Text to Speech

Question

I am a mechanical engineer by qualification and therefore my digital knowledge is very basic. I appreciate it if you could advise me on Text to speech Functionality of Azure!

I want to use the platform, to convert some academic journals into a speech (audio files) that I can listen to on the way to work and that way I can save 2 hours of every day, learning something new.

Is Azure text to speech could help with that? if yes, how can I make it happen?

Answer 1

@Ali Kabirian Yes, you can use Azure speech service to create your own audio files that can be played offline. To get started you need to first create a speech resource on Azure portal.
While creating a speech resource you can select the required pricing tier so you could be billed based on the service used. Since you are just starting your subscription, I would recommend to use the free tier in your pay-as-you-go subscription. This will help you understand the service with limited usage of the services where you can always upgrade your pricing tier if usage exceeds in the limits.

For text to speech scenario, you have the option to use the API directly or use a UI based environment called Speech studio. Using the same login account as azure portal should allow you to map the resource created from portal for all the services and this will help you explore all the features in the studio. To convert text to speech you can use Audio content creation tool and upload text files that needs to be converted to audio. After the audio is processed you will be able to download the files and use them offline.

You can also use the REST API, SDK or the speech cli to perform these tasks but I would recommend using the studio first if you are planning to explore the services offered by Azure speech service.

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