# Text books to CDs



## Airtight (4 Jan 2009)

I am studying at the moment as part of my CPD (continual professional development). I drive almost 3 hours a day and would like to use this time productively. 

If I could get my text books and study material converted to audio I could use my driving time as study time.

What is the best way of converting my text books to CD?


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## mathepac (4 Jan 2009)

Using the titles / authors, try a search for audio books.

Other than that you are looking at scanning the books to text files of some kind and using a text-to-speech program to produce audio files (a long-winded process that may infringe copyrights).


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## Airtight (4 Jan 2009)

I have tried searching the internet for audio books. I have even the ISBN for each book but no success.

What software would you recommend that I use to convert text to speech?

Do you think it would be impractical to record my own voice reading the text?


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## extopia (4 Jan 2009)

Personally, I think it would be impractical, and unless you're a good actor you'll probably risk sending yourself to sleep at the wheel.

Maybe you could get a bus or train and read the actual books?


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## Orga (4 Jan 2009)

You will waste more time trying to do what you are suggesting than you will gain by doing it. To give youo an idea download Microsoft Reader for free and try a few of the free e-books then get it to read some free text - do you see what I mean?


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## Complainer (4 Jan 2009)

Check with your local library to see if they have the audio books. If not, they might be able to order them in for you from other libraries. Also, check with the library of the relevant professional institution. Audio-books are very useful for many people with vision impairments, so you may well find them via the libraries.


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## j26 (4 Jan 2009)

I did good notes for a course, and read the notes onto computer into mp3 format for transfer to my phone.  The benefit of this approach is that you actually get to read the topic, so the audio notes are useful to refresh yourself rather than learning something new.   It was very useful.  Try doing a precis of some of the chapters and then read it to try it out - text to speech tends to sound weird.  

The optimum time before you get bored of listening to yourself (or reading it to the computer) is about 6-7 minutes, so try to keep it relatively short and to the point, and limit your material to something you can get covered in that time.

Also check out the US university websites (Harvard etc) - they may have some lectures on topic that you can download as podcasts.


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## Airtight (5 Jan 2009)

I plan to read the books once and use the audio to refresh my memory. I think   some of you have offer good ideas, such as approaching library's and note taking on audio.

Still I will try the text speech software, has anybody got good or bad reviews of software that you have used? Its important that the voice is human like and does not sound like Stephen Hawkins.


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## car (5 Jan 2009)

> Its important that the voice is human like and does not sound like Stephen Hawkins



  Whats wrong with an american accent?   


Get microsoft reader or a pdf reader as suggested above.  Get a soft copy of your text, and the readers will do what you want.   Most readers come with different voices, some even sound human.


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## Orga (5 Jan 2009)

car said:


> Whats wrong with an american accent?
> 
> 
> Get microsoft reader or a pdf reader as suggested above.  Get a soft copy of your text, and the readers will do what you want.   Most readers come with different voices, some even sound human.



Who is Stephen Hawkins, a neighbour?


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## AlbacoreA (5 Jan 2009)

Orga said:


> You will waste more time trying to do what you are suggesting than you will gain by doing it. To give youo an idea download Microsoft Reader for free and try a few of the free e-books then get it to read some free text - do you see what I mean?



I'm with Orga. Its not a productive use of time.


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## Sar (5 Jan 2009)

The publishers of the book should be able to tell you if they have sold voice recording rights to one of the companies that produce audio books. Ring their reception and ask for the rights department or the commissioning editor of the book.
If so then you should be able to get it . Most books are not turned into audio books though so I suspect you won't have much luck.

If you did record a whole book onto cd yourself I suspect that technically you would be in breach of copyright.


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## Pope John 11 (5 Jan 2009)

Airtight said:


> I am studying at the moment as part of my CPD (continual professional development). I drive almost 3 hours a day and would like to use this time productively.
> 
> If I could get my text books and study material converted to audio I could use my driving time as study time.
> 
> What is the best way of converting my text books to CD?


 

Is this not such a good idea....especially when you are driving.


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## Airtight (5 Jan 2009)

AlbacoreA said:


> I'm with Orga. Its not a productive use of time.



What do you and Orga base your statements on?


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## Airtight (5 Jan 2009)

Orga said:


> Who is Stephen Hawkins, a neighbour?



I am shocked that one person on this thread doesn't know of Stephen Hawkins and another thinks he is American. 

If your knowledge of text to speech software is as lacking as your knowledge of the world over the last 40 years, your advice will not be heeded.

Stephen Hawkins is English and is one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century.


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## pansyflower (5 Jan 2009)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking


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## mathepac (5 Jan 2009)

Airtight said:


> I am shocked that one person on this thread doesn't know of Stephen Hawkins and another thinks he is American.
> ...


Stephen Hawkins, aka Stevo the Hawk, is an American-born descendant of Jack Hawkins, the famous English pirate. His country of birth is one explanation given for his accent, although some biographers argue that his accent is actually an attempt to conceal his D2 connections, having lived for a period in one of the old family seats, Hawkins House in Hawkins Street.

A one-time school-mate of Bill Cullen's, Stevo's post school retail career in the fresh fruit buisness was terminated when Bill allegedly ended their business relationship by uttering for the first time the immortal words "Stevo, you're fired".

In a later attempt at reconciliation, Bill offered Stevo the Renault concession for North America, but in a brilliant move, typical of his later inspired business decisions, Stevo responded, "Stick it Bill,  the Yanks and Canadians have enough of their own crap cars to buy; there's no room for any more junkers in this market".

A brilliant salesman, Stevo went on earn a staggering fortune selling coals to Newcastle and snow to Eskimos, but later diversified into the original family business, the root of his real riches, by illegally duplicating software and entertainment DVD's.

Stevo now resides in variety of locations (aka safe-houses) and is on top of the popularity charts with organisations such as Interpol, FACT and FAST.

I'm amazed no-one knew this.


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## Airtight (5 Jan 2009)

mathepac said:


> Stephen Hawkins, aka Stevo the Hawk, is an American-born descendant of Jack Hawkins, the famous English pirate. His country of birth is one explanation given for his accent, although some biographers argue that his accent is actually an attempt to conceal his D2 connections, having lived for a period in one of the old family seats, Hawkins House in Hawkins Street.
> 
> A one-time school-mate of Bill Cullen's, Stevo's post school retail career in the fresh fruit buisness was terminated when Bill allegedly ended their business relationship by uttering for the first time the immortal words "Stevo, you're fired".
> 
> ...



What an amazing mind you have, but unfortunately not in the same context as Stevo


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## AlbacoreA (5 Jan 2009)

Airtight said:


> What do you and Orga base your statements on?


 
Past experience of working with audio, graphics and ocr. OCR is not error free and the physical process of scanning a book is very time consuming. Even recording and editing audio is very time consuming and thats were theres no OCR involved. I reckon the best you could do would be to take your own crib notes, summarizing the important sections only and record them. 

But even then (with respect) you won't be able to concentrate properly while driving, reducing the effectiveness of studing this way yet further. Thats ignoring the fact it could be very distracting while driving. 

So in summary you'll waste hours/days putting on CD, then it won't be that effective when you do listen to it, as you'll only be partially paying attention. Be different if you were on a train and taking notes as you listened.


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## Airtight (5 Jan 2009)

car said:


> Whats wrong with an american accent?



Stephen Hawkins uses text to speech to communicate as a result of his inability to speak. The voice he uses is a computer generated voice.

Again, I am amazed some thing like this would have to be explained to somebody that is old enough to use a computer.


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## extopia (5 Jan 2009)

Stephen Hawking, you mean?

I agree with the posters who suggest that scanning, OCR-ing, recording, disk burning then listening in the car is a quite mad way to study.


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## Airtight (5 Jan 2009)

Pope John 11 said:


> Is this not such a good idea....especially when you are driving.



Are you serious? Do you listen to music when you drive do you listen to the radio talk shows? 

If not, let me fill you in, its ok to drive and listen to a CD or radio. Thats why the manufactures put them in the cars.


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## mathepac (5 Jan 2009)

extopia said:


> Stephen Hawking, you mean? ...


That's who OP meant - my "Stephen Hawkins bio" apparently sailed high and wide, although I thought my old pal rolleyes:, Sarcartes the emoticon) would have been a hint; ho hum.


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## Airtight (6 Jan 2009)

extopia said:


> Stephen Hawking, you mean?
> 
> I agree with the posters who suggest that scanning, OCR-ing, recording, disk burning then listening in the car is a quite mad way to study.



I can scan 35ppm+, not sure how long the text to speech will take? then burn the CD, doesn't seem to difficult to me.

I will bring a text book to work in the morning and have it completely scanned in on my lunch break. I will bring it home and see how long it takes to convert it to speech. I will then burn it to CD.

Again whats the best software? You might think its a bit mad but I think its a clever used of technology and my time.


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## extopia (6 Jan 2009)

Best of luck with it then!

Let us know afterwards if you think it was worth it.


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## mathepac (6 Jan 2009)

Airtight said:


> I can scan 35ppm+, not sure how long the text to speech will take? then burn the CD, doesn't seem to difficult to me...


Scanning produces an image of a page, a photograph if you like. That photograph needs to be converted to text via OCR. The text produced by the OCR program is what the text to speech program "reads".

IME what can confuse OCR programs (assuming a fairly clean sans serif type face to begin with) is variations in type-face and styles, as well as headlines, footnotes, sidebars, mathematical equations, sub and super-scripts, embedded graphics and so on.

Again IME, while you may scan at 35+ ppm, the OCR program will need to "learn" to interpret the scans and this can be very time-consuming depending on the page you want to convert - as a rule of thumb figure 2 to 4 times as long as scanning a page, at best.


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## AlbacoreA (6 Jan 2009)

Airtight said:


> Are you serious? Do you listen to music when you drive do you listen to the radio talk shows?
> 
> If not, let me fill you in, its ok to drive and listen to a CD or radio. Thats why the manufactures put them in the cars.


 
Thats entirely different to studying. Its not the same level of concentration. That level of concentration applied to study, isn't going to all that effective. IMO. Regardless of what people tell you, you're going to do this anyway. You'll probably convince yourself that its useful. But the time you'll take to do this , if applied to actually reading and taking your own notes would be vastly more effective. IMO.


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## PaddyBloggit (6 Jan 2009)

I think the OP will spend an inordinate amount of time converting text to speech and the result won't justify the effort.

The old fashioned way of reading your books, jotting notes down etc. will be more beneficial to you in the long run.

I'd be interested to know how this pans out for you also.


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## dub_nerd (6 Jan 2009)

His name is Stephen Hawk*ing*, not Hawk*ins* ! ... I think the posters above might have been trying to tell you while pulling your leg.


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## dub_nerd (6 Jan 2009)

(oops ... and I think my comment is a page late. And now back to our normal transmission)


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## Pope John 11 (6 Jan 2009)

Airtight said:


> Are you serious? Do you listen to music when you drive do you listen to the radio talk shows?
> 
> If not, let me fill you in, its ok to drive and listen to a CD or radio. Thats why the manufactures put them in the cars.


 
I was waiting for you to say this...you cannot compare listening to music to listening to & taking in all or most information on an audio book CD.

IMO the concentration levels are totally different...hence the level of distraction are not the same.

Just guesstimating - listening to a book requires 75-100% concentration & listening to music on a radio requires 0-25% concentration (sometimes music just flows....& one does not pick up all the words....just the tune or rhythm.

I would be interested to know if you can get it to work....listening to a book while walking over the weekend appeals to me.


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## Orga (6 Jan 2009)

Airtight said:


> I am shocked that one person on this thread doesn't know of Stephen Hawkins and another thinks he is American.
> 
> If your knowledge of text to speech software is as lacking as your knowledge of the world over the last 40 years, your advice will not be heeded.
> 
> Stephen Hawkins is English and is one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century.



Ohh dear! Ohh dear! Did you mean Professor Stephen W. Hawking? If so, I'm shocked, totally shocked that you wouldn't know how to spell the name of "one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century." Even more shocked that you would try a little mud slinging in my direction - nice try though - I set that one up when I saw the original post and I just knew some poor schmuck would fall for it. Hard luck it was you!


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## car (6 Jan 2009)

Im putting the inordinate level of biting down to new years cobwebs.

To the OP, scanning and getting a reader will be too time consuming.  Take it from a few posters, including myself, who may have more experience and thought about it and even tried it.   

As to listening to it in a car, try the following, you can download mp3 comedy shows from the web, burn to cd, watch your concentration drop as you concentrate on the words, rather than as mentioned above, background music.   I stopped listening to the shows after a couple of near misses.   

I would imagine study material would even have a higher level of concentration as youre forcing yourself to absorb words, meanings and deductions so not recommended.


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## Airtight (6 Jan 2009)

Orga said:


> Ohh dear! Ohh dear! Did you mean Professor Stephen W. Hawking? If so, I'm shocked, totally shocked that you wouldn't know how to spell the name of "one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century." Even more shocked that you would try a little mud slinging in my direction - nice try though - I set that one up when I saw the original post and I just knew some poor schmuck would fall for it. Hard luck it was you!



Orga, your meaningless posts would be better some where else. Not one of your post has been a productive one. I would suggest that you think of the OP before posting again on this thread. Dont waste our time.


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## Airtight (6 Jan 2009)

car said:


> Im putting the inordinate level of biting down to new years cobwebs.
> 
> To the OP, scanning and getting a reader will be too time consuming.  Take it from a few posters, including myself, who may have more experience and thought about it and even tried it.
> 
> ...



Thanks everyone who conntrabuted, I will let you know how I get on, it may work it may not.

Either way I will find out.


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## Orga (6 Jan 2009)

Airtight said:


> I am studying at the moment as part of my CPD (continual professional development). I drive almost 3 hours a day and would like to use this time productively.
> 
> If I could get my text books and study material converted to audio I could use my driving time as study time.
> 
> What is the best way of converting my text books to CD?



Your CPD isn't in inter-personal skills and lessons in avoiding condescension is it? Good luck with it!


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## Airtight (7 Jan 2009)

Orga said:


> Your CPD isn't in inter-personal skills and lessons in avoiding condescension is it? Good luck with it!



Really Orga, is there a CPD course that deals with avoiding condescension (Patronizingly behavior) please pass on the details. Did you pass?


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