Provided by: ebook-speaker_2.7.1-1_amd64 
NAME
eBook-speaker - read aloud eBooks and other text formats using a software speech-synthesizer
SYNOPSIS
eBook-speaker [eBook_file | -s] [-d ALSA_sound_device] [-t TTS_command]
DESCRIPTION
eBook-speaker reads aloud eBooks and other text formats and even scanned documents using a software
speech-synthesizer. By default the tool espeak is used for speech output. eBook-speaker also can scan a
documant by itself using the scanimage application.
A list of items on the eBook will appear. Press <ENTER> to start reading. When reading of an item has
finished, eBook-speaker will read the next item and the cursor will automatically skip to that item, so
that an attached braille-terminal will display the name of that item.
OPTIONS
eBook_file
Give an eBook_file as argument to eBook-speaker. Many eBook formats are supported. eBook-speaker
also tries to read scanned documents through Optical Character Recognition.
Supported formats
-----------------
AportisDoc
ASCII mail text
ASCII text
Broadband eBooks (BBeB)
Composite Document File (Microsoft Office Word)
DAISY3 DTBook
EPUB ebook data
GIF image data
GutenPalm zTXT
HTML document
ISO-8859 text
JPEG image data
Microsoft Reader eBook Data
Microsoft Windows HtmlHelp Data
Microsoft Word 2007+
Mobipocket E-book
MS Windows HtmlHelp Data
Netpbm PPM data
OpenDocument Text
PDF document
PeanutPress PalmOS
PNG image data
PostScript document
Rich Text Format
UTF-8 Unicode mail text
UTF-8 Unicode text
WordPerfect
When no input-file is supplied, eBook-speaker will bring up a file-manager.
Keyboard-commands in the file-manager:
enter or cursor right Start eBook-speaker with current file as input.
cursor left Select previous directory and open it.
cursor down Move cursor to the next file.
cursor up Move cursor to the previous file.
page-down View next page.
page-up View previous page.
/ Search for a file.
B Move cursor to the last file.
h or ? Give this help.
H Toggle hidden files displaying on or off.
n Search next.
N Search previous.
q Quit eBook-speaker.
T Move cursor to the first file.
-d ALSA_sound_device
eBook-speaker will play on this sound device. Default is "hw:0".
-l Deprecated. eBook-speaker now determines the file-type using the libmagic library.
-s Scan a document using a hardware scanner and OCR it with the tool tesseract.
-t TTS-command
Be sure that the TTS reads from the file eBook-speaker.txt and that it writes to the file eBook-
speaker.wav.
Examples:
• eBook-speaker some.epub -t "espeak -f eBook-speaker.txt -w eBook-speaker.wav -v nl"
• eBook-speaker some.epub -t "flite eBook-speaker.txt eBook-speaker.wav"
• eBook-speaker some.epub -t "text2wave eBook-speaker.txt -o eBook-speaker.wav"
SCREEN
The name and version of this program and the name of the author is displayed left aligned at the top of
the screen. The name of the current loaded book is displayed right aligned.
The second row of the screen displays the number of pages of the current loaded book (if any), the
current selected level and the total number of levels, the total number of phrases and the current
displayed screen and the total number of screens.
The spoken phrase will be displayed on the bottom-line of the screen, so one can follow along on a
braille-terminal what he hears.
The next rows displays the title of the item, the first page of the item within brackets (if there are
pages) and the total number of phrases in this item. Items in higher levels are indented. (Three spaces
each level.) When "just reading this item" is active, a "J" is viewed at the first column of that item.
CONTROL KEYS
eBook-speaker recognizes the following keyboard-commands:
cursor down
Move cursor to the next item.
cursor up
Move cursor to the previous item.
cursor right
Skip to next phrase.
cursor left
Skip to previous phrase.
page-down
View next screen.
page-up
View previous screen.
enter Start reading.
space Pause/resume reading.
home Read on normal speed.
/ Search for a label.
B Move cursor to the last item.
d Store current item to disk in WAV-format.
D Decrease reading speed.
f Find the currently reading item and place the cursor there.
g Go to phrase in current item.
h or ? Give this help.
j Just read current item and place a "J" at the first column.
l Switch to next level.
L Switch to previous level.
n Search forewards.
N Search backwards.
o Select an output sound device.
p Place a bookmark.
q Quit eBook-speaker. The reading-point is saved as bookmark.
s Stop reading.
t Select a TTS.
T Move cursor to the first item.
U Increase reading speed.
TTS
When pressing the 't'-command, the TTS-selector appears. A few TTS-applications are defined by default.
• Choose one by moving the cursor with the cursor-keys and select it by pressing the ENTER-key.
• To delete a TTS-command press the DEL-key.
• A new TTS-command can be provided by adding the TTS-command to the TTS-line.
• To edit an existing TTS-command one has to edit the ~/.eBook-speaker.xml file by hand.
Be sure that the new TTS reads its information from the file eBook-speaker.txt and that it writes to the
file eBook-speaker.wav.
TTS EXAMPLES
Here are some examples to insert into the TTS-selector:
espeak -f eBook-speaker.txt -w eBook-speaker.wav
espeak -f eBook-speaker.txt -w eBook-speaker.wav -v mb-en1
espeak -f eBook-speaker.txt -w eBook-speaker.wav -v de
espeak -f eBook-speaker.txt -w eBook-speaker.wav -v nl
espeak -f eBook-speaker.txt -w eBook-speaker.wav -v mb-nl2
flite eBook-speaker.txt eBook-speaker.wav
swift -n Lawrence -f eBook-speaker.txt -o eBook-speaker.wav
text2wave eBook-speaker.txt -o eBook-speaker.wav
text2wave -eval '(voice_en1_mbrola)' eBook-speaker.txt -o eBook-speaker.wav
pico2wave -w eBook-speaker.wav "`cat eBook-speaker.txt`"
FILES
~/.eBook-speaker/
This directory contains the bookmarks in XML-format. Each file has the name of the book and
contains the name of the current item, the start-phrase of that item, the current level, the
desired TTS and the desired reading speed.
~/.eBook-speaker.xml
This file, in XML-format, contains the name of the desired audio device and the TTS's to use.
(See TTS EXAMPLES)
/tmp/eBook-speaker.XXXXXX
eBook-speaker makes use of a temporary directory. It is removed after quiting.
SEE ALSO
ebook-convert(1), calibre(1), lowriter(1), tesseract(1), espeak(1), flite(1), text2wave(1), mbrola(1),
pico2wave(1), scanimage(1), magic(5)
AUTHOR
Jos Lemmens <jos@jlemmens.nl>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C)2013 Jos Lemmens <jos@jlemmens.nl>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your
option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General
Public License along with this program (see the file COPYING); if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA