document-to-audio-converter

Document to Audio Converter

A simple Python utility to convert text from Microsoft Word (.docx) documents into spoken audio. You can either listen to the audio directly or save it as a .wav file.

This script uses a simple, dialog-based interface for file selection and options.

Features

• Reads text content from .docx files.
• Converts the extracted text into speech.
• Option 1: Speak the text aloud, paragraph by paragraph.
• Option 2: Save the entire text as a single .wav audio file.
• Handles missing dependencies and file-opening errors gracefully.

Requirements

• Python 3.x
• The following Python libraries:
  • pyttsx3
  • python-docx
  • pypiwin32 (often required by pyttsx3 on Windows)

Installation

1. Clone this repository or download the Pdftoaudio.py script.

2. Install the required libraries using pip:

   pip install pyttsx3 python-docx pypiwin32

How to Use

1. Run the script from your terminal:

   python Pdftoaudio.py

2. A file dialog will open. Select the .docx document you want to convert.

3. A dialog box will ask if you want to save the audio to a file.

   • Click "Yes" to open a "Save As" dialog and save the output as a .wav file.
   • Click "No" to have the script speak the document's text aloud directly.

4. Follow the on-screen prompts. Status messages will be printed to the console.

Recent Code Improvements

The script was recently refactored to improve its quality, robustness, and maintainability. Key improvements include:

• Dependency Management: Imports are now organized at the top of the file. A startup check was added to ensure the python-docx library is installed, providing a user-friendly error message if it's missing.
• Robustness:
  • The tkinter root window is now managed with a contextmanager, ensuring it is always properly destroyed.
  • A try...finally block was added around the text-to-speech engine logic to guarantee that engine.stop() is called, preventing the engine from hanging in case of an error.
• Code Structure & Readability:
  • The pyttsx3 engine setup was moved into its own helper function (_initialize_engine) to keep the main logic clean.
  • Type hints and docstrings were added to all functions, making the code self-documenting and easier to understand.

Future Roadmap

This project is a great starting point, and there are several exciting features planned for the future to make it more powerful and user-friendly.

• Support for More File Formats:

  • Add support for reading text from PDF files (.pdf).
  • Add support for plain text files (.txt).

• Full Graphical User Interface (GUI):

  • Move away from simple dialog boxes to a complete GUI built with a framework like tkinter or PyQt.
  • The GUI would include features like a progress bar, play/pause/stop controls for live playback, and status displays.

• Enhanced Audio Controls:

  • Allow the user to select from available system voices.
  • Provide a slider or input box to adjust the speech rate and volume directly from the UI.

• Cross-Platform Compatibility:

  • Test and ensure the script works seamlessly on macOS and Linux. This may involve handling different text-to-speech engine backends.

• Application Packaging:

  • Package the application as a standalone executable (e.g., using PyInstaller) so that users can run it without needing to have Python or any libraries installed.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you'd like to help with any of the features on the roadmap or fix a bug, please feel free to fork the repository and submit a pull request.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.