espeak: what changed

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Title: espeak

New		Line
1	+	## Overview
2	+
3	+	[eSpeak](http://espeak.sourceforge.net/) is an open source Text-To-Speech (TTS) engine. It is an artificial speech synthesis software which converts text to audio. It supports a vast number of [languages](http://espeak.sourceforge.net/languages.html). Further languages can be developed with the help of [espeakedit](http://espeak.sf.net/download.html), a GUI interface for preparing and compiling phoneme data. In Windows, eSpeak implements Microsoft [[SAPI]] (Speech API). Besides Windows, it supports Mac and Linux platforms.
4	+
5	+	eSpeak does text to speech synthesis for the following languages, some better than others: Afrikaans, Albanian, Aragonese, Armenian, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Kannada, Kurdish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Lojban, Macedonian, Malaysian, Malayalam, Mandarin, Nepalese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Turkish, Vietnamese, Welsh.
6	+
7	+	Lazarus or Freepascal has many ways of implementing it. The simplest way is to use an [sysutils.ExecuteProcess()](http://www.freepascal.org/docs-html/rtl/sysutils/executeprocess.html) call to execute eSpeak with command line parameters ([[espeak\|discussed below]]). But this could result in a console window while speaking. A better solution is to use a TProcess (changing properties to poUsePipes and swoHide) to run the commands.
8	+
9	+	## Using eSpeak command line
10	+
11	+	These are some simple examples of using the eSpeak command line. To use this [Download](http://espeak.sourceforge.net/download.html) and install eSpeak. Then open the command prompt and run `cd C:\Program Files\eSpeak\command_line\` then run the commands below:
12	+
13	+	```dos
14	+	espeak "Hello World!"
15	+	```
16	+
17	+	This is the simplest command. Speaks "Hello World!"
18	+
19	+	```dos
20	+	espeak -v +f2 "Hello World!"
21	+	```
22	+
23	+	Speaks the text in female voice (thus f2). There are 7 male voices (m1 to m7) and 4 female voices (f1 to f4)
24	+
25	+	```dos
26	+	espeak -v fr+f2 "Bonjour tout le monde"
27	+	```
28	+
29	+	Speaks the text in French accent and in a female voice.
30	+
31	+	```dos
32	+	espeak -g 10 "I have something to say."
33	+	```
34	+
35	+	Pauses for 10 milliseconds between words. A better understandable option.
36	+
37	+	```dos
38	+	espeak -s 400 "I have something to say."
39	+	```
40	+
41	+	Speaks fluently! The -s (speed) parameter could be 80 to 450. Default is 175.
42	+
43	+	```dos
44	+	espeak -v +whisper "I have something secret to say!"
45	+	```
46	+
47	+	Speaks the text as if in your ear!! (Notice the `+whisper` part.)
48	+
49	+	More details about command line parameters can be found here: <http://espeak.sourceforge.net/commands.html>
50	+
51	+	## Preparing to use eSpeak
52	+
53	+	We can either use the installation path of eSpeak (path is retrieved from the Windows registry) or use a stand alone option (by using a copy of the installation directory). Example of the former can be found [here](http://www.rolfware.de/delphi/espeak_example.html) (for Delphi). For the rest of this article we will use the stand-alone option (by using `--path` parameter).
54	+
55	+	To get the stand-alone flavor of eSpeak we will have to do the following:
56	+
57	+	1. [Download](http://espeak.sourceforge.net/download.html) and install eSpeak for windows. The file would be named something like: espeak-1.46.02-win.zip
58	+	2. Assuming that you have installed eSpeak in `C:\Program Files\eSpeak` , copy the eSpeak directory in your freepascal/lazarus project directory.
59	+	3. You may remove some unwanted files or folders such as sourcedict, espeaksapi.dll etc. if you want.
60	+	4. Optionally, you may uninstall eSpeak (if you don't want to use the eSpeak installation).
61	+
62	+	Now remember to add `--path` parameter when calling eSpeak. For example:
63	+
64	+	```dos
65	+	espeak.exe --path=eSpeak "Hello World!"
66	+	```
67	+
68	+	## Coding for Free Pascal
69	+
70	+	Free Pascal can be used to call the eSpeak command line executable to retrieve spoken words. A simple example is given below:
71	+
72	+	``` pascal
73	+	uses sysutils
74	+
75	+	...
76	+
77	+	var
78	+	ExePath,MyText:String;
79	+	begin
80	+	ExePath := 'path\to\espeak\command_line\espeak.exe';
81	+	MyText := 'Hello World!';
82	+
83	+	ExecuteProcess(ExePath, ' --path=eSpeak "' + MyText + '"', []);
84	+	```
85	+
86	+	Here only `--path` parameter is used. There are other parameters that can speak a text file; set the volume, pitch, speed (words per minute), word gap etc. Info about command line parameters can be found here: <http://espeak.sourceforge.net/commands.html>
87	+
88	+	## Coding for Lazarus
89	+
90	+	For a tutorial, please see here: <http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,20153.0.html> Or here: <http://inkoflife.blogspot.com/2013/03/let-your-software-speak.html>
91	+
92	+	## See also
93	+
94	+	- [[Speech Synthesis]] for cross-platform and native operating system speech synthesis solutions.
95	+
96	+	---
97	+	From the Free Pascal wiki, page "espeak", as it stood on 2019-12-19 after a change by Trev, out of the wiki's dump of 2024-05-26. Copyright stays with the author who wrote it, according to the old wiki's [[Licensing]] page. If you have concerns about this material, [message the admin](/wiki-contact).
98	+	Category: FPC
99	+	Category: Speech synthesis
100	+	Category: Tutorials

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