Are you in need of high quality text-to-speech voices that are compatible with any SAPI compliant application? Read on to find out how NeoSpeech makes it easy.
This blog is part 4 of a 7-part series highlighting each of NeoSpeech’s text-to-speech solutions.
SAPI, or Speech Application Programming Interface, is an API developed by Microsoft that allows the use of speech technology in Windows applications. SAPI can be thought of as a set of rules and protocols that developers follow to integrate speech functions, such as text-to-speech, into their SAPI compliant application.
For this reason, SAPI is well-known in the speech technology world because it is accessible to all, easy to follow, and used by hundreds of the most popular Windows applications today.
This is why we at NeoSpeech released our VoiceText SAPI product a long time ago. Our SAPI text-to-speech voices sound as natural and realistic as NeoSpeech’s voices have always been known to sound. However, these voices are special because they were developed with SAPI’s specifications and protocols in mind.
So what does that mean? It means that by using our VoiceText SAPI, you can integrate any of NeoSpeech’s voices into any Windows application that uses SAPI! It’s simple, easy, and produces great results!
Let’s take a deeper look at how you can give your Windows application a lifelike voice with NeoSpeech’s VoiceText SAPI.
What is SAPI?
If you’re still scratching your head and not too sure what SAPI is, don’t worry, this short explanation should clear that up.
An API (Application Programming Interface) is a set of rules, protocols, and tools that specify how software components should interact with each other. This video does a fantastic job explaining what exactly APIs do. It enables applications to communicate with each other.
Let’s say you’re on your smart phone and you look up the address of a movie theater in your browser app. You want to find out how to drive there, so you click the address and it automatically opens up your Maps app with the address already put in it. In this case, your browser app and the Maps app were able to communicate with each other thanks to an API that defined how the two apps would talk to each other.
SAPI is a speech-specific API (hence adding the “S” in front of “API”) that enables the use of speech recognition and speech synthesis within Windows applications.
So if you download a text-to-speech voice on your computer that is SAPI compliant, you can follow the protocols set by SAPI and write the code that will tell your Windows applications how to use the text-to-speech voice. Once you’re done, your Windows application will use the voice in the exact way that you programmed it to use the voice.
Sounds easy enough, right? Even better is that many SAPI applications already have text-to-speech functionality built into them, so all you need to do is download and install the SAPI voices and you’re ready to go! No coding required!
Here is an example of a few Windows applications that are SAPI compatible:
- Microsoft Office apps (Excel, Word, etc.)
- Microsoft Narrator
- Microsoft Voice Command
- Adobe Reader
- Adobe Captivate
- JAWS
- Windows-Eyes
- CoolSpeech
- NonVisual Desktop Access
Any application that is SAPI compliant can use any of NeoSpeech’s voices thanks to our VoiceText SAPI.
What is NeoSpeech’s VoiceText SAPI?
NeoSpeech’s VoiceText SAPI isn’t much different from our Engine, Server, or Embedded SDK packages. With all of those packages, you download our text-to-speech engine(s) and the SDK which gives you direction on how to build an application using our voices.
Our VoiceText SAPI product is essentially a separate version of our Engine, Server, or Embedded package which was developed to be compatible with SAPI. So, with our VoiceText SAPI, you can integrate NeoSpeech’s voices into any engine, server, or embedded SAPI application!
Who is this solution for?
The Engine, Server, and Embedded applications mentioned earlier are for people who want to build custom applications. VoiceText SAPI is for people who want to simply integrate our voices into already existing Windows applications (as long and they’re SAPI compliant), or for people who want to build their own custom Windows application that is SAPI compliant.
Do you want to use Microsoft Word to create voice prompts? Do you have a Windows Server application for your call center and you want to integrate our text-to-speech voices into it? Are you using an authoring tool or eLearning application that could use a better sounding voice? If so, then VoiceText SAPI is what you need!
How does NeoSpeech optimize it for my needs?
We’ll make you to send you the right VoiceText SAPI package for your needs. We have SAPI versions of our Engine, Server, and Embedded SDK packages. Whether you need the Engine, Server, or Embedded version depends on the type of device and application you’re working with.
All of our voices have 32bit and 64bit SAPI versions. The kind you need depends on your operating system.
To make all of this simple, just tell our sales team what kind of computer you’re using, what voices you want, and what application you want to integrate them into. We’ll make sure the package we send you meets all of your specifications.
How does it work?
Integrating our SAPI text-to-speech voices into your Windows application is a very simple process with VoiceText SAPI. Let’s go over the steps:
Purchasing process
Do you need SAPI voices or are you considering it? Get in touch with our Sales Team by filling out our online form! We will then quickly get in contact with you, get all the information we need, and answer any questions you may have. Then, our Sales Team will send you your VoiceText SAPI package!
Installation
We’ll send the complete package to your email address. Just click the download link and follow the instructions to get our SAPI voices downloaded and installed on your computer.
Verification
In that same email, we’ll send you instructions on how to verify that your copy of our software is not pirated. This only takes a few minutes but is necessary in order to have full access to our text-to-speech engine.
Integration
At this point, the engine is ready to be used!
One thing you can do to start is set any of your new voices to be the default voice for your Windows computer. You can do this by going in the Speech Properties section of the control panel and you’re your preferred voice to whichever NeoSpeech voice is your favorite.
You can also start accessing the voice(s) from all of your other SAPI applications on your computer! Most of your applications should already have speech settings that you can use within the application. An example of this would be the built-in Speak Command in Microsoft Word that reads out the text on a Word document.
That’s the overview of our VoiceText SAPI package! If you want to use our high quality voices in your Windows applications, then this is the solution you need! Click the button below to get started.
Don’t forget to check out the other blogs in this series as we highlight all of NeoSpeech’s text-to-speech solutions:
- VoiceText TTS Engine SDK
- VoiceText TTS Server SDK
- VoiceText Embedded SDK
- VoiceText SAPI
- VoiceText Editor (VT Editor)
- Web Service (cloud-based solution)
- TTS On Demand (cloud-based solution)
Learn more about NeoSpeech’s text-to-speech
Want to learn more about all the ways Text-to-Speech can be used? Visit our Text-to-Speech Areas of Application page. And check out our Text-to-Speech Products page to find the right package for any device or application.
If you’re interested in integrating Text-to-Speech technology into your product, please fill out our short Sales Inquiry form and we’ll get you all the information and tools you need.
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