An very lightweight (just a shell script — and now optionally C!) ebook reader that can use either espeak, espeak-ng, or flite TTS.
We now include a C implementation: myebookreader.c — for those who demand speed, simplicity, and full control over their binaries.
No interpreters. No dependencies. No excuses.
The original ebookreader.sh is still included for shell lovers, tinkerers, and graybeards running Plan 9 or busybox on a toaster.
espeak - for reading out loud, however could also use flite by changing the variable at the top of the script
awk - most shells/distros have this
a shell - tested in bash, sh, yash, dash
The script and C version both rely on common external tools to convert ebook formats to plain text. All are standard in most package managers:
groff - for roff/man files
Latex - only for detex'ing documents
odt2txt - read OpenOffice files
ghostscript - for ps2ascii
pdf2txt - Python-based, requires pdfminer
epub2txt2 - for .epub (https://github.com/kevinboone/epub2txt2)
html2text - for .html/.htm
gunzip, bunzip2, unxz - for compressed .gz/.bz2/.xz files
man - if you want to read manpages aloud
.txt - plain text (fallback if unknown)
.gz, .bz2, .xz - compressed text
.html - saved web pages
.epub - ebook format
.ps/.pdf - ghostscript (or pdf2txt fallback)
.odt - OpenOffice documents
.tex - LaTeX files (via detex)
.1/.2/.ms/.me - Groff/Troff (via groff -ms/-me)
manpages - readable via the "man" arg
ebookreader.sh FILENAME BOOKMARK man/noconv
"man" → reads the manpage version of the file
"noconv" → skips conversion, reads raw
Examples: ebookreader.sh ls 1 man ebookreader.sh war_and_peace.txt 5000
The new C version has the same interface, minus shellisms:
./myebookreader FILE [BOOKMARK] [man|noconv]
type make to make the project.
Look for the following code and change it accordingly, then recompile (the suckless way). Note, that you can also chagne espeak's voice if you need to do so.
#define ESPEAK_COMMAND "/usr/bin/espeak -v f4 -p85"
/*
#ESPEAKCOMMAND="/usr/bin/flite"
#ESPEAKCOMMAND="/usr/bin/espeak-ng" #the new one.
#ESPEAKCOMMAND="/data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin/espeak"
*/
This project is dedicated to Jos Lemmens, creator of ebook-speaker. While this script shares no code with the original, it shares the same spirit — a quick, minimal, and accessible way to read text aloud and save your place via a bookmark.
Designed for extreme portability, it requires only a shell, awk, seq, and espeak — though you can swap in any TTS engine that accepts piped input.