Pyttsx3 voice tone and language configuration

I am using the pyttsx3 module for text-to-speech in for an ai python assistant, but I am not able to choose a male/female option for voices. I read the documentation given on https://pypi.org/project/pyttsx3/ where it says use voices[0].id/voices[1].id for male and female voices respectively. However, that does not seem to work as there is no significant difference between the 2 voices.

this is my code:

    import pyttsx3
    engine = pyttsx3.init()

    voices = engine.getProperty('voices')
    engine.setProperty('voice', voices[0].id)

    engine.say("Hello World!")
    engine.runAndWait()

also is there any way to configure the language of the voice?

Solution

Actually, the documentation is not updated and correct for all operating systems.

First, check if there is a female voice among the available voices:

import pyttsx3

engine = pyttsx3.init()

voices = engine.getProperty("voices")

for voice in voices:
    print(voice)

<Voice id=afrikaans
          name=afrikaans
          languages=[b'\x05af']
          gender=male
          age=None>
<Voice id=aragonese
          name=aragonese
          languages=[b'\x05an']
          gender=male
          age=None>
<Voice id=bulgarian
          name=bulgarian
          languages=[b'\x05bg']
          gender=None
          age=None>
...

I couldn't find the female voice myself. If you are using Linux/espeak, it seems that there are no specific female voices. However, you can simulate them using +f1 to +f4 intonations. The following code loops through all available combinations to help you find a suitable sample:

import pyttsx3

engine = pyttsx3.init()

voices = engine.getProperty("voices")

for voice in voices:
    for intonation in ["+f1", "+f2", "+f3", "+f4"]:
        print(voice.id, intonation)
        engine.setProperty('voice', voice.id + intonation)

        engine.say("Hello World!")
        engine.runAndWait()

        input("Press enter to continue ...")