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Old 09-25-2011, 06:16 PM   #1
carld
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Best File Format for Kindle TTS?

I was wondering if there is a particular file format that works better with the Kindle's Text To Speech function than the others? I have something I'd like to have the Kindle read to me while I review it onscreen. Does format matter?
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Old 09-25-2011, 06:34 PM   #2
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The Kindle only supports its own format plus .mobi, which is essentially the same as azw, but without DRM. TTS does not work with PDF files.

So, basically format does not matter. If it is a Kindle book, and TTS is enabled, it will work the same.
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Old 09-25-2011, 06:39 PM   #3
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Well it supports TXT as well. I guess I should have phrased it as "Which works better mobi or plain text? Thanks for the answer though, simple enough.
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Old 09-25-2011, 07:02 PM   #4
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I think it has to be in amazon format for the kindle to read it. The simplest thing to do is to use their conversion software. You can send it to amazon in word .doc format (using the kindle email account they gave you ie. user@free.kindle.com) and they will email it back to you in their format and you simply need to load it on the kindle. The whole process takes maybe ten minutes.

If you are going to be doing this a lot and you don't mind spending a little money, I would recommend an alternate approach. In my view the speaking quality of the text-to-speech software in the Kindle is so bad, I have a difficult time forcing myself to listen to it. If you want something that sounds closer to a human reading it, I would suggest getting the software http://www.nextup.com/TextAloud/ which is about $30.

Their default voices are also horrible, but you can purchase really good voices for it through their website. My preferred voice is 'Rachel' from Acapela, which costs $35. She has a modest British accent that I find very pleasant. So for about $65 you can have something that is much much better to listen to than the text-to-speech in the kindle.

I use this software to help proofread most everything I write that is longer than a few paragraphs. I find I can 'hear' things that are wrong much better than I can see them by merely reading the text. I usually have this software open on one side of my computer monitor and the master document in Word on the other side of my monitor when I am proofing what I have written.

I like to listen to audiobooks in the car and perhaps half of everything I listen to are things I have run through this software. I enjoy fanfiction and it is pretty easy to run it through this software which will output an MP3 file you can then burn to a CD for use in the car. You can convert pretty much anything you can get in .txt or .doc format.

The kindle is good for reading books, but I think there are better solutions for text-to-speech.

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Old 09-25-2011, 09:18 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by carld View Post
Well it supports TXT as well. I guess I should have phrased it as "Which works better mobi or plain text? Thanks for the answer though, simple enough.
TTS works with both TXT and the various Mobipocket/Kindle flavors (MOBI, AZW, ...) with the exception of those AZW files where the TTS is intentionally disabled by the publisher (an optional feature in Amazon's DRM).

TTS uses a screen reading methodology so it is affected by how well the text displays. If the file looks good on screen then TTS should read it well.
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Old 09-27-2011, 10:39 AM   #6
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I ended up sending my word doc through Amazon's conversion. That gave me a nicely formatted document to follow along with while the Kindle read to me.

I've looked at other voice options but haven't found one I like better than the Kindle. I don't like Microsoft's Anna at all and, despite some effort, I haven't been able to add any other voices to Win7.
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Old 09-27-2011, 11:03 PM   #7
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If you would like to hear a sample of the text-to-speech software I mentioned in my earlier post using Acapela's 'Rachel' voice, I have added a link at the bottom of the following page:

http://duaneaakre.wordpress.com/2010...-a-real-novel/

I'm sure like about half the people here on Mobileread, I am working on several novels I can eventually publish on Amazon. The audio sample in the link above is the first chapter of one of my projects and runs about 14 minutes.

Duane
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