Making The Mac Talk Via Terminal

arai_speed · arai_speed #1 (**permalink**)

02-12-2007, 08:30 PM

Hi everyone, is there a way to make the Mac talk via the terminal window? (command prompt).

I know how to make it talk from the System Preference but can I do it via the prompt? :headphone

NanoBite · NanoBite #2 (**permalink**)

02-12-2007, 08:31 PM

G'day arai speed,

I'm interested to know what this would be useful for?

walkerj · walkerj #3 (**permalink**)

02-12-2007, 08:36 PM

$ say what you want it to say

It'll do it in whatever voice is selected.

walkerj · walkerj #4 (**permalink**)

02-12-2007, 08:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pulse-8

G'day arai speed,

I'm interested to know what this would be useful for?

Well, I use a lot of command line utilties, some of which take awhile to complete. Okay, maybe not so much now with faster macs, but I could write a script that encodes a bunch of .aiff files to .mp3. At the end of the script I could put in

/usr/bin/say your files have been encoded, by your command

Then I would know it was done, and it would be like a cylon told me!

NanoBite · NanoBite #5 (**permalink**)

02-12-2007, 08:54 PM

Way over my expertise/comfort zone, but certainly kewl:bushman:

mac57 · mac57 #6 (**permalink**)

02-12-2007, 11:43 PM

That is too cool! I come from a Linux background and I thought I knew my way around the command line but this is a great new command I had no idea even existed! Too cool. Thanks!

arai_speed · arai_speed #7 (**permalink**)

02-13-2007, 01:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by walkerj

$ say what you want it to say

It'll do it in whatever voice is selected.

U da man! Thanks.

arai_speed · arai_speed #8 (**permalink**)

02-13-2007, 01:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pulse-8

G'day arai speed,

I'm interested to know what this would be useful for?

I want to use it to play a prank on a co-worker

xstep · xstep #9 (**permalink**)

02-13-2007, 02:40 AM

I have the following line in my crontab to remind me it is getting late on a work nite. It sets the volume so it isn't too loud and selects a prefered voice.

osascript -e "set Volume 4" -e 'say "Its 11 PM." using "Victoria"'

To select the voice on the command line do this;

say -v "Agnes" "Its 11 PM."

The voices in Leopard are suppose to be way better than 10.4.

NanoBite · NanoBite #10 (**permalink**)

02-13-2007, 02:58 AM

Hey I just did that xstep ... I'll probably forget it next time I try to impress someone with a terminal trick ....

mac57 · mac57 #11 (**permalink**)

02-13-2007, 09:47 AM

I just tried this and it turns out that the quotes aren't needed. For example, I can just type:

say -v Agnes Hi There Sailor

and it works.

Is there some place to get a listing of the available voices? From the above we see Agnes and Victoria - how many more are available?

Amen-Moses · Amen-Moses #12 (**permalink**)

02-13-2007, 11:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mac57

Is there some place to get a listing of the available voices? From the above we see Agnes and Victoria - how many more are available?

System Preferences->Speech->Text to Speech and the list is in a drop down menu.

Amen-Moses

mac57 · mac57 #13 (**permalink**)

02-13-2007, 12:38 PM

Thanks Amen-Moses. Much appreciated!

karudzo · karudzo #14 (**permalink**)

02-13-2007, 06:08 PM

That's cool.

egandolfi · egandolfi #15 (**permalink**)

02-13-2007, 06:17 PM

I noticed when you don't use the quotes that it says the statement then repeat the entire thing with "say -v Agnes Its 11pm"

mac57 #6 (permalink)
Member Since: Apr 29, 2006 Location: St. Somewhere Posts: 4,553 Mac Specs: iMac 27" 3.4 GHz, 256 GB SSD, 2 TB HDD, 8 GB RAM	02-12-2007, 11:43 PM That is too cool! I come from a Linux background and I thought I knew my way around the command line but this is a great new command I had no idea even existed! Too cool. Thanks! My Macs: iMac 27" 3.4 GHz, 4 Core, Mac Pro, 3.2 GHz 8 Core, PowerMac G5 Quad, 2.5 GHz, G4 Cube, 1.2 GHz Upgrade My iStuff: 32 GB iPhone 4, 30 GB iPod Video, 16 GB iPod Touch My OS': Mac OS X Tiger, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Mac OS X Leopard, Mac OS 8.6, openSUSE 10.3, Win XP I was on the Mac-Forums honor roll for September 2007
	QUOTE Thanks

xstep #9 (permalink)
Member Since: Jun 25, 2005 Location: On the road Posts: 3,231 Mac Specs: 2011 MBP, i7, 16GB RAM, MBP 2.16Ghz Core Duo, 2GB ram, Dual 867Mhz MDD, 1.75GB ram, ATI 9800 Pro vid	02-13-2007, 02:40 AM I have the following line in my crontab to remind me it is getting late on a work nite. It sets the volume so it isn't too loud and selects a prefered voice. osascript -e "set Volume 4" -e 'say "Its 11 PM." using "Victoria"' To select the voice on the command line do this; say -v "Agnes" "Its 11 PM." The voices in Leopard are suppose to be way better than 10.4.
	QUOTE Thanks

NanoBite #10 (permalink)
Member Since: Oct 27, 2005 Posts: 4,714	02-13-2007, 02:58 AM Hey I just did that xstep ... I'll probably forget it next time I try to impress someone with a terminal trick .... Last edited by NanoBite; 02-13-2007 at 03:01 AM.
	QUOTE Thanks

mac57 #11 (permalink)
Member Since: Apr 29, 2006 Location: St. Somewhere Posts: 4,553 Mac Specs: iMac 27" 3.4 GHz, 256 GB SSD, 2 TB HDD, 8 GB RAM	02-13-2007, 09:47 AM I just tried this and it turns out that the quotes aren't needed. For example, I can just type: say -v Agnes Hi There Sailor and it works. Is there some place to get a listing of the available voices? From the above we see Agnes and Victoria - how many more are available? My Macs: iMac 27" 3.4 GHz, 4 Core, Mac Pro, 3.2 GHz 8 Core, PowerMac G5 Quad, 2.5 GHz, G4 Cube, 1.2 GHz Upgrade My iStuff: 32 GB iPhone 4, 30 GB iPod Video, 16 GB iPod Touch My OS': Mac OS X Tiger, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Mac OS X Leopard, Mac OS 8.6, openSUSE 10.3, Win XP I was on the Mac-Forums honor roll for September 2007
	QUOTE Thanks

mac57 #13 (permalink)
Member Since: Apr 29, 2006 Location: St. Somewhere Posts: 4,553 Mac Specs: iMac 27" 3.4 GHz, 256 GB SSD, 2 TB HDD, 8 GB RAM	02-13-2007, 12:38 PM Thanks Amen-Moses. Much appreciated! My Macs: iMac 27" 3.4 GHz, 4 Core, Mac Pro, 3.2 GHz 8 Core, PowerMac G5 Quad, 2.5 GHz, G4 Cube, 1.2 GHz Upgrade My iStuff: 32 GB iPhone 4, 30 GB iPod Video, 16 GB iPod Touch My OS': Mac OS X Tiger, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Mac OS X Leopard, Mac OS 8.6, openSUSE 10.3, Win XP I was on the Mac-Forums honor roll for September 2007
	QUOTE Thanks

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arai_speed #1 (permalink)
Member Since: Dec 08, 2006 Posts: 59 Mac Specs: MacBook Pro, OSX 10.4.8, 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM	02-12-2007, 08:30 PM Hi everyone, is there a way to make the Mac talk via the terminal window? (command prompt). I know how to make it talk from the System Preference but can I do it via the prompt? :headphone
	QUOTE Thanks

NanoBite #2 (permalink)
Member Since: Oct 27, 2005 Posts: 4,714	02-12-2007, 08:31 PM G'day arai speed, I'm interested to know what this would be useful for?
	QUOTE Thanks

NanoBite #5 (permalink)
Member Since: Oct 27, 2005 Posts: 4,714	02-12-2007, 08:54 PM Way over my expertise/comfort zone, but certainly kewl:bushman:
	QUOTE Thanks

karudzo #14 (permalink)
Member Since: May 27, 2006 Location: Concord, NC Posts: 445 Mac Specs: Macbook Pro 17" 2.6GHz 4GB RAM	02-13-2007, 06:08 PM That's cool.
	QUOTE Thanks

egandolfi #15 (permalink)
Member Since: Jan 19, 2007 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 130 Mac Specs: MacBook Pro-2.16Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo-3GB RAM-120GB HDD	02-13-2007, 06:17 PM I noticed when you don't use the quotes that it says the statement then repeat the entire thing with "say -v Agnes Its 11pm"
	QUOTE Thanks

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