Generate LAME-encoded audio MP3 from text

Sep 30, '04 10:29:00AM

Contributed by: guyjhu

Sometimes I come across an article on the web that I want to read, but I just don't have the patience or time at that precise moment. So I wrote this little script that takes a plain text file as input, and generates an audio MP3 using Vicki's voice. Then you can load the MP3 onto your iPod or other portable player and listen on the run. If you save the following script as txt2mp3 (make it executable, too!), then you simply type txt2mp3 textfile at the Terminal's prompt to convert your file. The script assumes that you have the LAME encoder installed on your system.

#/bin/csh

strings $1 > /tmp/$1.txt
say -v Vicki -f /tmp/$1.txt -o /tmp/$1:r.aiff 
rm -f /tmp/$1.txt
lame --quiet /tmp/$1:r.aiff $1:r.mp3
rm -f /tmp/$1.aiff
[robg adds: An earlier hint covers the use of the say command to convert text files to audio AIFF files.]

Comments (17)


Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20040926192411975