# eSpeak NG Text-to-Speech
- [Windows](#windows) - [Binaries](#binaries) - [Building](#building) - [Linux, Mac, BSD](#linux-mac-bsd) - [Dependencies](#dependencies) - [Building](#building-1) - [Cross Compilation](#cross-compilation) - [Audio Output Configuration](#audio-output-configuration) - [eSpeak NG Feature Configuration](#espeak-ng-feature-configuration) - [Extended Dictionary Configuration](#extended-dictionary-configuration) - [Testing](#testing) - [Installing](#installing) - [Android](#android) - [Dependencies](#dependencies-1) - [Building with Gradle](#building-with-gradle) - [Signing the APK](#signing-the-apk) - [Installing](#installing-1) - [Documentation](#documentation) - [Packaging](#packaging) - [Historical Versions](#historical-versions) - [Bugs](#bugs) - [License Information](#license-information) ---------- The eSpeak NG (Next Generation) Text-to-Speech program is an open source speech synthesizer that supports [95 languages and accents](espeak-ng-data/voices/README.md). It is based on the eSpeak engine created by Jonathan Duddington. It uses spectral formant synthesis by default which sounds robotic, but can be configured to use Klatt formant synthesis or MBROLA to give it a more natural sound. See the [CHANGELOG](CHANGELOG.md) for a description of the changes in the various releases and with the eSpeak project. ## Windows ### Binaries The Windows version of eSpeak NG 1.49.0 is available as: * [espeak-ng-x64.msi](https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng/releases/download/1.49.0/espeak-ng-x64.msi) -- 64-bit Windows installer * [espeak-ng-x86.msi](https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng/releases/download/1.49.0/espeak-ng-x86.msi) -- 32-bit Windows installer __NOTE:__ SAPI 5 voices are not currently available in this release of eSpeak NG. There is an [issue](https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng/issues/7) to track support for this feature. ### Building To build eSpeak NG on Windows, you will need: 1. a copy of Visual Studio 2015, such as the Community Edition; 2. the Windows 8.1 SDK; 3. the [WiX installer](http://wixtoolset.org) plugin; 4. the [pcaudiolib](http://github.com/rhdunn/pcaudiolib) project checked out to `src` (as `src/pcaudiolib`). You can then open and build the `src/windows/espeak-ng.sln` solution in Visual Studio. ## Linux, Mac, BSD ### Dependencies In order to build eSpeak NG, you need: 1. a functional autotools system (`make`, `autoconf`, `automake`, `libtool` and `pkg-config`); 2. a functional c compiler that supports C99 (e.g. gcc or clang). Optionally, you need: 1. the [pcaudiolib](https://github.com/rhdunn/pcaudiolib) development library to enable audio output; 3. the [sonic](https://github.com/waywardgeek/sonic) development library to enable sonic audio speed up support; 4. the `ronn` man-page markdown processor to build the man pages. To build the documentation, you need: 1. the `kramdown` markdown processor. On Debian-based systems such as Debian, Ubuntu and Mint, these dependencies can be installed using the following commands: | Dependency | Install | |---------------|------------------------------------------------------------------| | autotools | `sudo apt-get install make autoconf automake libtool pkg-config` | | c99 compiler | `sudo apt-get install gcc` | | sonic | `sudo apt-get install libsonic-dev` | | ronn | `sudo apt-get install ruby-ronn` | | kramdown | `sudo apt-get install ruby-kramdown` | ### Building The first time you build eSpeak NG, or when you want to change how to build eSpeak NG, you need to run the following standard autotools commands: ./autogen.sh ./configure --prefix=/usr __NOTE:__ The `--prefix` option above will install the files to the `/usr` directory, instead of the default `/usr/local` location. You can use other standard `configure` options to control the output. For more information, you can run: ./configure --help To use a different compiler, or compiler flags, you can specify these before the `configure` command. For example: CC=clang-3.5 CFLAGS=-Wextra ./configure --prefix=/usr The `espeak-ng` and `speak-ng` programs, along with the espeak-ng voices, can then be built with: make __NOTE:__ Building the voice data does not work when using the `-jN` option. If you want to use that option, you can run: make -j8 src/espeak-ng src/speak-ng make The documentation can be built by running: make docs Specific languages can be compiled by running: make LANG where `LANG` is the language code of the given language. More information can be found in the [Adding or Improving a Language](docs/add_language.md) documentation. #### Cross Compilation Because the eSpeak NG build process uses the built program to compile the language and voice data, you need to build it locally first. Once you have built it locally you can perform the cross compilation using: ./configure --build=... --host=... --target=... make -B src/espeak-ng src/speak-ng #### Audio Output Configuration The following `configure` options control which audio interfaces to use: | Option | Audio Interfaces | Default | |---------------------|------------------|---------| | `--with-pulseaudio` | PulseAudio | yes | | `--with-portaudio` | PortAudio | yes | | `--with-sada` | SADA (Solaris) | no | If pulseaudio and portaudio are both enabled and available, eSpeak NG will choose which one to use at runtime, trying pulseaudio first before falling back to portaudio. #### eSpeak NG Feature Configuration The following `configure` options control which eSpeak NG features are enabled: | Option | Description | Default | |-----------------|----------------------------------------------|---------| | `--with-klatt` | Enable Klatt formant synthesis. | yes | | `--with-mbrola` | Enable MBROLA voice support. | yes | | `--with-sonic` | Use the sonic library to support higher WPM. | yes | | `--with-async` | Enable asynchronous commands. | yes | __NOTE:__ The `--with-sonic` option requires that the sonic library and header is accessible on the system. #### Extended Dictionary Configuration The following `configure` options control which of the extended dictionary files to build: | Option | Extended Dictionary | Default | |----------------------|---------------------|---------| | `--with-extdict-ru` | Russian | no | | `--with-extdict-zh` | Mandarin Chinese | no | | `--with-extdict-zhy` | Cantonese | no | The extended dictionaries are taken from [http://espeak.sourceforge.net/data/](http://espeak.sourceforge.net/data/) and provide better coverage for those languages, while increasing the resulting dictionary size. ### Testing Before installing, you can test the built espeak-ng using the following command from the top-level directory of this project: ESPEAK_DATA_PATH=`pwd` LD_LIBRARY_PATH=src:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH} src/espeak-ng ... The `ESPEAK_DATA_PATH` variable needs to be set to use the espeak-ng data from the source tree. Otherwise, espeak-ng will look in `$(HOME)` or `/usr/share/espeak-ng-data`. The `LD_LIBRARY_PATH` is set as `espeak` uses the `libespeak-ng.so` shared library. This ensures that `espeak` uses the built shared library in the `src` directory and not the one on the system (which could be an older version). ### Installing You can install eSpeak NG by running the following command: sudo make LIBDIR=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu install __NOTE:__ The `LIBDIR` path may be different to the one on your system (the above is for 64-bit Debian/Ubuntu releases that use the multi-arch package structure -- that is, Debian Wheezy or later). You can find out where espeak-ng is installed to on your system if you already have an espeak-ng install by running: find /usr/lib | grep libespeak-ng ## Android
The espeak-ng sources contain the code for the Android™ port of the application. This is published as the [eSpeak for Android](http://reecedunn.co.uk/espeak-for-android) program on the Google Play store. It is based on the eyes-free port of eSpeak to the Android platform. This code was originally maintained in a separate branch when the repository tracked eSpeak releases. ### Dependencies In order to build the Android APK file, you need: 1. the [Android SDK](http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html) with API 21 support; 2. the [Android NDK](http://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/ndk/index.html); 3. Gradle 2.1 or later. In order to use Android Studio, you will also need: 1. [Android Studio](http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/studio.html). ### Building with Gradle 1. Set the location of the Android SDK: $ export ANDROID_HOME= 2. Build the project: $ ./autogen.sh $ ./configure --with-gradle= $ make apk-release This will create an `android/build/outputs/apk/espeak-release-unsigned.apk` file. ### Signing the APK In order to install the built APK you need to self-sign the package. You can do this by: 1. Creating a certificate, if you do not already have one: $ keytool -genkey -keystore [YOUR_CERTIFICATE] -alias [ALIAS] 2. Sign the package using your certificate: $ jarsigner -sigalg MD5withRSA -digestalg SHA1 \ -keystore [YOUR_CERTIFICATE] \ android/build/outputs/apk/espeak-release-unsigned.apk [ALIAS] 3. Align the apk using the zipalign tool. $ zipalign 4 android/build/outputs/apk/espeak-release-unsigned.apk \ android/build/outputs/apk/espeak-release-signed.apk ### Installing Now, you can install the APK using the `adb` tool: $ adb install -r android/build/outputs/apk/espeak-release-signed.apk After running, `eSpeakActivity` will extract the `espeakdata.zip` file into its own data directory to set up the available voices. To enable eSpeak, you need to: 1. go into the Android `Text-to-Speech settings` UI; 2. enable `eSpeak TTS` in the `Engines` section; 3. select `eSpeak TTS` as the default engine; 4. use the `Listen to an example` option to check if everything is working. ## Documentation The [main documentation](docs/index.md) for eSpeak NG provides more information on using and creating voices/languages for eSpeak NG. The [espeak-ng](src/espeak-ng.1.ronn) and [speak-ng](src/speak-ng.1.ronn) command-line documentation provide a reference of the different command-line options available to these commands with example usage. ## Packaging The **espeak-ng** project works as a drop-in replacement for **espeak**, with a few caveats. More specifically: 1. The installation creates compatibility symlinks mapping _espeak_, _speak_ and _libespeak.la_ to their _espeak-ng_ equivalents. These are optional if you are packaging _espeak_ using the upstream eSpeak code, and can be handled in distributions in other ways, such as the [Debian Alternatives](https://wiki.debian.org/DebianAlternatives) system. 2. The command-line interface to _espeak-ng_ and _speak-ng_ are compatible with the upstream versions and intend to remain so. Only new command options will be added. 3. The C API to _libespeak-ng.so_ will remain API and ABI compatible with _libespeak.so_. The only change `speak_lib.h` has is a change to the `ESPEAK_API` macro when building on Windows. All new APIs are being added to `espeak-ng/espeak_ng.h`. 4. The _espeak-ng-data_ files have been modified slightly. Currently _espeak-ng_ can read _espeak_ data, but _espeak_ cannot read _espeak-ng_ data, because _espeak-ng_ uses a different voice data so that both _espeak_ and _espeak-ng_ can be installed on the same machine without problems. 5. The _espeak-ng_ project does not include _espeakedit_. The voice data is built using the _espeak-ng_ command line itself. Currently, to create and edit the voice data, you need _espeakedit_ from the _espeak_ project. ## Historical Versions The *historical* branch contains the available older releases of the original eSpeak that are not contained in the subversion repository. 1.24.02 is the first version of eSpeak to appear in the subversion repository, but releases from 1.05 to 1.24 are available at [http://sourceforge.net/projects/espeak/files/espeak/](http://sourceforge.net/projects/espeak/files/espeak/). These early releases have been checked into the historical branch, with the 1.24.02 release as the last entry. This makes it possible to use the replace functionality of git to see the earlier history: git replace 8d59235f 63c1c019 __NOTE:__ The source releases contain the `big_endian`, `espeak-edit`, `praat-mod`, `riskos`, `windows_dll` and `windows_sapi` folders. These do not appear in the source repository until later releases, so have been excluded from the historical commits to align them better with the 1.24.02 source commit. ## Bugs Report bugs to the [espeak-ng issues](https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng/issues) page on GitHub. ## License Information eSpeak NG Text-to-Speech is released under the [GPL version 3](COPYING) or later license. The `ieee80.c` implementation is taken directly from [ToFromIEEE.c.txt](http://www.realitypixels.com/turk/opensource/ToFromIEEE.c.txt) which has been made available for use in Open Source applications per the [license statement](COPYING.IEEE) on http://www.realitypixels.com/turk/opensource/. The only modification made to the code is to comment out the `TEST_FP` define to make it useable in the eSpeak NG library. The `getopt.c` compatibility implementation for getopt support on Windows is taken from the NetBSD `getopt_long` implementation, which is licensed under a [2-clause BSD](COPYING.BSD2) license. Android is a trademark of Google Inc.