tts.el - Text-to-Speech (TTS) in Emacs

This package provides Text-to-Speech (TTS) functionality for Emacs, enabling users to convert textual content into audio playback. It supports streaming TTS by splitting text into sentences and processing them sequentially, allowing for smooth audio generation and playback without blocking Emacs.

tts-demo.mp4

Usage

To use this package, first ensure the required external dependencies are available: a TTS backend server (by default, Kokoro running in a Podman container) and an audio player (by default, ffplay). Start the backend server using tts-kokoro-start-server, which launches a local Kokoro TTS service on the configured port (tts-kokoro-port - default 8880). Select text in a buffer and call tts-read to initiate TTS playback; it handles the entire region or buffer if no region is active. You may also provide a string argument to it instead. Stop ongoing playback with tts-stop. Customize voices and speed using tts-kokoro-set-voice and tts-kokoro-set-speed; prefix arguments make settings buffer-local. Customize the port via tts-kokoro-port. Logs and process outputs appear in the *tts-log* buffer for debugging. If tts-enable-automode is non-nil (the default), tts-mode will be automatically enabled when starting playback to display a header-line with progress and controls. Otherwise, you can manually enable tts-mode if desired.

Extension

To extend this package, add new backends by defining generation functions (e.g., like tts--kokoro-generate-audio) and updating tts-backend-generate-function-alist. Similarly, for frontends, define playback functions (e.g., like tts--ffplay-play-audio) and update tts-frontend-play-function-alist. Ensure new backends and frontends implement the expected callback interface for asynchronous processing. For backend-specific UI controls in the header line, define a UI function (e.g., like tts--kokoro-ui-controls) and update tts-backend-ui-controls-function-alist. For preprocessing, define transformation functions (e.g., like tts--preprocess-org-links) and add them to tts-preprocessing-functions. These apply per sentence before TTS generation.

Links

You can find more information about Kokoro in this URL: https://huggingface.co/hexgrad/Kokoro-82M

And its packaging into a container is provided by: https://github.com/remsky/Kokoro-FastAPI

Installation

Download tts.el and place it in your load-path.

Alternatively, follow your package manager instructions to add a GitHub recipe.

License

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 3 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, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.