www.aldostools.org - Text to Speech Engines for Agent Reader and Text-to-WAVE by Aldo Vargas

An additional 1.6 MB free disk space if you plan to use the Lernout & Hauspie® TruVoice Text-To-Speech Engine for speech output
An additional 22 MB free disk space if you plan to use the Microsoft Speech Recognition Engine for speech input
A Windows-compatible sound card
A compatible set of speakers and microphone

Uninstalling Microsoft Agent

Microsoft Agent cannot be uninstalled. Microsoft Agent becomes an extension to the Windows Operating System. It also is included as part of Windows 2000, XP and Windows ME operating systems.

Step 1 (Required)

Install Microsoft Agent Core Components
version 2.0 (395K)

WINDOWS 2000/XP Users: The Microsoft Agent Core Components are already installed on Windows 2000/XP, so skip Step 1.

Download the above MSAgent.exe setup program and run it to install the core components. You may then delete the setup program.

IMPORTANT: If you're using Windows XP, you should install Microsoft SAPI 4.0a runtime.

Agent Reader and Aldo's Text-to-WAVE also support the new Microsoft SAPI 5.1. Download the optional Microsoft SAPI 5.1 runtime for Windows 2000/ME/98 or the additional Microsoft SAPI 5.1 voices for Windows XP.

Step 2 (Required)

Install the Lernout & Hauspie TruVoice,
Text-to-Speech Engine (English version) (1MB).

The Lernout & Hauspie TruVoice Text-to-Speech (TTS) Engine provides speech output capabilities for Microsoft Agent so you can hear what the characters are saying through your sound speakers.

Download the above tv_enua.exe setup program and run it to install the TTS Engine. You may then delete the setup program.

If you've already installed this, you should see Lernout & Hauspie TruVoice American English TTS Engine in the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs list.

Additional Lernout & Hauspie TTS3000 Engines may be downloaded from the table below. You need to download and install both the TTS Engine and the Language Add-On for the desired Language. More than 17 different languages supported!!!

For example, to install French Text-to-Speech, download and install both lhttsfrf.exe and agtx040C.exe

NOTE 1: To listen all available ENGLISH voices in Agent Reader you must download the American English voices from Microsoft (msttsa22L.exe) and TruVoice (tv_enua.exe) listed below.

NOTE 2: For Aldo's Text-to-WAVE, do **NOT** install the voices from Microsoft Text-to-Speech 4.0 (Mary, Mike, Sam, RoboSoft), because this engine has a conflict with the other TTS engines. If you want to use these voices, install the Microsoft SAPI 5.1 or Microsoft SAPI 5.1 voices for XP.

Language	FREE TTS Engines	Language Add-On (128 KB)
American English TruVoice 1MB	tv_enua.exe (997KB) (10 english voices)	*REQUIRED*
American English Microsoft TTS	msttsa22L.exe 5MB (Mary, Mike, Sam, Robot)	DO NOT INSTALL with Aldo's Text-to-WAVE
British English	lhttseng.exe (2.54MB)	add-on already installed
Dutch	lhttsdun.exe (2.58MB)	agtx0413.exe
French	lhttsfrf.exe (2.24MB)	agtx040C.exe
German	lhttsged.exe (2.18MB)	agtx0407.exe
Italian	lhttsiti.exe (1.97MB)	agtx0410.exe
Japanese	lhttsjpj.exe (3.00MB)	agtx0411.exe
Korean	lhttskok.exe (3.03MB)	agtx0412.exe
Portuguese (Brazilian)	lhttsptb.exe (2.39MB)	agtx0416.exe
Russian	lhttsrur.exe (2.85MB)	agtx0419.exe
Spanish	lhttsspe.exe (2.36MB)	agtx0C0A.exe
CZech	GB-Soft TTS (896KB)	agtx0405.exe
English Spanish German French Italian	Truvoice TTS (1.3MB)	Unstable TTS The TTS is NOT compatible with Aldo's Text-to-WAVE
Chinese	Microsoft Chinese Voice for SAPI 5.1 (1.2MB) MS SAPI 5.1 (677KB) Engine Only-No Voices	AgtX0804.exe
Commercial Text to Speech (TTS) Engines
AT&T Natural Voices	Download & CD	US English, UK English, Spanish, German, French
NeoSpeech TTS		English (SAPI 5) or Asian Voices
Cepstral TTS	Commercial Product	US English, UK English, Italian, German, Spanish - Americas, Canadian French (SAPI 5)
Loquendo TTS	Commercial Product	US English, UK English, Spanish - Americas, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Swedish, Catalan, Greek, Portuguese, Chinese (SAPI 5)
ScanSoft RealSpeak	Commercial Product	US English, Swedish, Danish, French, German, Norwegian, Dutch, British English, Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, Cantonese Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, Castilian Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Dutch, Belgian Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish
Infovox Desktop TTS Engines	30 Days Trial TTS Engines	US English, Swedish, Danish, French, German, Norwegian, Finnish, Dutch, British English, Spanish, Icelandic, Italian
Atlas TTS	Demo TTS engine (12MB)	Spanish, Catalan
Talsmann TTS	Demo TTS Engine (12MB)	Norwegian only (Not compatible with Aldo's Text-to-WAVE)
Sakhr TTS	Commercial Product	Arabic
Digalo TTS Engines	15 Days Trial TTS Engines (Discontinued)	US English (Core), Russian, French, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, British English>, Italian

Step 3 (Required)

Install the Microsoft Speech Control Panel (927K)

The Speech Control Panel will add an icon to your Control Panel to enable you to list the compatible speech recognition and text-to-speech engines installed on your system and customize their settings for your use.

If the Text-to-Speech of your selected language continue without sound, try installing MS SAPI 4.0a runtime.

For Aldo's Text-to-WAVE, be sure that you have installed Microsoft SAPI 4.0a runtime. It may require that you reboot after installation even if it doesn't ask it.

Step 4 (Optional)

Install the Microsoft Speech Recognition Engine,
version 4.0 (6MB)

The Microsoft Speech Recognition Engine provides speech input capabilities for Microsoft Agent. This allows you to speak to characters through a microphone. However, Microsoft Agent must be specifically programmed to understand and interact with what you are saying. Also, Microsoft Agent does not support dictation.

Download the above actcnc.exe setup program and run it to install the TTS Engine. You may then delete the setup program.

If you've already installed this, you will see
Microsoft Agent Speech Recognition Engine 4.0 (English)
in the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs list.

Step 5

Download some Microsoft Agent Characters

Merlin | Genie | Robby | Peedy

* WINDOWS 2000/XP/ME Users: Merlin is already installed on Windows 2000/XP and Windows ME, so you should not need to install him.

There are many more Agent Characters available in the Microsoft Agent Web Ring Character Gallery and the Agentry.

Back to Agent Reader Page

Back to Aldo's Text-to-WAVE Page

Uses Microsoft® Agent Technology

The characters "Genie", "Merlin", "Robby", and "Peedy" are
Copyright © 1996-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

All other characters are copyright by their respective creators or owners.