Text to speech software needed.  [SOLVED]

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bowlesj3
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Text to speech software needed.

Postby bowlesj3 » 01 Feb 2014

Hi, I am looking for a text-to-speech software that can immediately voice read text that is placed in the Win 7 clipboard.

Currently I am using an old free version of "natural voice reader" that works great.
1/ It can immediately read anything copied into the clipboard.
2/ It can adjust volume and speed (and it actually works)
3/ many voices can be used.
4/ It can stop the playback with Ctrl+F7 even if the software is not highlighter (not active).
5/ If you copy the exact same text into the clipboard it will restart the playback.
6/ It runs on XP but does not run on Win 7.

I have tried replacing it with these and they have problems:

The latest Windows natural voice reader: They actually removed text to clip board voice reading :-( Now that is really strange and I have reported it to them.

Speakonia: I would need to convert all the database text that feeds it since it reads differently. It is also no longer supported.

Ultra Hal Text-to-Speech reader: Lots of problems. Speed change, volume, it can not repeat the same text if you resend it to the clipboard. So in other words it only reads again if the text changes.

Cool speech: this one came close. However it had a major flaw. I will have a popup come up which is from a database record and it starts reading to me automatically so I can watch the market at the same time. If I want to skip to the next popup I just click it and the next one comes up and it should stop reading the first and start reading the second one. However this software does not detect that new text data has hit the clipboard and and it just keeps reading the old one. It renders the software useless.

I tried a few others form download.com and they would not even work.

I don't suppose anyone knows of another software to try?

Also it would be a handy feature for MC to have it if could write to the clipboard for an external program to immediately voice read. It would be faster than reading a wave file. There would be no need to rerecord it since the user could just retype the message and the voice reader could read it. MC would need a place for the user to key in the text messages and an way to get at them (with a key number) rather than having to recompile the code. Another idea would be to submit the messages using EL collections and having a command to submit selected messages to the clipboard. If anyone thinks they would use this feature I could submit it in the PM system.

Thanks,
John
Last edited by bowlesj3 on 01 Feb 2014, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Text to speech software needed.

Postby arnie » 01 Feb 2014


bowlesj3
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Re: Text to speech software needed.

Postby bowlesj3 » 01 Feb 2014

Thanks Arnie, I will give it a try after super and shoveling snow. I am assuming the download site is safe. I submitted an update above after trying "cool speech". You might not have read that item.
John

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Re: Text to speech software needed.

Postby arnie » 01 Feb 2014

Thanks Arnie, I will give it a try after super and shoveling snow. I am assuming the download site is safe. I submitted an update above after trying "cool speech". You might not have read that item.
John
I've downloaded several programs from that site and never had any issue.
They are all open source.

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Re: Text to speech software needed.

Postby bowlesj3 » 01 Feb 2014

Great, I will go ahead and try them now.

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Re: Text to speech software needed.  [SOLVED]

Postby bowlesj3 » 01 Feb 2014

One of your programs did the trick Arnie. However I did more searching and found one other. None do everything that the old Natural Voice reader would do that I was using. However "Balabolka" and "SimpleTTSreader" both can restart reading text from the clipboard if new text or the exact same text is copied into the clipboard. So the only thing these two programs can not do that Natural Voice Reader could do is using "ctrl +F7" to manually stop the playback at any time while any other application is highlighted/active. In a way this is good because I can use "ctrl+F7" now for other things. In my application a popup appears and the text on the popup is automatically read since there is a command inside the form to put the text into the clipboard. I use this for a lot of things. One is to look at the chart to find things while listening to the text being read to me (a series of popups to check a series of things that are far too complex to have MC try and figure out via power language code). So if I click the popup to skip to the next popup it will automatically start reading the new popup's text rather than my having to hear all of the prior popup's text. I can also submit a single space to the clipboard from my application to stop the playback of the prior text in the clipboard. If for some reason I want to stop the voice playback of a popup manually I have to highlight the application and press a short cut key to stop the playback.
Last edited by bowlesj3 on 01 Feb 2014, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Text to speech software needed.

Postby arjfca » 02 Feb 2014

John, for sure I will vote with you for a TTS from MC

I'm using pre-registered voice message, but not very versatil.

Martin

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Re: Text to speech software needed.

Postby bowlesj3 » 02 Feb 2014

Okay Martin,

The request would be for a simple command to copy a text string from a variable (or hard coded text) out to the clipboard where a TTS reader (text to speech reader) can detect it and read it. I will create the request now and add a post to this thread indicating the link.

For the time being, here are the links to the only TTS reader software I found that can accept a new copy into the clipboard and cut off the previous playback that the reader is doing so the new copy can start playback.

Balabolka (it is freeware - has a large number of extra features well beyond TTS).
http://www.cross-plus-a.com/balabolka.htm

Simple TTS Reader (real simple, that is all it does)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/simplettsreader/
http://simplettsreader.sourceforge.net/
http://download.cnet.com/Simple-TTS-Rea ... 54764.html
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-too ... ader.shtml

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Re: Text to speech software needed.

Postby bowlesj3 » 02 Feb 2014

This is the PM link where you can vote for the "copy to clipboard command".

https://www.multicharts.com/pm/viewissu ... no=MC-1594

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Re: Text to speech software needed.

Postby arnie » 03 Feb 2014

This is the PM link where you can vote for the "copy to clipboard command".

https://www.multicharts.com/pm/viewissu ... no=MC-1594
Done.

I love the text to speech ability because it facilitates to set specific alerts.
Using the AT&T natural voices (wave files) I set specific MC alerts which indicates if NQ/ES/YM/TY are making new overnight highs or broke yday highs... very, very useful.

One of my ideas have been also to set alerts for econ releases.
I would set the time for the alerts to trigger, 3 minutes prior the release, and then I would write the econ data that is to be released.

A very basic text such as, in 3 minutes, ISM, housing starts and building permits will be released.

So 3 minutes before the data release, the alert would be triggered and the text would be read.

Well, I can set a basic alert on MC, recording a natural voice which says... in 3 minutes economic data will be release... but one of the problems in MC is the fact that it cannot play two wave files at the same time so if by any chance one of my alerts would be triggered... ES broke previous day's high... and a second later the economic data alert would also be triggered, the latest one would not play.

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Re: Text to speech software needed.

Postby bowlesj3 » 03 Feb 2014

but one of the problems in MC is the fact that it cannot play two wave files at the same time
I use the text to voice software a huge amount (I hear probably 1 or 2 thousand daily at least). If two are triggered by MC within maybe 1 second you basically will only hear the 2nd one (assuming the software can cut off the play of the first when the second one hits the clipboard). So if this is possible in your code and the first one is very important you need a popup as well for both. It is also a good idea because you could have stepped out of the room for a few seconds and you need a way to catch up on the info. But at the same time if you are there and have your eyes on something it is nice to not have to read the popup. My use is very different however. I use lots of checklists and I would go blind reading all those popups - LOL. I can control how fast they come in many instances. In some instances I have to hit a key before the next one appears. In other instances the code actually counts the words that will go into the clipboard and it will cause the popup to close once the reading is done. You just do whatever you have to do.

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Re: Text to speech software needed.

Postby arjfca » 03 Feb 2014

but one of the problems in MC is the fact that it cannot play two wave files at the same time
I use the text to voice software a huge amount (I hear probably 1 or 2 thousand daily at least). If two are triggered by MC within maybe 1 second you basically will only hear the 2nd one (assuming the software can cut off the play of the first when the second one hits the clipboard). So if this is possible in your code and the first one is very important you need a popup as well for both. It is also a good idea because you could have stepped out of the room for a few seconds and you need a way to catch up on the info. But at the same time if you are there and have your eyes on something it is nice to not have to read the popup. My use is very different however. I use lots of checklists and I would go blind reading all those popups - LOL. I can control how fast they come in many instances. In some instances I have to hit a key before the next one appears. In other instances the code actually counts the words that will go into the clipboard and it will cause the popup to close once the reading is done. You just do whatever you have to do.
I use the Play command from MC and the alert from trend line. A useful thing would be the option to listen back to the alert message when clicking on the alert box.

Martin

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Re: Text to speech software needed.

Postby bowlesj3 » 08 Feb 2014

As part of the preparation for converting my external trading assistant program over from Win XP to Win7 operation, I wanted to see if the Balabolka program could insert silence into the text the way the old "natural voice reader" could do with periods. It can do it but it is more complex than just adding a period. For example, to pause the speech for 9 seconds you must insert this tag, \Pau=9000\ which stands for pause 9000 milliseconds. I tried it with a stop watch and it works. In a way this is easier since you do not need to put in 10 periods and you know exactly how much silence you are getting. While doing this research I found the Balabolka help very interesting. It appears Microsoft has set up standards for inserting tags into text for voice reading to cover off all sorts of things. What can be done depends on the TTS reader engine. Some of these could be of use for text being read to traders. For example these things can be done.

"the actual voice can be changed"
"set the character of the voice"
"empathize a word"
"change the speed of the text reading"
"change the volume of reading text"

So maybe the trader would want a voice announcement to clear all positions before an economic announcement since these can at times expand well out past a stop loss in both directions and which direction is going to occur first can be tricky to predict. To be sure they are out of the market the trader may want to increase the volume as the time nears or even change the character of the voice. So it is worth a read for anyone considering having text read to them for trading assistance if they are not fully automated. This might also be an interesting read for the MC staff if they are going to consider putting in the text to clipboard function and they have not already done this research.


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