Printing to a text-to-speech output device

• US 8,170,877 B2
• Filed: 06/20/2005
• Issued: 05/01/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/20/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cerence Operating Company (Cerence Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Agapi, Ciprian, Blass, Oscar J., Rutherfoord, Charles T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Saint Cyr, Leonard
• Application Number:
  US11/156,958
• Publication Number:
  US 20060287860A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,507 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 704/260
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems

Abstract

A method for producing speech output can include the step of selecting a TTS output device from a plurality of available output devices. The selected output device can be associated with outputting content of an application responsive to a print command. According to the method, the print command can be detected, which results in the content of the application being conveyed to the selected TTS output device. The TTS output device can be associated with at least one text-to-speech engine. Upon content conveyance to the TTS output device, at least a portion of the content can be automatically converted using the text-to-speech engine. The speech converted content can be outputted.

Claims

1. A method for producing speech data from content from any one of a plurality of applications, the method comprising:

in response to a print command, received from a user operating a computing device via a print interface accessed via one of the plurality of applications, to print the content, displaying a graphical user interface on a display of the computing device that provides a first option of outputting the content via a printer that is separate from the computing device and a second option of outputting the content via a text-to-speech output device capable of responding to the print command, the text-to-speech output device comprising a driver compatible with and configured to obtain the content via the print interface and a text-to-speech engine capable of converting text to speech, the print interface being generic to the plurality of applications;

displaying via the graphical user interface on the display of the computing device information identifying at least one user configurable setting of the text-to-speech output device;

in response to the user of the computing device altering the at least one user configurable setting via the graphical user interface, adjusting a corresponding operational parameter of the text-to-speech output device;

in response to the user selecting, via the print interface, the text-to-speech output device to output the content, receiving, by the driver, the content provided by the print interface and conveying, by the driver, at least a portion of the content to the text-to-speech engine;

automatically converting the portion of the content to speech data using the text-to-speech engine; and

outputting the speech data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the print command is received from a user to print a file comprising the content, the file formatted according to an application that lacks text-to-speech conversion capabilities but includes print capabilities.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the print interface includes a printer selection interface that displays a plurality of available devices capable of responding to the print command, and the at least one user configurable setting of the text-to-speech output device is displayed via a properties dialog box of the printer selection interface.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one user configurable setting comprises at least one among language, volume, speed, gender, pitch, and head size.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein outputting the speech data comprises outputting the speech data to a speaker.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein outputting the speech data comprises outputting the speech data to a file.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein outputting the speech data comprises outputting the speech data in accordance with a file format selected for the file from the printer selection interface.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the file format includes at least one among MP3, AVI, WAV, OGG, VOX, and WMA.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising filtering textually formatted content from the content and automatically converting only the textually formatted content to speech data.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising locating a textual section from graphically formatted content and converting the located textual section to textual content using optical character recognition.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising converting the textual content to speech data using the text-to-speech engine.

12. At least one non-transitory computer readable storage medium encoded with instructions that, when executed on at least one processor, performs a method for producing speech data from content from any one of a plurality of applications, the method comprising:

in response to a print command, received from a user operating a computing device via a print interface accessed via one of the plurality of applications, to print the content, displaying a graphical user interface on a display of the computing device that provides a first option of outputting the content via a printer that is separate from the computing device and a second option of outputting the content via-a text-to-speech output device capable of responding to the print command, the text-to-speech output device comprising a driver compatible with and configured to obtain the content from the print interface and a text-to-speech engine capable of converting text to speech, the print interface being generic to the plurality of applications;

displaying via the graphical user interface on the display of the computing device information identifying at least one user configurable setting of the text-to-speech output device;

in response to the user of the computing device altering the at least one user configurable setting via the graphical user interface, adjusting a corresponding operational parameter of the text-to-speech output device;

in response to the user selecting, via the print interface, the text-to-speech output device to output the content, receiving, by the driver, the content provided by the print interface and conveying, by the driver, at least a portion of the content to the text-to-speech engine;

automatically converting the portion of the content to speech data using the text-to-speech engine; and

outputting the speech data.

13. A text-to-speech output device for producing speech data from content from any one of a plurality of applications in response to a print command received from a user operating a computing device via a print interface accessed via one of the plurality of applications, the text-to-speech output device comprising:

a driver compatible with the print interface and configured to communicate with the print interface, the print interface being generic to the plurality of applications, to obtain the content from the print interface when the user selects, via the print interface provided by the one of the plurality of applications, the text-to-speech output device to respond to the print command, wherein the print interface comprises a graphical user interface that presents to the user, on a display of the computing device, a first option of outputting the content via a printer that is separate from the computing device and a second option of outputting the content via the text-to-speech output device, and wherein the graphical user interface further presents to the user, on the display of the computing device, at least one user configurable setting of the text-to-speech output device, the driver being configured to adjust an operational parameter of the text-to-speech output device in response to a communication received from the print interface generated in response to the user of the computing device altering the at least one user configurable setting via the graphical user interface; and

a text-to-speech engine coupled to the driver to receive from the driver at least a portion of the content to automatically convert the portion of the content to speech data.

14. The text-to-speech output device of claim 13, wherein:

the at least one user configurable setting comprises a plurality of user configurable settings associated with the text-to-speech output device,

said user configurable settings are configurable as printer properties when the text-to-speech output device is selected as a printer,

said user configurable settings comprise at least one setting selected from the group consisting of language, volume, speed, gender, pitch, and head size, and

the plurality of user configurable settings are provided for display via a printer properties dialog box that permits the user to configure an output type for the content.

15. The text-to-speech output device of claim 14, wherein the output type is at least one of outputted speech to a speaker and outputted speech to a file.

16. The text-to-speech output device of claim 15, wherein the printer properties dialog box permits the user to configure a file format for the file.

17. The text-to-speech output device of claim 16, wherein the file format includes at least one among MP3, AVI, WAV, OGG, VOX, and WMA and other formats.

18. The text-to-speech output device of claim 13, wherein the driver filters textually formatted content from the content and the text-to-speech engine converts only the textually formatted content to speech data.

19. The text-to-speech output device of claim 13, wherein the at least one user-configurable setting includes at least one setting selected from the group consisting of language, volume, speed, gender, pitch, and head size.