Looking for a good text to mp3 or m4a app that can generate audio from an extremely long text file

By Moopie Curran, 9 September, 2020

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hi,
I have several really long text files that I'd like to turn into audio read by a TTS voice. Is there an accessible app that can generate an audio file, whether it be aiff, mp3, m4a, or another format? I can always convert to my preferred format. I'm using mac OS 10.15 Catalina.
The longest file is probably going to be maybe 48 hours long. I'd prefer it in audio format as opposed to text, because I really like my audiobook player app on my tablet, so when it all comes down to it, I want to be able to listen to it that way.
Thanks for any help.

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Comments

By Patrick Smyth on Wednesday, September 9, 2020 - 21:03

The most expedient, non-technical way of doing this is to just load your text file into Voice Dream Reader and listen in that application. If you really like the audiobook reader app you have, you can make a file using espeak with something like the below command line option:

espeak -f test.txt --stdout > file.mp3

You will need espeak installed, I recommend using Homebrew to install it. There are other programs that can do file to audio conversion, but the only other I know about is Text Aloud, which is a more low-vision oriented program for Windows.

By Lorelai Gilmore on Thursday, September 10, 2020 - 13:36

Hi, I suggest Book2Speech. You can download it from the Mac AppStore.