JRockis

Q: Speech voices ignoring period and other punctuation

Hello,

 

I use the text-to-speech feature often in Mac OS X Lion to read blog posts and news stories to me.   I find it frustrating though, because even the newest voices all seem to have the same problem -- they ignore really critical punctuation.

 

For example, the voice will take a fairly significant pause at commas, but will blow right through a period, exclamation point or question mark.  It even tends to seriously underplay a new paragraph.   In some cases, it seems to almost speed up between sentences and jumps on the next sentence with no pause at all.

 

If I am looking at the text while I listen, I can follow, but that kind of defeats the point.   Anyone know of a way to get the voices to be a little more thoughtful about punctuation?

 

Thank you in advance!

Benjamin

MacPro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Dec 5, 2011 8:26 AM

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Q: Speech voices ignoring period and other punctuation

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Dec 5, 2011 1:11 PM in response to JRockis
    Level 10 (207,978 points)
    Applications
    Dec 5, 2011 1:11 PM in response to JRockis

    If you want longer pauses between sentences, copy the text into TextEdit and replace every instance of "." with "..". The only adjustable parameter of the voices is speed.

  • by JRockis,

    JRockis JRockis Dec 5, 2011 1:20 PM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (2 points)
    Dec 5, 2011 1:20 PM in response to Linc Davis

    Thanks Linc.

  • by Jabberwocki,

    Jabberwocki Jabberwocki Dec 13, 2011 1:49 AM in response to JRockis
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 13, 2011 1:49 AM in response to JRockis

    [[slnc 400]] will cause a pause of 400 milliseconds.

     

    Other Embedded Speech Commands can be used to control many aspects of synthetic speech.

  • by NdrwOe,

    NdrwOe NdrwOe Feb 9, 2012 9:37 AM in response to Jabberwocki
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 9, 2012 9:37 AM in response to Jabberwocki

    I think the point is being missed though... 

     

    Text-to-speech should recognize that a comma is a short pause and a period is a longer pause.  Rignt now, it ignores periods and pauses for commas.

     

    We shouldn't have to change the text to make up for TTS's deficiencies.

  • by red_menace,

    red_menace red_menace Feb 9, 2012 12:19 PM in response to JRockis
    Level 6 (15,536 points)
    Desktops
    Feb 9, 2012 12:19 PM in response to JRockis

    I've found that if the puctuation is not correct it doesn't get recognized as punctuation, for example:

     

    Hello there,have a nice day.And all that. --> wrong

    Hello there, have a nice day. And all that. --> correct

     

    The different voices can also act differently when not recognizing punctuation, such as saying "period", or "dot", etc.

  • by PieNotCake,

    PieNotCake PieNotCake Feb 28, 2015 5:39 PM in response to JRockis
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 28, 2015 5:39 PM in response to JRockis

    I know this is an old thread, but I just started noticing this problem with the "new" (as of Lion) set of voices and using Final Draft.  The old voices like Alex are fine, but newer ones like Tom blow right through periods and question marks like one long run-on sentence.  Commas and other punctuation is fine, though.  Anyone ever find a solution?

  • by timelincoln7648,

    timelincoln7648 timelincoln7648 Jul 9, 2016 7:30 PM in response to PieNotCake
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 9, 2016 7:30 PM in response to PieNotCake

    I can confirm that the Alex voice when downloaded and selected on the iPhone solves this problem on the iPhone as well. Thanks for the tip!

  • by username999,

    username999 username999 Sep 22, 2016 9:46 AM in response to JRockis
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 22, 2016 9:46 AM in response to JRockis

    does anyone have any new information regarding this question? i find it hard to believe that after all this time the problem still isnt resolved. i got an ipad less than a year ago, and i got an iphone a few days ago...new products with fairly new operating systems and still not even a SLIGHT pause for a period! i find it even more bizarre that more people arent talking about this! im not a computer expert but i have to assume it wouldnt be that difficult to tell the voice to pause for periods, since it already pauses for commas.

  • by VikingOSX,

    VikingOSX VikingOSX Sep 22, 2016 10:28 AM in response to username999
    Level 7 (20,911 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 22, 2016 10:28 AM in response to username999

    We are on the right-side of the bell curve regarding Apple's focus on text-to-speech quality, and resource expenditure. Other exigent macOS development, and delivery activity prevails. The present implementation of text-to-speech will not approach the artificial intelligence necessary to humanly interpret, and accurately parse text as you would prefer.

     

    There remain actively developed, Dragon Naturally Speaking, and other commercial products that do a much better job, than the built in solution.

  • by username999,

    username999 username999 Sep 22, 2016 3:58 PM in response to VikingOSX
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 22, 2016 3:58 PM in response to VikingOSX

    vikingosx - i must be at the perfect level of intoxication because i actually understood this. your post was very helpful - thanks. i will do some research on the other products out there. am i to believe though that pausing for periods is somehow more difficult than pausing for commas, which the speech voices already do? in any case thanks again

  • by username999,

    username999 username999 Sep 22, 2016 4:46 PM in response to JRockis
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 22, 2016 4:46 PM in response to JRockis

    [follow-up]  strange...i had not tried speech-to-text on my macbook pro - i just did and it works FLAWLESSLY, pausing at periods like it should! weird

     

    my iphone uses 9.3.2

    my ipad uses 8.4

    my macbook pro uses 10.10.4

  • by VikingOSX,

    VikingOSX VikingOSX Sep 23, 2016 6:46 AM in response to username999
    Level 7 (20,911 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 23, 2016 6:46 AM in response to username999

    Some people proclaim Duct-Tape, while others profess WD-40 — but Is there nothing that a copious quantity of 25-year old, premium, single-malt scotch cannot fix?

  • by username999,

    username999 username999 Sep 24, 2016 4:12 PM in response to VikingOSX
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 24, 2016 4:12 PM in response to VikingOSX

    "Is there nothing that a copious quantity of 25-year old, premium, single-malt scotch cannot fix?"

     

    south africa

  • by VikingOSX,

    VikingOSX VikingOSX Sep 24, 2016 7:51 PM in response to username999
    Level 7 (20,911 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 24, 2016 7:51 PM in response to username999

    Amen.