Need to convert PDF to Audio MP3

[rennau80]

nice that it works with english voice!

how to use a different language i don't know. i need need the german voice, but it's not very urgent for me now. when i spend time on installing and using the german voice, i'll add the option to the script. but currently it seems that it's up to you to find out how to install and use a different language with festival.

good luck!

[aiiaalla]

sorry, Idont want the german lang but the other american and british voices......

[rennau80]

and i must again say that it seems that it's up to you to get festival working with other voices.

it would be nice if you can post your success here (in case you have some...)

PS: once you have installed a different language (or set a different language as default) the pdf2mp3.py script still does the right job.

[rennau80]

for those who don't want to make an account here and want to have the script, here it is (please follow instructions on how to make it work - it's very simple and on new ubuntu linux computers very reliable):

#!/usr/bin/python
# ###################################################
# pdf2mp3.py - little script/program to convert a
# pdf-file or ascii-file (.dat, .txt) into a mp3 audio file
#
# Copyright (C) 2010 Hannes Rennau
# kontakt-hannes@hannijanni.de
#
# 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 of the License, 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; if not, write to the
# Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
# 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301  USA
# ###################################################

# LIST OF PACKAGES NEEDED:
# you need to install the following packages:
# sudo apt-get install python poppler-utils festival festvox-rablpc16k lame

# HOW TO USE:
# 1.create a file with the name pdf2mp3.py and copy the content of
#   the whole text in there
# 2.make the file an executable via:
#   >>> chmod +x pdf2mp3.py
# 3.copy file to /usr/bin to make usage of program possible from everywhere on your computer:
#   >>> sudo cp pdf2mp3.py /usr/bin/
# 4.after that just call script via: 
#   >>> pdf2mp3.py yourfilename.pdf
#   or:
#   >>> pdf2mp3.py yourfilename.dat
#   or:
#   >>> pdf2mp3.py yourfilename.txt
#
#   and a file called yourfilename.mp3 is being created

# ADDITONAL INFO:
# in case you've lots of tables, equations or whatever else in your pdf,
# it's a nice think if you delete all strange symbol character stuff in
# in the yourfilename.txt-file and then run the script again but call it via:
# pdf2mp3.py yourfilename.txt

import os,sys
import string

# get filenname
ifpdf=1
filename_inp = sys.argv[1]

if filename_inp[-4:]=='.dat' or filename_inp[-4:]=='.txt':
    ifpdf=0

if filename_inp[-4:]=='.pdf' or filename_inp[-4:]=='.dat' or filename_inp[-4:]=='.txt':
    filename = filename_inp[:-4]
    if os.path.isfile(str(filename_inp)):
        if ifpdf:
            print 'converting pdf to ascii...'
            os.popen('pdftotext ' + str(filename) + '.pdf ' + str(filename) + '.txt')
        print 'start converting ascii to wav...'
        os.popen('cat ' + str(filename) + '.txt\
               |sed \'s/[^a-zA-Z .,!?]//g\'|text2wave -o ' + str(filename) + '.wav')
        print 'converting to mp3...'
        os.popen('lame -f ' + str(filename) + '.wav ' + str(filename) + '.mp3')
        os.popen('rm -f ' + str(filename) + '.wav')
        print 'finished. don\'t forget to delete txt file if you don\'t need it'
    else:
        print '*** file does not exist ***'
else:
    print '*** please give extension of your file (.dat, .txt or .pdf)'
    print '*** or your file called: ' + str(filename_inp) + '\n*** does not exist'
   

# that's it. have fun!!! :)

[mac2010]

Thanks the script was of great help !!

[byte.xi]

Thank you so much for putting this together! I spent a few hours online trying to find a solution and this was by far the best option. At first, I found the voice a little hard to understand with some of the words, but the more I listen to it, the easier it gets.

[3rdalbum]

Why don't you package it up? I'm going to put a simple packaging HOWTO onto my site shortly.

[rennau80]

very nice that it has helped you much! at the beginning i had the same problem because there is a lot of rubbish windows software around and lots of advertisement you get via google search for this topic.

feel free to share!

it should be very easy to adapt the code via commenting lines by the #-symbol such that it can also be named pdf2ascii or pdf2wav...

[rennau80]

sorry, Idont want the german lang but the other american and british voices......

now with multilingual conversion and new command line options. here are some examples:

 ./pdf2mp3.py -v en -f input.pdf -o output.mp3  (pdf->mp3 engish voice)

 ./pdf2mp3.py -v de -f input.pdf -o output.mp3  (pdf->mp3 german voice)

or:

 ./pdf2mp3.py -v it -f input.txt -o output.mp3  (txt->mp3 italian voice)

 ./pdf2mp3.py -v fr -f input.dat -o output.wav  (dat->wav french voice)

don't forget to make the file executable in the shell via command:

chmod +x pdf2mp3.py

there are lots of other languages available now, here only a few:
afrikaans (af), bosnian (bs), danish (da), spanish (es), french (fr), italian (it), norwegian (no), swedish (sv), turkish (tr), Mandarin (zh), ...


please note that now these packages are necessary:

sudo apt-get install python poppler-utils festival festvox-rablpc16k lame espeak wavbreaker

the code is attached with this post.

[vinit-drtc]

Thanks for such a nice script.

I have downloaded the OGI modules as it is mentioned in the discussion before.
How can we change the voice or speed?? Please give the command.

I am using your first script. I am interested in English voices.