os" "/usr/local/mbrola/de3"
"German Female, IMS Festival de3")
</programlisting>
</para>
<para>just above the line that reads</para>
<para>
<programlisting>
(provide 'siteinit)
</programlisting>
</para>
<para>On some systems, the file you edit is <filename>/etc/festival.scm</filename>.
Only add the lines that correspond to the German voices you have installed.
Substitute the correct path for
<userinput><replaceable>/usr/local/mbrola/</replaceable></userinput>.
Also note that (at the time of this writing)
IMS German Festival does not work with the de4, de5, or de6 German voices.</para>
</sect4>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect4 id="festival-czech">
<title>Using Festival-Czech</title>
<para>This method uses some special code to enable speech synthesis
using Festival with an &mbrola; Czech voice. To install, first download and
install Festival and &mbrola;, and make sure both are working. Next, download
Festival-Czech from</para>
<para><ulink url="http://www.freebsoft.org/festival-czech">
http://www.freebsoft.org/festival-czech</ulink></para>
<note><para>In the following procedures substitute the correct folder
paths as needed.</para></note>
<para>Untar the download to a suitable folder and make
the lexicon. The Festival executable must be in your <envar>PATH</envar>.
</para>
<para>
<programlisting>
cd /usr/local
tar xvfz festival-czech.tar.gz
cd festival-czech
make
</programlisting>
</para>
<para>Download the <filename>cz2</filename> voice file from the &mbrola;
website, and unzip it in the &mbrola; folder.</para>
<para>
<programlisting>
cd /usr/local/mbrola
mkdir cz2
cd cz2
unzip cz2-001009.zip
</programlisting>
</para>
<para>Add the following lines to the <filename>festival/lib/siteinit.scm</filename> file.</para>
<para>
<programlisting>
(set! czech-lexicon-file "/usr/local/festival-czech/czech-lexicon.out")
(set! load-path (cons "/usr/local/festival-czech" load-path))
(require 'czech)
(set! czech-mbrola_database "/usr/local/mbrola/cz2/cz2")
(set! mbrola_progname "/usr/local/mbrola/mbrola")
(voice-location "czech_mbrola_cz2" "/usr/local/mbrola/cz2"
"Czech Male, MBROLA")
(require 'czech-mbrola)
</programlisting>
</para>
<para>just above the line that reads</para>
<para>
<programlisting>
(provide 'siteinit)
</programlisting>
</para>
<para>On some systems, the file you edit is <filename>/etc/festival.scm</filename>.</para>
</sect4>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect2 id="using-with-flite">
<title>Using with Festival Lite (flite)</title>
<para>Festival Lite is a free open source engine that currently supports
a limited number of voices and languages. It is light weight, but
sacrifices voice quality somewhat.
You cannot control the pitch, volume, or speed of this engine
from &ktts;.</para>
<para>Synthesizer Name: <guilabel>Festival Lite (flite)</guilabel></para>
<para>&URL;: <ulink url="http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/flite/index.html">
http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/flite/index.html</ulink>
</para>
<para>Debian Install Command: <userinput>apt-get install flite</userinput></para>
<para>flite is typically included with &Linux; distributions. Check your
distro CDs to see if it is included.</para>
<para>Build and install flite following the instructions in the
<filename>README</filename> that comes with it.</para>
</sect2>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect2 id="using-with-hadifix">
<title>Using with Hadifix (&mbrola; and txt2pho)</title>
<para>Hadifix is a two-stage synthesis engine based on diphones.
The <command>txt2pho</command> utility converts text into diphones
and the &mbrola; engine synthesizes the diphones to sound.
Voice quality is good, but language support is currently somewhat limited.
You can control the voice, pitch, speed, and volume from <application>kttsmgr</application>.
</para>
<para>Synthesizer Name: <guilabel>Hadifix</guilabel></para>
<para>&URL;: see below</para>
<para>Debian Install Command: none</para>
<para>If you do not already have Hadifix installed, do this:</para>
<procedure>
<step><para>Download &mbrola; binary from
<ulink url="http://festvox.org/mbrola/">http://festvox.org/mbrola/</ulink>.</para></step>
<step><para>Install &mbrola; to <filename>/usr/local/mbrola</filename> folder.</para></step>
<step><para>Download at least one german language file from the &mbrola; site.
Unzip to the <filename>/usr/local/mbrola</filename> folder.</para></step>
<step><para>Download txt2pho from</para>
<para>
<ulink url="http://www.ikp.uni-bonn.de/dt/forsch/phonetik/hadifix/HADIFIXforMBROLA.html">
http://www.ikp.uni-bonn.de/dt/forsch/phonetik/hadifix/HADIFIXforMBROLA.html</ulink>.</para>
</step>
<step><para>Unzip txt2pho to <filename>/usr/local/txt2pho</filename>.</para></step>
<step><para>Edit <command>txt2phorc</command> file, putting correct data paths in.</para></step>
<step><para>Either copy <command>txt2phorc</command> to <filename>~/.txt2phorc</filename> or to <filename>/etc/txt2pho</filename>.
Note that you drop the "rc" in file name.</para></step>
<step><para>In <application>kttsmgr</application>, choose the German language
(<guilabel>de</guilabel>), and add <guilabel>Hadifix</guilabel>.</para></step>
<step><para>On the <guilabel>Configure Talker</guilabel> screen,
configure a voice and the paths to &mbrola; and txt2pho.</para></step>
<step><para>Click the <guibutton>Test</guibutton> button to test.</para></step>
</procedure>
<para>A Hungarian implementation for &mbrola; and txt2pho is available at</para>
<para>
<ulink url="http://tkltrans.sourceforge.net/">http://tkltrans.sourceforge.net/</ulink>.
</para>
</sect2>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect2 id="using-with-epos">
<title>Using with Epos</title>
<para>Epos is a free Czeck and Slovak open source engine.
It is light weight, but sacrifices voice quality somewhat.
You cannot control the volume of this engine
from &ktts;.</para>
<para>Synthesizer Name: <guilabel>Epos TTS Synthesis System</guilabel></para>
<para>&URL;: <ulink url="http://epos.ure.cas.cz/">
http://epos.ure.cas.cz/</ulink>
</para>
<para>Debian Install Command: <userinput>apt-get install epos</userinput></para>
<para>Start <application>kttsmgr</application>. On the <guilabel>Talkers</guilabel> tab,
click the <guibutton>Add</guibutton> button. Choose Czeck or Slovak
language and <guilabel>Epos TTS Synthesis System</guilabel>.
If the epos server executable and client are not
in your <envar>PATH</envar>, specify the paths to these executables
in the <guilabel>Configure Talker</guilabel> screen. The options boxes
permit you to pass additional options to the server and client. In a
&konsole;, type <userinput>epos -h</userinput>
or <userinput>say -h</userinput> for information.</para>
</sect2>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect2 id="using-with-freetts">
<title>Using with FreeTTS</title>
<para>FreeTTS is a free open source speech engine written in &Java;, which means
that you must have the &Java; Virtual Machine software installed on your
system to use it. It currently has limited voice and language support.
You cannot control the pitch, volume, or speed of this engine
from &ktts;.</para>
<para>Synthesizer Name: <guilabel>FreeTTS</guilabel></para>
<para>&URL;: <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/freetts/">
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freetts/</ulink>
</para>
<para>Debian Install Command: none</para>
</sect2>
<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<sect2 id="using-with-command">
<title>Using the Command Plugin</title>
<para>The command plugin permits you to use &ktts; with any
speech synthesis engine that can be run as a command in a
&konsole;.</para>
<para>Synthesizer Name: <guilabel>Command</guilabel></para>
<para>&URL;: none</para>
<para>Debian Install Command: none</para>
<para>Ideally, you should use a command that synthesizes to a temporary audio
(wav) file, rather than send the speech directly to the audio device.</para>
<para>If the speech synthesis engine requires text to be encoded
differently from your desktop encoding setting, you must use the
<command>%f</command> parameter to pass the text to the engine.
&ktts; will encode the text in the setting you specify when
it writes the text to the temporary file. If you attempt to pass text
on the command line using the <command>%t</command> parameter,
it will be encoded using your desktop locale setting.
You can also use the <guilabel>Send the data as standard input</guilabel>
option to solve this problem, if the engine accepts input from StdIn.
For example, here is a sample command to send polish text to Festival using
ISO 8859-2 encoding and removing unspeakable punctuation characters.</para>
<para><command>cat %f | tr '(){}[]"' ' ' | festival --tts --language polish</command>
</para>
</sect2>
<!-- ====================================================================== -->
</sect1>
</appendix>
&documentation.index;
</book>
