Note
I will not be accepting merges to main on this particular repository,
You are more than welcome to fork it or clone it and use the project or adapt it to what you need, Thank you.
A 100% offline, fully local Text-to-Speech (TTS) tool for Ubuntu Linux. Highlight text in any application (web browsers, PDFs, or IDEs like PyCharm) and press a single keyboard shortcut to hear it read aloud using natural, human-sounding neural voices.
100% Offline. Zero Telemetry. 0ms Cloud Latency.
Browser extensions and cloud-based TTS apps often collect telemetry and log the text you highlight. This project was built for security-focused users who want high-quality TTS without sacrificing privacy.
Compatibility Note: The automated installation script is designed for Debian/Ubuntu-based distributions running the GNOME desktop environment (like Ubuntu 24.04). If you are using a different package manager (Arch/Fedora) or desktop environment (KDE/XFCE), you can still use this tool, but you will need to install the dependencies (xclip, xdotool, wl-clipboard, alsa-utils) manually and set up the custom keyboard shortcut through your specific desktop settings.
- Complete Privacy: Everything runs locally on your machine. No internet connection is required after the initial setup.
- System-Wide Compatibility: Works instantly in browsers, text editors, terminals, and IDEs that often block standard clipboard extensions.
- Highly Optimized: Powered by the Piper TTS engine, generating audio on your CPU in milliseconds without requiring an expensive GPU or complex NVIDIA drivers.
- Clean Installation: Everything is neatly contained in a single
~/local-ttsdirectory. - Instant Reversibility: A one-click uninstallation script guarantees no orphan files or lingering background processes are left behind.
Clone this repository and run the installation script. The script will install necessary clipboard utilities, download the TTS engine, and automatically register the system-wide shortcut.
cd Ubuntu-text-to-speechchmod +x install.sh
./install.sh- Highlight any text on your screen.
- Press Super + R (Windows Key + R).
- The text will be read aloud instantly.
- Press Super + R again to immediately stop the audio playback.
This tool uses ONNX neural voice models. You can easily swap between different English voices using the included change_voice.sh script. The available voices include:
- Northern English Male (Medium): The default voice installed automatically. Clear, natural British English reader.
- Ryan (High): A high-quality US male voice that drastically reduces synthetic artifacts.
- Amy (Medium): A warm, conversational US female voice perfect for articles and chat messages.
- Southern English Female (Low): A lightweight British female voice option with a very low resource footprint.
Run the voice changer script to select your preferred voice:
./change_voice.shIf you want to remove this tool from your system, the uninstaller will cleanly remove the ~/local-tts directory, stop any active processes, unregister the custom keyboard shortcut, and remove the clipboard dependencies.
./uninstall.shThis project is MIT Licensed and utilizes the piper TTS engine, which is released under the MIT License.