Using pyttsx3 for Text-to-Speech in Python

The author explores how to convert text to speech using the offline Python library pyttsx3 .

Installation is done via pip:

pip3 install pyttsx3

Basic usage involves initializing the engine, queuing text with say() , and invoking runAndWait() to produce audio:

import pyttsx3 engine = pyttsx3.init() engine.say('Hello world') engine.runAndWait()

The script demonstrates how to inspect and adjust voice properties such as rate, volume, and available voices:

rate = engine.getProperty('rate') engine.setProperty('rate', 200) volume = engine.getProperty('volume') engine.setProperty('volume', 1.0) voices = engine.getProperty('voices') for v in voices: print(v.id, v.name)

For Chinese speech, no explicit language setting is required; the engine works with Mandarin text directly:

engine.say('语音合成开始') engine.say('我会说中文了，开森，开森') engine.runAndWait()

A more elaborate example shows conditional speech based on lists of known and unknown names, with different intervals for each case:

import pyttsx3 engine = pyttsx3.init() def VOICE_TEXT(names): unknown_name = [] known_name = [] for name in names: if name == 'Unknown': unknown_name.append(name) else: known_name.append(name) num_known = len(known_name) num_unknown = len(unknown_name) if len(names) == 0: return elif num_unknown == 0: text = '欢迎' for i in range(num_known): if i + 1 == num_known and i != 0: text += '和{}'.format(known_name[i]) else: text += known_name[i] engine.say(text) engine.runAndWait() elif num_known == 0: text = '警告，警告，有陌生人未识别，有陌生人未识别' engine.say(text) engine.runAndWait() else: text = '欢迎' for i in range(num_known): if i + 1 == num_known and i != 0: text += '和{}'.format(known_name[i]) else: text += known_name[i] engine.say(text) engine.say('请注意， 您旁边有未识别人员，您将不允许进入，请询问值班人员，谢谢合作') engine.runAndWait() if __name__ == '__main__': VOICE_TEXT(['张三丰', '张无忌']) VOICE_TEXT(['Unknown', '张三丰']) VOICE_TEXT(['Unknown'])

An advanced version adds global counters to limit how often each speech type is spoken, resetting after reaching thresholds:

import pyttsx3 KUNOWN = 0 UNKNOWN = 0 UNKNOWN_KNOWN = 0 engine = pyttsx3.init() def VOICE_TEXT(names): unknown_name = [] known_name = [] for name in names: if name == 'Unknown': unknown_name.append(name) else: known_name.append(name) num_known = len(known_name) num_unknown = len(unknown_name) if len(names) == 0: return elif num_unknown == 0: global KUNOWN KUNOWN += 1 if KUNOWN == 15: KUNOWN = 1 text = '欢迎' for i in range(num_known): if i + 1 == num_known and i != 0: text += '和{}'.format(known_name[i]) else: text += known_name[i] engine.say(text) engine.runAndWait() elif num_known == 0: global UNKNOWN UNKNOWN += 1 if UNKNOWN == 10: UNKNOWN = 1 text = '警告，警告，有外来人员未识别，有外来人员未识别' engine.say(text) engine.runAndWait() else: global UNKNOWN_KNOWN UNKNOWN_KNOWN += 1 if UNKNOWN_KNOWN == 25: UNKNOWN_KNOWN = 2 text = '欢迎' for i in range(num_known): if i + 1 == num_known and i != 0: text += '和{}'.format(known_name[i]) else: text += known_name[i] engine.say(text) engine.say('请注意， 您旁边有外来人员，您将不允许进入，请询问值班人员，谢谢合作') engine.runAndWait() if __name__ == '__main__': VOICE_TEXT(['张三丰', '张无忌']) VOICE_TEXT(['Unknown', '张三丰']) VOICE_TEXT(['Unknown'])

The tutorial concludes by suggesting that the speech function can be called from a timed loop in a larger program, using the counter variables to control playback frequency.