ebook-speaker(1)

📦
version 6.2.0 · 6 versions
, in ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 ebook-speaker(1) 💖 — Linux Reference Manual

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, and let me tell you about ebook-speaker — a whole icon of a program from the Linux Reference Manual. she reads books out loud. to you. like a tiny robotic bestie with a speech synthesizer. no cap. ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

eBook-speaker — read aloud eBooks and other text formats using a software speech-synthesizer 🗣️📖

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

ebook-speaker [eBook_file | URL | -s [-r resolution]] [-b n | y | position] [-c] [-d audio_device:audio_type] [-h] [-H] [-i] [-o language-code] [-S] [-t TTS_command] [-v]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

eBook-speaker reads your eBooks and other text formats out loud, and honestly? it will even read scanned documents, using a software speech-synthesizer. by default the tool espeak does the talking. 🗣️

she can also read straight from http://, https:// and ftp:// URLs using the tool wget. and because she's that girl, eBook-speaker can also scan a document by itself using the scanimage application. 💅

a list of items on the eBook will pop up. press ENTER to start reading. when the reading of an item has finished, eBook-speaker reads the next item and the cursor automatically skips to that item — so an attached braille-terminal will display the name of that item. it's giving accessible AND cute. 🫶

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

eBook_file

  • eBook_file — give an eBook_file as the argument to eBook-speaker. so many eBook formats are supported, it's honestly iconic. eBook-speaker also tries to read scanned documents through Optical Character Recognition (OCR 👀✨).

📚 Supported formats

  • AportisDoc
  • AppleSingle encoded Macintosh
  • ASCII mail text
  • ASCII text
  • awk script text
  • Bourne-Again shell script text
  • Broadband eBooks (BBeB)
  • C source text
  • Composite Document File (Microsoft Office Word)
  • DAISY3 DTBook
  • EPUB ebook data
  • GIF image data
  • GNU gettext message catalogue
  • GutenPalm zTXT
  • HTML document
  • ISO-8859 text
  • JPEG image data
  • Microsoft Reader eBook Data
  • Microsoft Windows HtmlHelp Data
  • Microsoft Word 2007+
  • Mobipocket E-book
  • MS Windows HtmlHelp Data
  • Netpbm PPM data
  • OpenDocument Text
  • Pascal source
  • PDF document
  • PeanutPress PalmOS
  • Perl script text
  • PNG image data
  • POSIX shell script text
  • PostScript document
  • Python script
  • Rich Text Format
  • Tenex C shell script text
  • troff or preprocessor text (e.g. Linux man-pages)
  • UTF-8 Unicode mail text
  • UTF-8 Unicode text
  • WordPerfect
  • XML document text

when you don't supply an input file at all, eBook-speaker will bring up a file-manager. see KEYBOARD COMMANDS IN THE FILEMANAGER for the whole vibe. 🗂️

The rest of the flags, mwah

  • -b n | y | position — set the initial break_on_EOL or position. this kicks in after quitting eBook-speaker. the setting gets saved and used as the default for future books, and it can be overruled with the b-command for each individual book. see the b command below. 💾
  • -c — eBook-speaker uses tesseract for OCR by default. this option forces her to use cuneiform instead. switching teams, we respect it. 🙈
  • -d audio_device:audio_type — eBook-speaker will play on this sound device of the given audio_type. the value must be of the form "audio_device:audio_type". example: "-d default:alsa", "hw:0:alsa" or "0:pulseaudio". this option overrules the value in the ~/.eBook-speaker/* config file. and bestie, be sure the user is a member of the group "audio". 🔉
  • -h — print this usage message.
  • -H — show "hidden" files in the file-manager. 👻
  • -i — ignore reading of the bookmark. 🔖
  • -l — Deprecated. eBook-speaker now determines the file-type using the libmagic library. (it's giving retirement party 💀)
  • -o language-code — the language code for OCR to use. typically an ISO 639-1 two-letter code, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes. if this option is not specified, the language is determined according to the current locale. 🌍
  • -r resolution — by default the option -s will scan at a resolution of 400 DPI. with this option one can force another resolution. 🔍
  • -s — scan a document using a hardware scanner and OCR it with either tesseract or cuneiform. 📠
  • -S — do not display the phrase-numbers passing during playback. shhh. 🤫
  • -t TTS-command — be sure that the TTS reads from the file eBook-speaker.txt and that it writes to the file eBook-speaker.wav. to add the TTS-command permanently one has to edit the ~/.eBook-speaker.xml file by hand. ✍️
  • -v — be more verbose, so one can see what's going on. 👀

💫 Examples

  • ebook-speaker some.epub -t "espeak -f eBook-speaker.txt -w eBook-speaker.wav -v nl"
  • ebook-speaker some.epub -t "flite eBook-speaker.txt eBook-speaker.wav"
  • ebook-speaker some.epub -t "text2wave eBook-speaker.txt -o eBook-speaker.wav"

🌈 SCREEN 🌈

the name and version of this program and the name of the author is displayed left aligned at the top of the screen. the name of the current loaded book is displayed right aligned. aesthetic. 🎀

the second row of the screen displays:

  • the number of pages of the current loaded book (if any)
  • the current selected level and the total number of levels
  • the total number of phrases
  • the current displayed screen and the total number of screens

the next rows display the title of the item, the first page of that item in brackets (if there are pages), and the total number of phrases in this item. items in higher levels are indented — three spaces each level. when "just reading this item" is active, a J is viewed at the first column of that item. 💅

the spoken phrase will be displayed on the bottom-line of the screen, so one can follow along on a braille-terminal what he/she hears. 🫶

👑 CONTROL KEYS 👑

eBook-speaker recognizes the following keyboard-commands:

  • cursor down,2 — move cursor to the next item.
  • cursor up,8 — move cursor to the previous item.
  • cursor right,6 — skip to next phrase.
  • cursor left,4 — skip to previous phrase.
  • page-down,3 — view next screen.
  • page-up,9 — view previous screen.
  • enter — start reading. 📖
  • space,0 — pause/resume reading.
  • home,* — read on normal speed.
  • / — search for a label.
  • A — store current item to disk in ASCII-format.
  • b — set a phrase-break at the end of a line or position. when set to 'y'es, eBook-speaker will start a new phrase after each New-Line character. when set to 'n'o, each New-Line character will be seen as a space, so that two or more lines are concatenated to one phrase. or set a break at the Nth position.
  • B — move cursor to the last item.
  • d — store current item to disk in WAV-format.
  • D,- — decrease reading speed.
  • f — find the currently reading item and place the cursor there.
  • g — go to phrase in current item.
  • G — go to page number. (if there are pages)
  • h,? — give this help.
  • j,5 — just read current item and place a "J" at the first column.
  • l — switch to next level.
  • L — switch to previous level.
  • m — mute sound on/off. 🔇
  • n — search forwards.
  • N — search backwards.
  • o — select an output sound device.
  • p — place a bookmark. 🔖
  • q — quit eBook-speaker. the reading-point is saved as bookmark.
  • r — rotate the scanned document. if the document is accidentally placed upside-down on the scanner, it can not be OCR'ed correctly. this command will rotate the scanned document 90 degrees. 🙃
  • s — stop reading.
  • S — toggle show progress on/off.
  • t — select a TTS.
  • T — move cursor to the first item.
  • U,+ — increase reading speed.
  • v,1 — decrease playback volume.
  • V,7 — increase playback volume. (beware of Clipping ⚠️)
  • w — store whole book to disk in WAV-format.
  • x — go to the file-manager.

🗂️ KEYBOARD COMMANDS IN THE FILEMANAGER 🗂️

  • enter,cursor right,6 — start eBook-speaker with current file as input.
  • cursor left,4 — select previous directory and open it.
  • cursor down,2 — move cursor to the next file.
  • cursor up,8 — move cursor to the previous file.
  • page-down,3 — view next page.
  • page-up,9 — view previous page.
  • / — search for a file.
  • end,B — move cursor to the last file.
  • h,? — give this help.
  • H,0 — toggle hidden files displaying on or off.
  • i — give some information about current file.
  • n — search next.
  • N — search previous.
  • q — quit eBook-speaker.
  • home,T — move cursor to the first file.

🎙️ TTS 🎙️

when pressing the t-command, the TTS-selector appears. a few TTS-applications are defined by default. the first TTS in the TTS-selector will be espeak with option -v set according to the current locale. ✨

  • choose one by moving the cursor with the cursor-keys and select it by pressing the ENTER-key.
  • to delete or add a TTS-command one has to edit the file ~/.eBook-speaker.xml by hand and follow the instructions.

be sure that the new TTS reads its information from the file eBook-speaker.txt and that it writes to the file eBook-speaker.wav. 📝

💜 TTS EXAMPLES 💜

here are some examples to insert into the ~/.eBook-speaker.xml file:

  • espeak -f eBook-speaker.txt -w eBook-speaker.wav
  • espeak -f eBook-speaker.txt -w eBook-speaker.wav -v mb-en1
  • espeak -f eBook-speaker.txt -w eBook-speaker.wav -v de
  • espeak -f eBook-speaker.txt -w eBook-speaker.wav -v pt
  • espeak -f eBook-speaker.txt -w eBook-speaker.wav -v nl
  • espeak -f eBook-speaker.txt -w eBook-speaker.wav -v mb-nl2
  • flite eBook-speaker.txt eBook-speaker.wav
  • swift -n Lawrence -f eBook-speaker.txt -o eBook-speaker.wav
  • text2wave eBook-speaker.txt -o eBook-speaker.wav
  • text2wave -eval '(voice_en1_mbrola)' eBook-speaker.txt -o eBook-speaker.wav
  • pico2wave -w eBook-speaker.wav "`cat eBook-speaker.txt`"

🌟 THANKS TO 🌟

  • Daniel Veillard daniel@veillard.com — for the XML2 library. 🫶
  • Chris Bagwell cbagwell@users.sourceforge.net
  • Rob Sykes aquegg@yahoo.co.uk — for sox.
  • Didier Spaier didier@slint.fr — for the TTS enhancements. 🎙️

📁 FILES 📁

  • ~/.eBook-speaker/ — okay bestie this is where your bookmarks live, in XML format ✨. Every single file in here is named after a book, and inside it's keeping track of everything: the name of the current item, the start-phrase of that item, the current level, which TTS you wanted, the reading speed you wanted, the phrase-break point you wanted, and the current sink in the list of available sound devices. It's giving ✨*receipts*✨, fr fr.
  • ~/.eBook-speaker.xml — this file, also in XML format, holds a whole list of the TTS's you've got available 🎀. (peep the TTS EXAMPLES section if you wanna see how it's done, iykyk)
  • /tmp/eBook-speaker.XXXXXX — eBook-speaker makes a lil temporary directory for itself here 🫶. It gets yeeted the moment you quit. No leftover mess, no cap 💅.

📝 NOTES 📝

So an EPUB-book has two index-files for navigation: a NCX and an OPF file. eBook-speaker tries its absolute best to figure out which one of these two gives the best result 🧚 — but sometimes it just can't make the best choice, and that's not a vibe 😭.

When in doubt, use option --N to force the use of NCX, or -O to force the OPF. Periodt.

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

The friend group of other programs that hang out with this one 💜:

ebook-convert(1), pandoc(1), calibre(1), iconv(1), lowriter(1), tesseract(1), cuneiform(1), espeak(1), flite(1), text2wave(1), mbrola(1), pico2wave(1), scanimage(1), pnmflip(1), gif2png(1), man2html(1), unar(1), swift(1), unrtf(1), wget(1), pulseaudio(1), pactl(1), amixer(1), alsamixer(1), magic(5), locale(7), usermod(8)

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Jos Lemmens <jos@jlemmens.nl> — the icon, the legend, the moment 🌟

Copyright (C)2011-2021 Jos Lemmens <jos@jlemmens.nl>

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program (see the file COPYING); if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA 🫶

<div align="center">i know that's a lot of caps lock bestie but it literally means what it means 🙈</div>

okay that's the whole page!! you read ALL of it, main character energy fr 💅✨ this was ebook-speaker-6.2, dated 02 February 2026, and honestly? iconic. go read a book, you earned it 🎀📚🦋

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