#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
use Win32::OLE;
use Win32::OLE::Variant;

$sound="Yup";

use vars qw($Agent);
use vars qw(%Languages $VERSION);

%Languages = (
    English => 0x0409,
    French => 0x040C, 
    German => 0x0407, 
    Italian => 0x0410, 
    Portuguese => 0x0816, 
    Spanish => 0x0C0A,
    Dutch => 0x0413,
);

Win32::OLE->Initialize(Win32::OLE::COINIT_MULTITHREADED);

$Agent = Win32::OLE->new('Agent.Control.2') or die Win32::OLE->LastErr
+or();
$Agent->{Connected} = Variant(VT_BOOL, 1);

$Agent->Characters->Load('Merlin','merlin.acs')    or die Win32::OLE->
+LastError();

$Characters{agent} = $Agent->Characters('Merlin');

$Characters{agent}->{LanguageID}=$Languages{English};

$Characters{agent}->Show;
$Characters{agent}->Play("Greet");
$Characters{agent}->Speak("Hallo");
$Characters{agent}->Speak("The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
+.");
$Characters{agent}->Speak("She sells sea shells on the sea shore.");
$Characters{agent}->Speak("There's more than one way to do it.");

$Characters{agent}->Hide;
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If you're considering alternatives to Microsoft's TTS, or if at any point you want it to run on other platforms, have a look at The Festival Speech Synthesis System.

There are also some good examples of its use around this site including Compu Kasem (a Cyber-DJ).

#/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

use Win32::OLE;
my ($voice);

&Init_Voice();

&Talk("STARTING");

print "\nType something!\n";
while (my $aa = <STDIN>){
    print "\nType something!\n";
    chomp $aa;
    &Talk($aa);

}




sub Init_Voice{
    $voice = Win32::OLE->new("Speech.VoiceText") or die("TTS failed");
    $voice->Register("", "$0"); 
    $voice->{Enabled} = 1; # optional
    $voice->{Speed}=150;
    return $voice;
}

sub Talk{
    my $info = shift;
    return unless $info;
    $voice->Speak($info,  1);
    while ($voice->IsSpeaking()) {
      sleep 1;
    }
    return;
}


END{
sleep(3);
}
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