Quote:
Originally Posted by franzli
I've been using MoonReader and Librera for reading, with a slight preference for the latter maybe.
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Librera is actually great. Thank you for the recommendation, wouldnt have picked it up otherwise.
Its native settings are close to perfect, which is great as well (comes with Times New Roman, good page margins, autohyphenations that are useful, respects epub formating, has a setting to disable page transition animations, default view is black text on a white background, which is ideal for our Likebooks, progression bar isnt too "in your face" - the whole set up maybe takes three minutes).
edit: Librera actually has a pro version that gets rid of the ads, and its available in the play store as well - if you fail to find it at first (as I did on the eInk device of my choice
) here are some links:
http://librera.mobi/#download Its a great app imho. Well worth tipping the dev.
The app also comes with a TTS engine built in thats potent enough to use Ivona voices on its own - so I can actually scrap recommending an old version of FBReader all the time (FBreader still can select the correct TTS voice dependant on a books language, while Librera con not, so its not out of the loop entirely..
)
Setting it up with Ivona voices is simple as well. Set text speed to 150, thats it. Text speed steps in +/-10 steps, but can even be set more gradually. 150 is just about fine though.
And thats it, no more text to speech related settings needed.
(I also set system TTS speed to fast, not sure if that has an impact, but I thought I'd at least mention it.
)
With this in play - I might actually write another tutorial for Ivona voices - because we now have a fully functioning high level TTS engine on a pretty good eReader of our choice. Setback is, that you have to use a Bluetooth speaker, because the audio jack is so crappy.
The next (10+") Likebook comes with built in speakers though, so keep that in mind.
Did a fatigue test on Ivona Marlene on the Likebook Mars, and reached 80 pages of a small test book (33% finished
) with no problems. Thats very good. Means, that this is usable for applications most people might not have used it before.
From a price/value point, maybe get some of those bluetooth speakers as well ( h**ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AudlBNbi-Xg ) they actually are good, and you then have a neat little setup to lean the Likebook mars against.
(Tested and working)
Auto page turns in Librera work as well btw.
Ivona voice language has to be set in the Librera TTS dialog option, every time you want change it - but its actually pretty fast.
--
I'll look into sourcing the TTS voices from Android apk sites next. Will update as I go aiong.
edit:
Good news!
Apkpure still has them.
Ivona TTS HQ main app:
https://apkpure.com/ivona-text-to-sp.../com.ivona.tts
Amy (best english voice):
https://apkpure.com/ivona-amy-uk-eng...ta.eng.gbr.amy
Marlene (german voice):
https://apkpure.com/ivona-marlene-ge...eu.deu.marlene
You can install the main app (apk) as you'd normaly do (enable install apks from unknown sources in the Android settings, use the likebooks Filemanager (which is actually not that bad..
)). For the .xapk(s) - simply rename them to .zip and extract them on a PC, they then have an apk in them as well (which you have to install), as well as the Android/obb folder for that voice, which you have to move to Android/obb on the device (f.e. likebook mars) manually. Once youve the apks installed, and folders moved, you have to navigate to
Usersetings/Power Management/Application Startup management and allow background activity for all Ivona apks you installed. Then at least start them all once, I guess, to see if they are working..
The final step simply is to go into the Android language settings and set them (TTS settings) to an Ivona voice (choose fast..
) by default - if you want to.
Both Librera and FBreaders TTS plugin will detect all installed TTS voices an come with their own TTS engine, so theres a small setup process in the ereader apps as well, but as said before, with Librera thats simply choosing the right Ivona language voice and setting voice speed to 150 (once, for most people), and thats it.
Happy reading (as in listening).
so long
notimp
edit: The entire installation is free.
As said before, you probably have to have the Play Store enabled on the device, at least it makes setup easier.
Cost for a top of the line TTS solution realized this way is 200 USD for the likebook mars (might still drop a little) and 70 USD for the IKEA bluetooth speaker (price includes the separately available battery..
) to lean it against. eReader and TTS software is free.
I'll mention that, because some of you might have a visually impaired person among their friends and families, and this really is as good as you can get with todays technology, for them to get a dedicated reading device that reads to them. At least think about it.
Setup should be easy enough at this point, that any hipster might be able to do it.
Read this posting closely.