wgu students - books 24/7 - text to speech (android)

demonfurbie

this is mostly for wgu students who use (and abuse) books 24/7 mobile site. after a few weeks of tring to find away to get my phone to read me the books i need to read, lots of trial and error, i finally found a way.

software youll need
1. openoffice
2. ezpdf https://market.android.com/details?id=udk.android.reader&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsInVkay5hbmRyb2lkLnJlYWRlciJd

steps
1. copy only the text from the mobile site ( http://mobile.skillport.books24x7.com ) make sure you dont copy the navigation stuff at the top and bottom
2. paste the text into notepad , this removes any formatting that can cause issues
3. recopy the text from notepad and paste it into openoffice
4. convert to pdf
5. put on phone ( i use dropbox )
6. open with ezpdf
7. goto menu->...->voice reading, click ok

works well for me, ive tried many different ways to get it read to me and this way was the only way i could get it to work. most of the time it would get stuck on the text formatting or the way it was converted to pdf (alot of the pdf converters convert it to a picture pdf not a text pdf)

i was using a rtf file before but this would let me have it read to me in the car. if ya dont like the voice im sure you can find another voice engine. also you can see if the free version of ezpdf works with voice but i already had the paid version.

erpadmin

I do use ezpdf with voice function for A LOT of pdfs that I have to read for grad school. I even got the SVOX engine with the "Grace" voice. However, ezpdf's voice reading is not entirely perfect. My biggest qualms is how it deals with words that are possessive "apos s." Even PICO (Google's voice engine) doesn't remedy this, which leads me to believe that this is how ezpdf handles words that are possessive.

One still has to read along with the text. I can't see myself going through all of that trouble copying an entire book into a pdf just for the sake of TTS. There are books on books 24x7 that I do have on my shelf, like the SQL Server 2008 books, but until there's a better way to utilize TTS, I'll have to make due with the old fashioned way.

EDIT: BTW, Dropbox, Evernote, and ezpdf are great apps for any student, not just WGU. I really didn't need the first two at all though when I was a WGU student, but for working on assignments ANYWHERE for grad school, they really are a must.

Whiteout

I will definitely be trying this out. Thanks demonfurbie.

Whiteout

I tried out this strategy and it isn't really too difficult to copy the chapters you need from books 24/7 into a pdf. Books 24/7 puts so much text on one web page it really makes it pretty easy. Doing a whole book might take some time, but I usually only need a couple chapters at a time.

The voice reader aspect of ezpdf works decently(mispronounces a word incorrectly every now and then). Good for using at the gym or in the car.

@erpadmin - is "grace" just a different voice for the voice option in ezpdf?

erpadmin

Whiteout wrote: »

@erpadmin - is "grace" just a different voice for the voice option in ezpdf?

Yes, but "Grace" is part of the SVOX engine...you have to install and set your android device to use SVOX instead of PICO and then download the "Grace" voice. There's also a Michael for those who prefer males. "Grace" is more pleasant to listen to and is a bit more natural sounding (admittedly not by much) than PICO's female voice. But she can only be used with SVOX.

robaato

demonfurbie wrote: »

this is mostly for wgu students who use (and abuse) books 24/7 mobile site. after a few weeks of tring to find away to get my phone to read me the books i need to read, lots of trial and error, i finally found a way.

software youll need
1. openoffice
2. ezpdf https://market.android.com/details?id=udk.android.reader&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsInVkay5hbmRyb2lkLnJlYWRlciJd

steps
1. copy only the text from the mobile site ( http://mobile.skillport.books24x7.com ) make sure you dont copy the navigation stuff at the top and bottom
2. paste the text into notepad , this removes any formatting that can cause issues
3. recopy the text from notepad and paste it into openoffice
4. convert to pdf
5. put on phone ( i use dropbox )
6. open with ezpdf
7. goto menu->...->voice reading, click ok

works well for me, ive tried many different ways to get it read to me and this way was the only way i could get it to work. most of the time it would get stuck on the text formatting or the way it was converted to pdf (alot of the pdf converters convert it to a picture pdf not a text pdf)

i was using a rtf file before but this would let me have it read to me in the car. if ya dont like the voice im sure you can find another voice engine. also you can see if the free version of ezpdf works with voice but i already had the paid version.

This looked pretty good. I have done the tsp before but I can't stand when it reads lengthy titles, bar code numbers and other stuff you would never read and you can't skip forward.

I jumped to purchase ezPDF reader not testing out Adobe to see if it would work as it was not available at the time of this posting. I don't like the cloud plugin sold seperately.

powerfool

It is a bit of a pain, but I just copy/paste chapters at a time into Word and then convert them into an ebook that I can use on my Kindle to use text-to-speech. If I am too busy for the copy/paste fun, I will pay one of my kids a couple of dollars to do it for me.