Tauri Plugin TTS (Text-to-Speech)

Native Text-to-Speech plugin for Tauri 2.x applications. Provides cross-platform TTS functionality for desktop (Windows, macOS, Linux) and mobile (iOS, Android).

Features

• 🗣️ Speak text with customizable rate, pitch, and volume
• 🌍 Multi-language support - Set language/locale for speech
• 🎙️ Voice selection - Get available voices and filter by language
• ⏹️ Control playback - Stop speech and check speaking status
• 🎬 Preview voices - Test voices before using them
• 📝 Queue mode - Interrupt or queue speech requests
• ⏸️ Pause/Resume - Control playback on iOS (platform-specific)
• 📱 Cross-platform - Works on desktop and mobile

Installation

Rust

Add the plugin to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
tauri-plugin-tts = "0.1"

TypeScript

Install the JavaScript guest bindings:

npm install tauri-plugin-tts-api
# or
yarn add tauri-plugin-tts-api
# or
pnpm add tauri-plugin-tts-api

Setup

Register Plugin

In your Tauri app setup:

fn main() {
    tauri::Builder::default()
        .plugin(tauri_plugin_tts::init())
        .run(tauri::generate_context!())
        .expect("error while running application");
}

Permissions

Add permissions to your capabilities/default.json:

{
  "permissions": ["tts:default"]
}

For granular permissions, you can specify individual commands:

{
  "permissions": [
    "tts:allow-speak",
    "tts:allow-stop",
    "tts:allow-get-voices",
    "tts:allow-is-speaking",
    "tts:allow-preview-voice",
    "tts:allow-pause-speaking",
    "tts:allow-resume-speaking"
  ]
}

Usage

Basic Examples

import { speak, stop, getVoices, isSpeaking } from "tauri-plugin-tts-api";

// Simple speech
await speak({ text: "Hello, world!" });

// With options
await speak({
  text: "Olá, mundo!",
  language: "pt-BR",
  rate: 0.8, // 0.1 to 4.0 (1.0 = normal)
  pitch: 1.2, // 0.5 to 2.0 (1.0 = normal)
  volume: 1.0, // 0.0 to 1.0 (1.0 = full)
});

// Stop speaking
await stop();

// Get all voices
const voices = await getVoices();

// Get voices for a specific language
const englishVoices = await getVoices("en");

// Check if speaking
const speaking = await isSpeaking();

Advanced Features

Queue Mode

Control how new speech requests interact with ongoing speech:

// Default: interrupt current speech (flush)
await speak({ text: "First sentence" });
await speak({ text: "Second sentence" }); // Interrupts first

// Queue mode: add to queue
await speak({ text: "First sentence" });
await speak({ text: "Second sentence", queueMode: "add" }); // Waits for first

Voice Preview

Preview voices before selecting them:

import { getVoices, previewVoice } from "tauri-plugin-tts-api";

// Get available voices
const voices = await getVoices("en");

// Preview a voice with default text
await previewVoice({ voiceId: voices[0].id });

// Preview with custom text
await previewVoice({
  voiceId: voices[0].id,
  text: "This is how I sound!",
});

Pause and Resume (iOS only)

import { speak, pauseSpeaking, resumeSpeaking } from "tauri-plugin-tts-api";

await speak({ text: "Long text to speak..." });

// Pause (iOS only)
const pauseResult = await pauseSpeaking();
if (pauseResult.success) {
  console.log("Speech paused");

  // Resume later
  const resumeResult = await resumeSpeaking();
  if (resumeResult.success) {
    console.log("Speech resumed");
  }
} else {
  console.log("Pause not supported:", pauseResult.reason);
}

Platform Support

| Platform | Status | Engine | | -------- | ------------------------------ | ------------------- | | Windows | ✅ Full support | SAPI | | macOS | ✅ Full support | AVSpeechSynthesizer | | Linux | ✅ Full support | speech-dispatcher | | iOS | ✅ Full support + pause/resume | AVSpeechSynthesizer | | Android | ✅ Full support | TextToSpeech |

Feature Support Matrix

| Feature | Windows | macOS | Linux | iOS | Android | | ------------------ | ------- | ----- | ----- | --- | ------- | | speak() | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | | stop() | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | | getVoices() | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | | isSpeaking() | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | | previewVoice() | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | | queueMode | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | | pauseSpeaking() | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | | resumeSpeaking() | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |

API Reference

speak(options: SpeakOptions): Promise<void>

Speak the given text.

Options:

• text (required): The text to speak
• language: Language/locale code (e.g., "en-US", "pt-BR")
• voiceId: Specific voice ID from getVoices() (takes priority over language)
• rate: Speech rate (0.1 to 4.0, where 1.0 = normal speed, 2.0 = double, 0.5 = half)
• pitch: Voice pitch (0.5 to 2.0, where 1.0 = normal, 2.0 = high, 0.5 = low)
• volume: Volume level (0.0 to 1.0, where 0.0 = silent, 1.0 = full)
• queueMode: "flush" (default, interrupts current speech) or "add" (queues after current)

stop(): Promise<void>

Stop any ongoing speech immediately.

getVoices(language?: string): Promise<Voice[]>

Get available voices, optionally filtered by language.

Returns: Array of Voice objects with:

• id: Unique voice identifier
• name: Display name
• language: Language code (e.g., "en-US")

isSpeaking(): Promise<boolean>

Check if TTS is currently speaking.

previewVoice(options: PreviewVoiceOptions): Promise<void>

Preview a voice with sample text.

Options:

• voiceId (required): Voice ID to preview
• text: Optional custom preview text (uses default if not provided)

pauseSpeaking(): Promise<PauseResumeResponse> (iOS only)

Pause the current speech.

Returns:

• success: Whether pause succeeded
• reason: Optional failure reason (e.g., "Not supported on this platform")

resumeSpeaking(): Promise<PauseResumeResponse> (iOS only)

Resume paused speech.

Returns: Same as pauseSpeaking()

Troubleshooting

Linux: "No TTS backend available"

Solution: Install speech-dispatcher:

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install speech-dispatcher

# Fedora
sudo dnf install speech-dispatcher

# Arch
sudo pacman -S speech-dispatcher

Android: No voices available

Solution: Ensure a TTS engine is installed:

1. Open Android Settings → Accessibility → Text-to-Speech
2. Install "Google Text-to-Speech" from Play Store if missing
3. Download language data for your desired languages

iOS: Voices sound robotic

Solution: Download enhanced voices:

1. Open iOS Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → Voices
2. Select your language and download "Enhanced Quality" voices

Rate/Pitch not working as expected

Note: Platform engines may have different interpretations:

• Windows SAPI: Limited pitch control
• Linux: Depends on speech-dispatcher backend
• Mobile: Full support for rate and pitch

Pause/Resume not working

Note: pauseSpeaking() and resumeSpeaking() are only supported on iOS. Other platforms will return { success: false, reason: "Not supported" }.

Examples

See the examples/tts-example directory for a complete working demo with React + Material UI.

Building

# Build Rust
cargo build

# Build TypeScript
npm run build

# Run tests
cargo test

License

MIT