Convert text to speech on Android

Android provides a useful feature that converts text to speech (TTS) and plays text in different languages. This guide explains how to create this feature. In this lesson, I will also explain how to change the type of language, volume and speed level.

Sources

Below I presented a video of the final result.




I developed a simple interface with one input field and a button to trigger an event that will receive text from the input field and play the given text.



1. Create a new project by choosing File ⇒ New Android Project and fill in the required data.
2. Implementing your main activity class from TextToSpeech.OnInitListener

public class AndroidTextToSpeechActivity extends Activity implements TextToSpeech.OnInitListener {

3. Now add the following code to the main class.

package com.androidhive.texttospeech;
import java.util.Locale;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.speech.tts.TextToSpeech;
import android.util.Log;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.EditText;
public class AndroidTextToSpeechActivity extends Activity implements
        TextToSpeech.OnInitListener {
    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
    private TextToSpeech tts;
    private Button btnSpeak;
    private EditText txtText;
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);
        tts = new TextToSpeech(this, this);
        btnSpeak = (Button) findViewById(R.id.btnSpeak);
        txtText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.txtText);
        // button on click event
        btnSpeak.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View arg0) {
                speakOut();
            }
        });
    }
    @Override
    public void onDestroy() {
        // Don't forget to shutdown tts!
        if (tts != null) {
            tts.stop();
            tts.shutdown();
        }
        super.onDestroy();
    }
    @Override
    public void onInit(int status) {
        if (status == TextToSpeech.SUCCESS) {
            int result = tts.setLanguage(Locale.US);
            if (result == TextToSpeech.LANG_MISSING_DATA
                    || result == TextToSpeech.LANG_NOT_SUPPORTED) {
                Log.e("TTS", "This Language is not supported");
            } else {
                btnSpeak.setEnabled(true);
                speakOut();
            }
        } else {
            Log.e("TTS", "Initilization Failed!");
        }
    }
    private void speakOut() {
        String text = txtText.getText().toString();
        tts.speak(text, TextToSpeech.QUEUE_FLUSH, null);
    }
}

4. And run the project.

Change language

You can change the language using the SetLanguage () function . Many languages ​​are currently supported.

tts.setLanguage(Locale.CHINESE); // Chinese language

Volume change

You can change the volume level using the setPitch () function . The default value is 1.0.

tts.setPitch(0.6);

Speed ​​change

Playback frequency can be set using the setSpeechRate () function . The default value is 1.0.

tts.setSpeechRate(2);