Software Santa

FREE and/or Open Source Desktop Software! => What is it? => Topic started by: Software Santa on June 08, 2010, 10:01:20 AM

Title: Balabolka is a Text-To-Speech (TTS) program for Windows systems
Post by: Software Santa on June 08, 2010, 10:01:20 AM
Balabolka is a Text-To-Speech (TTS) program for Windows systems

Quote
Balabolka is a Text-To-Speech (TTS) program. All computer voices installed on your system are available to Balabolka. The on-screen text can be saved as a WAV, MP3, OGG or WMA file. The program can read the clipboard content, view the text from DOC, RTF, PDF, ODT, FB2 and HTML files, customize font and background colour, control reading from the system tray or by the global hotkeys. Balabolka uses various versions of Microsoft Speech API (SAPI); it allows to alter a voice's parameters, including rate and pitch. The user can apply a special substitution list to improve the quality of the voice's articulation. This feature is useful when you want to change the spelling of words. The rules for the pronunciation correction use the syntax of VBScript.

Download Balabolka

Size: 3582 KB
 
Version: 1.32.0.459
 
Licence: Freeware
 
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7
 
Language:   English, Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Polish,
Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Ukrainian
Portable Version: Download (3363 KB)
Portable Balabolka does not require an installation and can be run from a USB drive.
A computer must have at least one voice installed.

If you use the old version of Windows, you may need the older version of LAME encoder: lame_enc.dll  v3.90.3
Download the file and unpack it to the folder of Balabolka.
Version 2.0 (beta, with support of Unicode): Download (3603 KB)
Please, note that Balabolka v2.0 BETA is available for test purposes only!
This is not a complete product so be careful using it.


* Balabolka is a Russian word, it can be translated as "chatterer".

Voices

Lernout & Hauspie TruVoice TTS engine (free voices):

    * American English (1 MB)
    * British English (2.5 MB)
    * Dutch (2.6 MB)
    * French (2.2 MB)
    * German (2.2 MB)
    * Italian (2 MB)
    * Japanese (3 MB)
    * Korean (3 MB)
    * Portuguese (Brazil) (2.4 MB)
    * Russian (2.9 MB)
    * Spanish (2.4 MB)
    * Microsoft Voices Mary, Sam and Mike (7.5 MB)



RealSpeak TTS engine (free voices, published on the server of Microsoft):

    * British English (19.4 MB)
      Mirror
    * French (22.5 MB)
      Mirror 1   Mirror 2
    * German (20.7 MB)
      Mirror 1   Mirror 2
    * Italian (21.5 MB)
      Mirror
    * Spanish (21.7 MB)
      Mirror 1   Mirror 2



Yaroslav Kozak (Lviv, Ukraine) created the Ukrainian voice UkrVox:

    * UkrVox Igor (3.8 MB)

To use SAPI 4 voices, download and install the redistributable Microsoft Speech API file (827 KB). Also, you may download and install the Microsoft Speech Control Panel (928 KB); the Speech Control Panel will add an icon to your Control Panel to enable you to list the compatible text-to-speech engines installed on your system and customize their settings for your use.


Spell Checking

Balabolka can use language modules from Microsoft Office 97/2000 for spell checking. If Microsoft Office is not installed on your computer, or you use the other version of Microsoft Office, you can download spell checking components from my web-site:

    * Bulgarian
    * Catalan
    * Croatian
    * Czech
    * Danish
    * English
    * Estonian
    * Finnish
    * French

   

    * German
    * Greek
    * Hungarian
    * Italian
    * Latvian
    * Lithuanian
    * Norwegian
    * Polish
    * Portuguese

   

    * Romanian
    * Russian
    * Serbian
    * Slovak
    * Slovenian
    * Spanish
    * Swedish

 

Balabolka can use Hunspell (http://hunspell.sourceforge.net). Hunspell is the default spell checker of OpenOffice.org and Mozilla Firefox.

Spell checker dictionaries for Windows:

    * Belarusian
    * Bulgarian
    * Catalan
    * Croatian
    * Czech
    * Danish
    * Dutch
    * English
    * Estonian

   

    * French
    * German
    * Greek
    * Hebrew
    * Hungarian
    * Italian
    * Latvian
    * Lithuanian
    * Norwegian

   

    * Polish
    * Portuguese
    * Romanian
    * Russian
    * Slovak
    * Slovenian
    * Spanish
    * Swedish
    * Ukrainian

 

Also the program supports GNU Aspell (http://aspell.net). GNU Aspell is a Free and Open Source spell checker designed to eventually replace Ispell. It can either be used as a library or as an independent spell checker.

The latest binaries of GNU ASpell for Windows and the precompiled dictionaries can be downloaded from the web-site of the project. (Unfortunately, the files for Windows were not updated since 2002)

   1. Download and install Aspell program: GNU Aspell-0.50.3

   2. Download and install one or more dictionaries:

    * Breton
    * Catalan
    * Czech
    * Danish
    * Dutch
    * English
    * Esperanto
    * Faroese

   

    * French
    * German
    * Greek
    * Italian
    * Norwegian
    * Polish
    * Portuguese
    * Romanian

   

    * Russian
    * Slovak
    * Spanish
    * Swedish
    * Ukrainian
    * Welsh

 

Balabolka can use Ispell. International Ispell is an interactive spell-checking program for Unix; for Windows users, Luzius Schneider has provided a complete package containing Ispell and dictionaries for 30 languages. (not updated since 2007)

http://www.cross-plus-a.com/balabolka.htm (http://www.cross-plus-a.com/balabolka.htm)