What does "text-to speech" do? How does it work?

[patmich]

I was looking through the settings and came upon text-to-speech. As a truck driver, I would like to have a device that reads to me. Is that what text to speech does? What does it read? web sites? How does one go about setting it up so it will read web sites? I really have no idea where to start. It sounds intriguing, that's all I know. Thanks!

 

[snapper.fishes]

The text to speech settings installs a package that allows android to "pronounce" text. The actual implementation varies depending on the phone, but most phone should have a driving mode that reads out text messages when activated. In addition, you can download apps from the market to further increase functionality. For example, you can program tasker to read out the sender's name and phone number before reading out sms messages.

Wouldn't really recommend trying to read out websites though. It will probably try to read out all the buttons and miscellaneous things on the page.

 

[takeshi]

AFAIK all Android devices have TTS engines installed out of the box. However, if you want to have content read to you you'll need to find an app that does that using the TTS engine. The TTS engine does the work of converting text into speech but it doesn't handle reading web sites, text messages or email to you on its own.

FYI, if you're not happy with the stock TTS engine try SVOX or Loquendo. They have much more natural voices IMO.

 

[Mavis Cruet]

The main downside (to me at least) is the rather robotic voices in the text to speech programmes. Why not consider listening to audiobooks, at least those are read by a human, which is a great improvement. There are many sources for them in MP3 format or it's an easy matter to rip from CD's, as they don't have copy protection. Most book readers will resume, which makes it easy to take breaks. Although I don't have a lot of time to sit and read, I can listen to books whilst doing other things

 

[snapper.fishes]

AFAIK all Android devices have TTS engines installed out of the box. However, if you want to have content read to you you'll need to find an app that does that using the TTS engine. The TTS engine does the work of converting text into speech but it doesn't handle reading web sites, text messages or email to you on its own.

FYI, if you're not happy with the stock TTS engine try SVOX or Loquendo. They have much more natural voices IMO.

I had to download TTS from the market. It wasn't pre-installed.