All

• Bug fixes.

• Lexicon updates.

Linux

• Support for LibreOffice 7.6.0 AppImage

• Debian 12 and Fedora 38 clients use pw-cat from the pipewire-bin package to improve the latency of audio playback on low end systems.

• Speech toggling worked correctly with localhost speech servers on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS but not with Debian or Fedora. Now when using Debian 12 and Fedora 38 and related platforms, the click to toggle off function of the application works as expected with system packages and AppImage packages.

• Remove Festival voice support from the docker OpenTTS client, because the OpenTTS server does not work consistently with Festival across all supported platforms. OpenTTS Flite voices are a fast and reliable alternative.

• Change the client’s timeout terminal troubleshooting message when a speech server unexpectedly fails.

Mimic 3

The Mimic 3 localhost client now supports changing the speech rate.

Piper TTS

Piper TTS is a fast, private local neural text to speech engine. Users can create or refine voice models based on a recording of a voice.

This client uses the piper engine to read text aloud using Read Text Extension with your office program.

• Piper samples

• Instructions

• Download voices

Read Selection... Dialog setup:

External program:

• /usr/bin/python3

Use the first available voice.

• "(PIPER_READ_TEXT_PY)"  --rate 100% --language (SELECTION_LANGUAGE_CODE) "(TMP)"

Use a particular model (auto5) and speaker (45):

• "(PIPER_READ_TEXT_PY)" --voice auto5#45 --rate 75% --language (SELECTION_LANGUAGE_CODE) "(TMP)"

Install piper-tts

If you are not online, then you cannot download voice models or configuration files. Once they are installed, piper handles speech locally.

Binary release

The binary release is fast.

The most recent binary piper executable program included in a piper archive for your computer's specific processor type. For example, piper_amd64.tar.gz works with x86_64 processors.

For example, for the piper_amd64 1.2.0 release, use the following:

python3 -c "import os;os.makedirs(os.expanduser('~/.local/share/piper-tts/'))"

wget -O ~/piper_amd64.tar.gz https://github.com/rhasspy/piper/releases/download/v1.2.0/piper_amd64.tar.gz

tar -xf ~/piper_amd64.tar.gz -C ~/.local/share/piper-tts/

ln -s -T ~/.local/share/piper-tts/piper/piper ~/.local/bin/piper-cli

~/.local/bin/piper-cli --version

Use the following if you do not plan to also install the python release:

ln -s -T ~/.local/share/piper-tts/piper/piper ~/.local/bin/piper

Python release

The python pipx package has higher latency, but the piper script simplifies automating downloading the required onnx data and json configuration files. Some Linux platforms use python versions that are incompatible or only partially compatible with the pipx stable release of piper-tts.

Install the following packages:

python3-pipx

espeak-ng-data

Then use pipx to install piper-tts

pipx update-all

pipx install piper-tts

pipx ensurepath

piper -h

Audition and download a voice model

You can check the voice models online.

Review the voice model samples.

The first time you use this client, it will set up a directory to store piper voice models (onnx) and configuration files (json).

~/.local/share/piper-tts/piper-voices

You can download the voice and configuration files for various languages and regions following the link on the piper-samples web page. Move the onnx and json files to the local piper-voices directory.

Read the README file in the directory for more information about using voice models for other languages and regions.

System-wide installation

If you want every account on a single computer to have access to piper then locate the contents of piper_amd64.tar.gz or the equivalent for your computer architecture in a directory that every account has read access to and link the piper application from the archive to a location that is in every user's PATH environment. For example,

sudo ln -s -T /opt/piper-tts/piper/piper /usr/local/bin/piper

If this piper client does not find user installed models and configuration files, it looks for global models and configuration files in:

/usr/local/share/piper-voice

Users can access the model in the directory from the client dialog using:

"(PIPER_READ_TEXT_PY)" --voice auto0#0 --rate 100% --language (SELECTION_LANGUAGE_CODE) "(TMP)"

If your Linux distribution includes packages to link speech-dispatcher with piper-tts, then you can configure the speech-dispatcher platform to use piper-tts:

"(SPD_READ_TEXT_PY)" --language "(SELECTION_LANGUAGE_CODE)" "(TMP)"

Piper TTS Links

• About Piper TTS

• Piper Samples

• Piper Voices

• Thorsten Müller - Piper Voice Training

read text 2023.08.31 12.01a.oxt

Version 0.8.71

Works with Apache OpenOffice 4.1

read text 2023.08.31 12.01.oxt

Version 0.8.70

Works with LibreOffice 7 and OpenOffice.org 3.4