TTS to MP3 (cross-platform)

[dunhill]

TTS to MP3 (cross-platform) — Create audiobooks from your books in calibre

This is a fork of the TTS to MP3 plugin by jackie_w, which was Windows-only and no longer works with recent versions of calibre. All credit for the original idea goes to jackie_w. This fork has been largely rewritten so that it works on Windows, macOS and Linux.

What it does
It reads an EPUB, KEPUB or AZW3 book from your calibre library aloud with a Text-to-speech voice and saves it as an audiobook: a single file with chapter marks, or one file per chapter.

Voices

• calibre neural voices (Piper and Kokoro) — Windows, macOS and Linux
  The same natural-sounding voices that calibre uses for Read aloud, in many languages. They are downloaded once (the plugin does it for you) and then work offline. You can test and download them from the plugin window.
• Windows voices — Windows 10/11
  The modern voices installed from Settings > Time & language > Speech, and the classic SAPI voices.
• macOS voices — macOS
  The system voices from System Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content, including the Enhanced/Premium versions you can download there.

Features

• Audiobook as a single file with chapter marks (default) or one file per chapter
• Output formats:
  • M4B/M4A (AAC): needs no extra software on any system
  • MP3: uses the bundled LAME on Windows; on Linux and macOS it needs LAME or FFmpeg installed
• Full tags: title, author, album, year, genre, track number and embedded cover
• Adjustable reading speed, voice tester, choice of the chapters to record
• Runs as a background job in calibre's Jobs list, with progress and cancel
• Chapter titles from the Table of Contents, or from the first line of the chapter
• Translations: English, Spanish, French, German and Italian

Requirements

• calibre 8.0 or newer
• Windows, macOS or Linux

How to use
Select one book in your library and click the TTS to MP3 button. Choose the engine, language, voice and speed, test the voice, choose the output format and click Create audiobook.

Notes

• Recording speed depends on your computer and the voice. As a reference, the calibre Piper voices recorded about 4 times faster than real time on an ordinary PC.
• Siri voices on macOS and the "natural" Narrator voices on Windows 11 are not available to other programs, so they cannot be used.
• On macOS, Finder shows any .m4b file as "Protected MPEG-4 audiobook". The files made by this plugin have no protection of any kind.

License: GPL v3, same as the original plugin.

Feedback is welcome, especially from Windows and Mac users.


Version history

Spoiler:

1.2.1 - First release of this fork: rewritten for Windows, macOS and Linux; calibre neural voices; Windows 10/11 and SAPI voices; macOS voices; single-file audiobook with chapter marks; M4B/M4A and MP3 output; full tags and cover.

[dunhill]

for future use