Text to speech(TTS)-Android

Text to speech is built into Android 1.6+. Here is a simple example of how to do it.

TextToSpeech tts = new TextToSpeech(this, this);
tts.setLanguage(Locale.US);
tts.speak("Text to say aloud", TextToSpeech.QUEUE_ADD, null);

More info: http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2009/09/introduction-to-text-to-speech-in.html

---

Here are instructions on how to download sample code from the Android SDK Manager:

1. Launch the Android SDK Manager.

   a. On Windows, double-click the SDK Manager.exe file at the root of the Android SDK directory.

   b. On Mac or Linux, open a terminal to the tools/ directory in the Android SDK, then execute android sdk.

2. Expand the list of packages for the latest Android platform.

3. Select and download Samples for SDK. When the download is complete, you can find the source code for all samples at this location:

/sdk/samples/android-version/

(i.e. \android-sdk-windows\samples\android-16\ApiDemos\src\com\example\android\apis\app\TextToSpeechActivity.java)

MainActivity.class

import java.util.Locale;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.SharedPreferences.Editor;
import android.speech.tts.TextToSpeech;
import android.util.Log;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.EditText;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

    String text;
    EditText et;
    TextToSpeech tts;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        et=(EditText)findViewById(R.id.editText1);
        tts=new TextToSpeech(MainActivity.this, new TextToSpeech.OnInitListener() {

            @Override
            public void onInit(int status) {
                // TODO Auto-generated method stub
                if(status == TextToSpeech.SUCCESS){
                    int result=tts.setLanguage(Locale.US);
                    if(result==TextToSpeech.LANG_MISSING_DATA ||
                            result==TextToSpeech.LANG_NOT_SUPPORTED){
                        Log.e("error", "This Language is not supported");
                    }
                    else{
                        ConvertTextToSpeech();
                    }
                }
                else
                    Log.e("error", "Initilization Failed!");
            }
        });


    }

    @Override
    protected void onPause() {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub

        if(tts != null){

            tts.stop();
            tts.shutdown();
        }
        super.onPause();
    }

    public void onClick(View v){

        ConvertTextToSpeech();

    }

    private void ConvertTextToSpeech() {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        text = et.getText().toString();
        if(text==null||"".equals(text))
        {
            text = "Content not available";
            tts.speak(text, TextToSpeech.QUEUE_FLUSH, null);
        }else
            tts.speak(text+"is saved", TextToSpeech.QUEUE_FLUSH, null);
    }

}

activity_main.xml

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    tools:context=".MainActivity" >

    <Button
        android:id="@+id/button1"
        style="?android:attr/buttonStyleSmall"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
        android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
        android:layout_marginTop="177dp"
        android:onClick="onClick"
        android:text="Button" />

    <EditText
        android:id="@+id/editText1"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignBottom="@+id/button1"
        android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
        android:layout_marginBottom="81dp"
        android:ems="10" >

        <requestFocus />
    </EditText>

</RelativeLayout>

A minimalistic example to quickly test the TTS system:

private TextToSpeech textToSpeechSystem;

@Override
protected void onStart() {
  super.onStart();
  textToSpeechSystem = new TextToSpeech(this, new TextToSpeech.OnInitListener() {
        @Override
        public void onInit(int status) {
            if (status == TextToSpeech.SUCCESS) {
                String textToSay = "Hello world, this is a test message!";
                textToSpeechSystem.speak(textToSay, TextToSpeech.QUEUE_ADD, null);
            }
        }
   });
}

If you don't use localized messages textToSpeechSystem.setLanguage(..) is important as well, since your users probably don't all have English set as their default language so the pronunciation of the words will be wrong. But for testing TTS in general this snippet is enough

Related links: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/speech/tts/TextToSpeech