This is probably the wrong forum for my question. I am not trying to make an audiobook (audio only book) but a narrated book (text with synchronized narration of the text). I want to take an mp3 of a native speaker reading a story. Take a dual language text of the story. Produce a web page or ebook or standalone file that allows the reader to click on a text and hear the native speaker, to repeat, or to move to another paragraph or section. I’ve learned from Google that Epub3 is the net standard, but it is all code to me. And I’ve learned that Audacity can be used to make labels that will correspond with labels in the text file. This is done with an editor like Sigil.
In any case
Is there a forum for narrated texts, accessible texts, Epub, Daisy, etc.?
If anyone knows about this, what are the steps I need to take to create them can you describe them?
I want to take an mp3 of a native speaker reading a story.
I probably would not do that. Never do production in MP3. It’s a delivery format that builds-in sound damage and it gets worse as you work with it. You can’t stop it. Do production in WAV (Microsoft) 16-bit, save WAV copies of the original reading in a safe place and do corrections, filters, and effects on copies. When you’re done, then export the work in the delivery format.
Epub3 is the net standard, but it is all code to me.
And it’s foreign to me, although given how popular a standard like that would be, I’m not surprised if it’s real and not something they wish were real.
If anyone knows about this, what are the steps I need to take to create them can you describe them?
No, but the forum support elves get here first. We can wait for someone more familiar with this process.
I can imagine programming that as a web page in HTML5. Do you want spoken in two different languages?
An EPUB file is an archive that contains, in effect, a website. It includes HTML files, images, CSS style sheets, and other assets.
It’s a way to transmit a web page or other assets to someone without the internet in the middle.
We would be “other assets,” since Audacity can’t manage video or graphics. I can imagine needing one of the higher-end Adobe packages like Creative Cloud - Website Builder.
Or is that what you’re trying to avoid?
We can absolutely manage the sound parts, but we only have shaky links to video and graphics. You can create labels as you advance down a sound show and put text in those.
Thanks, Koz.
As usual, I was not clear. I actually have the mp3 file already, so I do not need Audacity for production of sound.
You are right that I am trying to avoid expensive software for this hobby project. Some of the tools (which I barely understand) mention Audacity for the production of the label sheet. I think you have to mark the text bits and point them to the place in the audiofile using the label sheets.
No, I do not need it spoken in two languages—but that gives me an idea. (For much later.)
I was hoping someone on the forum had actually done this or something like it because of the mention of Audacity in some of the docs about Epub3 and such that I found.
Again, thanks for the replies.
I’ve heard of this, but I don’t make epub files so I only know the Audacity part of this question.
In Audacity you can add “labels” to the track. Each label has a start time, an end time, and a text field (the “label text”). The text may be empty, or may contain a word, sentence or other short bit of text. The labels may be exported from Audacity as a text file.
Some epub3 software (such as Jutoh, $39) can (I’ve heard but not tested), import a label file that has been exported from Audacity, and use that data for timings in the epub3 project.