ahk-tts

A simple, but clunky AutoHotkey application which:

• converts text to speech via Microsoft Speech API
• plays MP3/WAV sound files via NAudio

This is definitely not the first project to do this. Do check out the other similar (and more complete) AHK projects.

• https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/77686-text-to-speech-examples-for-autohotkey-v11/
• https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/53429-function-easy-text-to-speech/#entry372022

Usage

GUI settings

Item	Description
Output	The output channel for the speech. If you have more than one speaker (or output), it can be a tad useful.
Voice	The voice for the text. The choices available depends on your operating system.
Volume	The loudness for the speech.
Rate	The reading speed for the text. It does not affect audio files.
Pitch	The pitch for the speech. It does not affect audio files.
Text	The text to convert into speech, or the path to audio file.
Speak	The button to convert the text to speech, or play the audio file. Alternatively, you can press ENTER on the Text field.
Preset 1 - 20	The button to save the current text, or path to audio file into a preset, which can be called later with a hotkey.

Advanced settings

There are more advanced configurations in the settings.ini file. The application needs to be restarted in order to take in the setting changes here.

• CacheDir (default: _cache)
  A relative or absolute path to a directory, which will be used for caching purposes. This directory will be used heavily in generating text to speech WAV files.

• Hotkey1 to Hotkey20
  Only Hotkey1 to Hotkey10 are configured, with Ctrl + 1 to Ctrl + 0 respectively. These are the hotkey combinations which will trigger a playback of Preset 1 to 20. The hotkey combination needs to follow AHK's keylist. As an example, Ctrl and 1 is defined by Ctrl & 1.

Limitations

• To allow users to change hotkeys dynamically via GUI is rather complex. The hotkeys are editable in settings.ini, albeit a little troublesome.

• The hotkeys are bound globally, so it might interrupt usual activity on computer. Please edit the hotkeys in settings.ini as deemed fit.

Downloads

See Releases

Why

My friends and I were using Discord for voice chat while playing games. It is inconvenient for me to use the mic, so I wanted to use a soundboard or something similar. I ended up writing this out, and coupled it with a virtual cable. Here's a simplified view of how things work.

[ ahk-tts ]         // here is where you type the text, then it sends the text
  |                 // to MS Speech API to be converted to audio
  v
[ NAudio ]          // which will direct the sound into the virtual speaker
  |                 // (Output), as set in ahk-tts
  v
[ CABLE Input ]     // the virtual speaker will just pass the audio into the
  |                 // virtual mic
  v
[ CABLE Output ]    // and the speech audio is now being broadcasted in this
  |                 // virtual mic
  v
[ Browser ]         // which can be picked up by the browser!

Additionally, you can "listen" to your speech audio by changing a setting in the virtual mic. Just "listen" your virtual mic via the default speakers, and voila.