Can't get PLS Dictionary for Ivona reader to work

[Lskywalker70]

Sorry, I tried replying to the existing post about Ivona voices Excellent! But the reply wouldnt stick.
So I'm trying with a new topic.

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Hello all,

I'm a long time Ivona fan and also sometime fighting with respelling words to get correct pronunciation. I came on the IPA phoneme pronunciations yesterday after finally deciding to put some time into finally finding out better solutions.
I'm loving the use of IPA and I got your free PLS files here online.

Only I have not had success whatsoever to get the file to work. I am using Ivona reader and I have installed the file as described. I puzzled at how tomotello got this to work because as far as I see the PLS file on site uses a different syntax than Ivona extension expects. I did some searching and the main difference I see is:

Readtaclearly: <phoneme>hˈɪz</phoneme>
Ivona: <phoneme alphabet="ipa" ph="'/h?z/"></phoneme>

The extension ph= seems to be particular to Ivona as other PLS lines I have seen in other forums are missing that also.
Thus on using any third party PLS file until now I have only gotten silence as I assume the file is being parsed correctly.

Sorry if the use of this file should be obvious and I'm adding overkill. But if I insert the above lines into Invona reader and enable SAPI/SSML tags the Ivona: line works fine. The readatclearly line (or any other I have found) does not.

I'm very interested to get this working as I will immediately purchase your lexicon files on succes.

Thanks for any help.

Luke70

[Percy Henry]

I am sorry but I have no idea what your are talking about:

First, the ReadClearly PLS Dictionary is a free download.

Second, the download comes with easy step by step instructions that anyone with a junior high school education cannot follow and it also includes a test to see if the dictionary is working properly.

Third, IPA phonemes are entered (in the RC PLS Dictionary) as the following for example,

<phoneme alphabet="ipa">suˈdeɪt.nz</phoneme>

Fourth, this forum is moderated; so any post that is nonsense will never see the light of day.

[Lskywalker70]

I am using Ivona Reader 1.1.3. Voice is Amy latest version.

Yes, I stated that I downloaded the file from your website. I got that its free if I could download it.

Yes, the instructions to install are wonderfully simple. Being a computer user for over 30 years I expected it to be a cinch.
But I'm assuming this old dog has to learn a new trick.

I opened the Voices Settings and for Amy UNDER the PLS tab I have the absolute path set to Z:\ivona.pls.
Added, Applied and clicked OK. Great, couldn't be simpler.

As far as I understand that's it. Let's do the test.

Inserted the text "Go to NZ today." into the panel.

My voice speaks to me: Go to N Zed today.

Not the desired result. So what am I missing here?
I also tried it under C:\ivona.pls with same result.
Tried closing Ivona Reader and restarted thinking it might need some initilization but no go.

I wanted to send a jpg but you don't have attachments allowed in posts.

Thanks for any help and sorry if I missed something somewhere.

[Percy Henry]

OK, thanks for that information.

I think I figured out why it is not working for you. Amy is a British (UK English) voice. And the current PLS set up is for US English.

At the top of the PLS dictionary about six or seven lines down you will find

xml:lang="en-US"

change it to xml:lang="en-GB" or xml:lang="en"

xml:lang="en" should work with both US and UK English voices.

[Lskywalker70]

Sounds cool

I had to restore a backup of my system drive lately and my voices weren't installed in the backup. I always start with the british voices and hadn't gotten around to reinstalling the US ones yet. Well, we did learn something from it though.

Will install the US voices first and give it a go. Thanks, you are so quick at replying
I'm so keen on getting this to work

Luke70

UPDATE: xml:lang="en" works! Both US and UK voices give correct output now. Thanks so much.