Question Any software that can read (aloud) ebooks decently?

[Dimitri001]

There are a lot of older books that I'm desperate to read in my preferred audiobook format, but they're not available in audio form. Is there any software that can read an ebook in any half-way decent way without sounding completely robotic and putting the stress on the wrong syllable every other word? Not necessarily perfect, tolerable will do.

Since AI can do so much these days, is there any AI software that can do this?

 

[Ralston18]

What audiobook formats are available to you?

What audiobook format do you prefer?

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Specs do not necessarily make the audio less robotic per se. However, the software app likely has some required hardware specs in order to take full advantage of the softwares features and functions.
Plus text to speech performance.

As for AI: I would be leary there.

Mainly because AI is current a bit of a buzz phrase and a marketing tool simply to sell more products with very little use or possibly no use of AI that could really make a difference.

Maybe start with the following link:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/ai-services/

Irony being I had not previously noted Azure/AI being touted.

Try as much freeware as you can being careful to not download software with viruses, malware, and crapware included.

Find a few apps etc. that meet your requirement regarding "read an ebook in any half-way decent way".

Learn what end user options and controls are available and then filter further product searches and filters as applicable to your requirements.

 

[Dimitri001]

What audiobook formats are available to you?

What audiobook format do you prefer?

There's been a bit of a misunderstanding here, when I said "my preferred audiobook format" I meant that audiobooks are my preferred format for a book (over print), not that I prefer a certain format of audiobook over another format of audiobook.

 

[Ralston18]

If someone has not read a book out loud and recorded the book for "audio" use as an audiobook then that process needs to be done.

Or the text must be available to process/scan and then be converted into audio format.

The starting point then being some scanner that scans in the text from a physical book and then, in turn, the text is converted to some form of audio format.

Step 1: scan the book pages into electronic/digital format.

Step 2: convert the digital format into audio.

There are any of hand held scanners that can be used to scan book pages. And there are also automated scanners that require that the book be unbound. However, there are also scanners that will flip book pages and scan page by page. Likely expensive.....

How do you envision the process being done in your environment with your requirements?

FYI (Not a recommendation or endorsement for any given product):

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_xxuwxVUOY


You can easily find other similar and related links regarding going from book ---> text ----> audio.

 

[Dimitri001]

If someone has not read a book out loud and recorded the book for "audio" use as an audiobook then that process needs to be done.

Or the text must be available to process/scan and then be converted into audio format.

The starting point then being some scanner that scans in the text from a physical book and then, in turn, the text is converted to some form of audio format.

Step 1: scan the book pages into electronic/digital format.

Step 2: convert the digital format into audio.

There are any of hand held scanners that can be used to scan book pages. And there are also automated scanners that require that the book be unbound. However, there are also scanners that will flip book pages and scan page by page. Likely expensive.....

How do you envision the process being done in your environment with your requirements?

FYI (Not a recommendation or endorsement for any given product):

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_xxuwxVUOY


You can easily find other similar and related links regarding going from book ---> text ----> audio.

No, no, I think we've misunderstood each other again My intention was to use an ebook, a book that already exists in electronic format and just feed it to the software that reads aloud.

 

[Ralston18]

Back to format - then.

The software must know how or be able to recognize the electronic format in order to properly convert digital 1's and 0's into audio sound waves.,

FYI:

https://uj.ac.za.libguides.com/UJeBooks/formats

And the following link posts and addresses questions regarding the process of reading ebooks out loud.

https://www.reddit.com/r/audiobooks...ood_apps_that_can_read_any_book_to/?rdt=51777

TTS (Text to Speech)

I found the following link that presents applications likely to meet your requirements. There are other similar links.

https://www.epubor.com/best-text-to-speech-reader-to-read-ebooks-aloud.html

As to how "decently" they perform that is subjective in some ways: voice, gender, natural vs robotic, etc..

Objective measurements being accuracy, speed, configuration options, etc..