Convert a Text File to an AIF?

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
#1

Hey,

This should be easy but so far nothing I’m trying is working.

Mostly variations of something like this:

set theFile to “:Users:TV:Music:iTunes:Indigo:Indigo Audio:Text.rtf” as alias

open for access theFile
set theText to theFile
say theText saving to “:Users:TV:Music:iTunes:Indigo:Indigo Audio:Text.aif”
close access theFile

Any help greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Carl

#2

Hi,

the main problem is, you have to convert the formatted text to plain text
because you won’t expect the result of speaking RTF text.
There is a convenient shell command textutil to do the conversion


set indigoAudioFolder to (path to music folder as text) & "iTunes:Indigo:Indigo Audio:"
set plainText to do shell script "textutil -convert txt -stdout " & quoted form of (POSIX path of indigoAudioFolder & "Text.rtf")
say plainText saving to file (indigoAudioFolder & "Text.aiff")
#3

As always, works perfect…many thanks!!

Now my home automation system can read me the news.

Carl

#4

Seems I need to change the source file to an RSS folder in Documents.

This compiles but doesn’t do the conversion.

set indigoAudioFolder to (path to music folder as text) & “iTunes:Indigo:Indigo Audio:”
set sourceFolder to (path to documents folder as text) & “RSS”

set plainText to do shell script "textutil -convert txt -stdout " & quoted form of (POSIX path of sourceFolder & “Text.rtf”)
say plainText saving to file (indigoAudioFolder & “Text.aif”)

Did I miss something?

Many thanks,

Carl

Edit: Oops… forgot the : after “RSS”. All better. Thanks again for the help.

#5

RSS is XML, not RTF, the conversion expects RTF text

#6

Thanks, guess I’ll need to convert it. Can the script be altered for that?

Thanks,

Carl

#7

Adam’s instructions on how to post code to this site.

http://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?pid=152306#p152306

#8

AFAIK textutil cannot convert XML, but you probably don’t need the value of any tag.
System Events can parse XML files

#9

Hey,

Turns out that the file I need to convert to an aif is a standard txt file, not an rtf.

Can this be modified to work using a txt file, not using the conversion?

set indigoAudioFolder to (path to music folder as text) & "iTunes:Indigo:Indigo Audio:"
        set plainText to do shell script "textutil -convert txt -stdout " & quoted form of (POSIX path of indigoAudioFolder & "Text.rtf")
        say plainText saving to file (indigoAudioFolder & "Text.aif")

Thanks,

Carl

#10

plain text doesn’t need to be converted


set indigoAudioFolder to (path to music folder as text) & "iTunes:Indigo:Indigo Audio:"
set plainText to read file (indigoAudioFolder & "Text.txt")
say plainText saving to file (indigoAudioFolder & "Text.aif")
#11

Bingo, thanks a bunch!

Slowly but surely I think I may get a handle on this stuff.

Carl