Quote:
Originally Posted by gallimaufry
I read a lot of books on Kindle but I find the text to speech feature really useful to keep a book going when I'm cooking, cleaning etc. [...] a good chunk of the books I read don't have audio editions anyway.
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Fantastic! Text-to-Speech (and podcasts) are how I've been absorbing most of my information the past few years.
While I brush my teeth, clean around the house, put the dishes away, boom, I can have the phone reading to me.
Like others have said, it may be best to use Calibre to:
- DeDRM your Kindle books.
- Convert them to EPUB.
This will allow you to use a much wider range of apps/programs.
On Android, I use the fantastic:
After opening an EPUB, all you have to do is click on the screen + click the TTS button, and it will use the built-in Android speech. (Same exact voice that speaks when you're using Google Maps and stuff like that!)
Quote:
Originally Posted by gallimaufry
I kind of want the convenience of being able to click on a book and then read it though without having to convert them. And frankly I wouldn't know where to start downloading and converting my library.
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Do you have/use Calibre?
https://calibre-ebook.com/
It is made by the great Kovid Goyal, and there's a whole section on MobileRead dedicated towards it:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/fo...play.php?f=166
It's pretty user-friendly, and you pretty much just:
- Drag/drop your files onto there
- Right-Click > Convert
and it will help change any file format (like Kindle) into any other format (like EPUB).
Quote:
Originally Posted by gallimaufry
Also, I have lots of notes and highlights on Kindle and would want to keep these if possible.
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This is a little more problematic...
Notes/Highlights are pretty much locked into the Amazon ecosystem.
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Technical Side Note: I recently wrote about transferring notes/highlights across devices:
Depending on the device, you might be able to pull notes OUT of an ebook, but it's extremely hard/impossible to then transfer notes INTO a different format/book/device.
It's a whole mess, and pretty much every single company/app has their own little silos that don't mix well with others.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gallimaufry
Michael: Thanks for these TTS apps. I prefer an e-ink display and size really. 95% of the time I want to actually read but I also like to turn on the speech function every now and then but there's no way to easily toggle between on modern Kindles.
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Yes, I love reading on e-ink as well!
Sadly, there's not a good way to keep everything in sync
while also having the TTS.
Personally, I just do:
- EPUB on e-ink. (Kobo)
- EPUB on phone. (Android + PocketBook app)
Every time I read on my Kobo, let's say an entire chapter/subchapter, I just go into my PocketBook app and manually "sync" it up:
- I read Chapter 12 on my Kobo?
- Open book on phone + click to Chapter 13.
Opposite if I read TTS on my phone:
- Read Chapter 13 via TTS on my phone?
- Open Kobo and jump to Chapter 14.
Takes less than a minute to keep things in sync, and if you do it consistently, your device/phone shouldn't be too far off.
(Plus there's always
search—one of the amazing advantages of ebooks!)
Quote:
Originally Posted by gallimaufry
Any advice would be really appreciated!
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Technical Side Note: If you want more in-depth discussion about Text-to-Speech + audio listening, I recently wrote lots of stuff in:
I described:
- The apps I use.
- PocketBook = EPUBs
- NewPipe = Youtube videos
- AntennaPod = podcasts
- Productivity boosts.
- Listening slightly faster + cutting silence, etc.
- I can listen to 60 minute speech in ~20 minutes.
- Latest bleeding edge Text-to-Speech stuff.
- Like "breathing", "mood", "emphasis", [...].
- Common/Hard problems in TTS
- Math, Units, odd names, different languages, [...].
- (Extremely technical) CSS3 Speech + HTML/SSML + the latest EPUB specs.
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Complete Side Note: And, if you want to help Text-to-Speech (and Speech-to-Text), I highly recommend checking out:
It's a project by Mozilla (the same people who make Firefox).
You can help:
- Read sentences.
- Verify sentences.
The more people that join up, the better and more accurate this will become.