Quote:
Originally Posted by KindleAZWorKFX
No, the Natural voices are local TTS files on Windows 11, they are just so far limited to being used by Narrator's voice online and offline.
when you select add natural voices box it downloads them, if you go offline and have it set to Any Microsoft (Natural) - English US or UK, they work with the internet disconnected now, but they only show up under Accessibility > Narrator, text to speech only has Legacy voices for it, so it's not true that they are online only anymore-
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I wasn't aware of that, so thanks for the info.
I've just downloaded a few English UK/US natural voices to test for myself in MS Narrator. That's the easy bit done!
Quote:
Originally Posted by KindleAZWorKFX
So, if you can make say Natural voices work as Legacy voices by changing a few lines in regedit it might be possible to get them to work outside of Narrator, but since I am not a expect in regedit myself, I am not sure I can do that on my own.
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All the Legacy voices (including Cortana speech assistants) install themselves under directory
Code:
C:\Windows\Speech_OneCore\Engines\TTS\...
Unfortunately all the Narrator offline Natural voices are installed as MS Store apps, i.e. stored somewhere under
Code:
C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\...
The Win registry entries for installed Legacy and offline Natural voices don't seem to bear any resemblance to each other, so it's anyone's guess whether "changing a few lines in regedit" is likely to be successful. Unfortunately, messing around intelligently with MS Store apps and the Win registry is way outside my comfort zone.
I'm not an expert in regedit either but with a bit of cautious regedit tinkering (Export > manual edit .reg file > run new .reg to import new keys), I've always been able to (so far) make any voice which installed itself to the Legacy voice directory, available to the calibre Viewer's ReadAloud option and to the "TTS to MP3" plugin.
If calibre Viewer's ReadAloud option can't see the Natural voices then this plugin won't see them either, because all it does is call calibre's existing Windows speech engine utilities.
There is also another unknown. I'm under the impression that the existence of a speech engine's "speak out loud" function doesn't necessarily guarantee it also has a "speak to file (WAV)" function. This plugin requires the latter to create MP3s. Fortunately for us, the existing calibre/Windows speech engine does have both for Legacy voices. Who can say whether the speech engine used by Narrator to access offline Natural voices includes a "speak to file" function?
If I find out any more useful info I'll post in this thread ... but don't hold your breath!
P.S. I'm not sure what relevance your post #146 has?