(edit: I am glad you all liked this project! It got to be the top Python article of the week!)
A while ago I was messing around with google's Text to Speech python library.
This library basically reads out any piece of text and converts it to .mp3
file. Then I started thinking of making something useful out of it.
My installed, saved, and unread pdf books π
I like reading books. I really do. I think language and ideas sharing is fascinating. I have a directory at which I store pdf books that I plan on reading but I never do. So I thought hey, why dont I make them audio books and listen to them while I do something else π!
So I started planning how the script should look like.
- Allow user to pick a
.pdf file
- Convert the file into one string
- Output
.mp3
file.
Without further needless words, lets get to it.
Allow user to pick a .pdf file
Python can read files easily. I just need to use the method open("filelocation", "rb")
to open the file in reading mode. I dont want to be copying and pasting files to the directory of the code everytime I want to use the code though. So to make it easier we will use tkinter library
to open up an interface that lets us choose the file.
from tkinter import Tk
from tkinter.filedialog import askopenfilename
Tk().withdraw() # we don't want a full GUI, so keep the root window from appearing
filelocation = askopenfilename() # open the dialog GUI
Great. Now we have the file location stored in a filelocation
variable.
Allow user to pick a .pdf file βοΈ
Convert the file into one string
As I said before, to open a file in Python we just need to use the open()
method. But we also want to convert the pdf file into regular pieces of text. So we might as well do it now.
To do that we will use a library called pdftotext
.
Lets install it:
sudo pip install pdftotext
Then:
from tkinter import Tk
from tkinter.filedialog import askopenfilename
import pdftotext
Tk().withdraw() # we don't want a full GUI, so keep the root window from appearing
filelocation = askopenfilename() # open the dialog GUI
with open(filelocation, "rb") as f: # open the file in reading (rb) mode and call it f
pdf = pdftotext.PDF(f) # store a text version of the pdf file f in pdf variable
Great. Now we have the file stored in the variable pdf
.
if you print this variable, you will get an array of strings. Each string is a line in the file. to get them all into one .mp3
file, we will have to make sure they are all stored as one string. So lets loop through this array and add them all to one string.
from tkinter import Tk
from tkinter.filedialog import askopenfilename
import pdftotext
Tk().withdraw() # we don't want a full GUI, so keep the root window from appearing
filelocation = askopenfilename() # open the dialog GUI
with open(filelocation, "rb") as f: # open the file in reading (rb) mode and call it f
pdf = pdftotext.PDF(f) # store a text version of the pdf file f in pdf variable
string_of_text = ''
for text in pdf:
string_of_text += text
Sweet π. Now we have it all as one piece of string.
Convert the file into one string βοΈ
Output .mp3 file π
Now we are ready to use the gTTS
(google Text To Speech) library. all we need to do is pass the string we made, store the output in a variable, then use the save()
method to output the file to the computer.
Lets install it:
sudo pip install gtts
Then:
from tkinter import Tk
from tkinter.filedialog import askopenfilename
import pdftotext
from gtts import gTTS
Tk().withdraw() # we don't want a full GUI, so keep the root window from appearing
filelocation = askopenfilename() # open the dialog GUI
with open(filelocation, "rb") as f: # open the file in reading (rb) mode and call it f
pdf = pdftotext.PDF(f) # store a text version of the pdf file f in pdf variable
string_of_text = ''
for text in pdf:
string_of_text += text
final_file = gTTS(text=string_of_text, lang='en') # store file in variable
final_file.save("Generated Speech.mp3") # save file to computer
As simple as that! we are done π
(edit: I am glad you all liked this article! The intention of all my writings is to be as simple as possible so all-levels readers can understand. If you wish to know more about customizing this API, please check this page: https://gtts.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)
I am on a lifetime mission to support and contribute to the general knowledge of the web community as much as possible. Some of my writings might sound too silly, or too difficult, but no knowledge is ever useless.If you like my articles, feel free to help me keep writing by getting me coffee :)
Top comments (52)
I would suggest adding two lines to save the MP3 file to the same location and name as the PDF file.
from os.path import splitext
outname = splitext(filelocation)[0] + '.mp3'
then use:
final_file.save(outname)
That would be a nice add!
Oh, fantastic! I was looking to add this by myself but I don't know python coding. Thanks for bringing it up!
I am really intrigued by this article. I tried everything to install pdftotext lib on my mac but was unsuccessful. I keep getting this error --> " error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1"
I installed OS dependencies , Poppler using brew but didn't work. Can you anyone help me?
make sure you have these two installed:
python-dev
libevent-dev
Yup i installed them . NO matter what i do, i keep getting this error --> "ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1"
and i installed gcc too!
I just started getting the same thing on my system (Ubuntu). After a lot of Google/StackExchange, this worked (copy from my annotations):
For whatever reason, in order to install the following two, I had to install some stuff on my Ubuntu Mate ** system-wide ** to get rid of compile errors:
I'm using PyCharmCE. After the above, I could use this in the PyCharm terminal:
After I did all of that, successful! Program works like a charm (hehe).
Cheers!
Thanks for sharing your solution!
A pleasure to finally be able to give back a little!
I have a Mac, brother. Can't use app-get. what should i do now?
Are you using the default Python 2.7?? You may need to use Python 3.x
I got this working on the Mac using Python 3.7.4 using virtual env and brew. Works fine.
I am using docker with my Macbook without any issue. And it is a great alternative to start working on any environment, stack, etc.
They mention what all has to be installed for various O.S's in here pypi.org/project/pdftotext/
Have you tried to install the OS dependencies as specified in the docs? github.com/jalan/pdftotext#macos
Really cool and quick project! One thing I would suggest is to use python's
join()
method instead of looping over the list of strings. I think that's the more "pythonic" way and should also perform a little better.Thanks for the tip!
I sure will start using that
I am on
fedora
and had to install the following dependencies to get this working before I couldpip install pdftotext
Sequence would be
My favorite part is (if I am not mistaken) that this would work for any language PDF as long as google text to speech supports the language.
hahaha omg how could I not think about doing the research.
You're true.
check this out
cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/
Thanks a lot for the article, I tried a lot finding such thing but now am able to read(listen) to all my untouched PDFs.
That was my intention.
Glad you liked it :)
I tried this on Win10, but was unable to install pdftotext package in Python 3.8.
Hence, I did this using another way :
github.com/suryabranwal/TIL/blob/m...
An observation here ( I'm sure this has to do with the gtts engine though ):
The reader would rather spell some words than pronounce the actual words and its a bit strange. I did a conversion where the word "first" was spelt rather than pronounced. Initially, I thought such occurs when words are not properly written and the text recognition engine is affected. "Five" was pronounced fai-vee-e,and other spellings like that.
Overall though, it is manageable and one can make good sense out of the readings. Now I can "read" my e-books faster with this ingenious solution.
Thanks again, @mustapha
It will not work offline. Try AudioBook to listen offline.
Documentation:- audiobook.readthedocs.io/
Convert your Pdf in cool AudioBook with 3 lines of python code
CodePerfectPlus γ» Oct 23 γ» 1 min read
This is a life-saving procedure you shared. I tried it and works like charm. Thank you so very much.
I have a question though...
I know this is a simplistic approach to just explain the basics( and its awesome). Please, is it possible to change the reader's voice and reading speed?
I am glad you liked it!
The intention of all my writings is to be as simple as possible so all-levels readers can understand.
If you wish to know more about customizing this API, please check this page:
gtts.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Is there any way to pop up an option for choosing the page from which the reading will start & option for choosing the pdf file is there, I am pasting the code
import pyttsx3 as py
import PyPDF2 as pd
pdfReader = pd.PdfFileReader(open('Excel-eBook.pdf', 'rb'))
from tkinter.filedialog import *
speaker = py.init()
voices = speaker.getProperty('voices')
for voice in voices:
speaker.setProperty('voice', voice.id)
book = askopenfilename()
pdfreader = pd.PdfFileReader(book)
pages = pdfreader.numPages
for num in range(0, pages): # O is the number from where the reading will start
page = pdfreader.getPage(num)
text = page.extractText()
player = py.init()
player.say(text)
player.runAndWait()