The downside to using the Text to Audio File built-in action is that if you modify the speed of the Alex voice faster or slower in System Preferences>Speech the built-in action defaults to normal speed speech. In order to create an audio file that respects the speed setting you need to add a Run Applescript action as follows.

1. First set up an action in Automator to get the text that you want to convert to audio. This can be Ask for Text or Get Contents of TextEdit Document.

2. Run Applescript. Paste in the following:

on run {input, parameters}
set newText to input
set userpath to path to desktop folder
set audiofile to "TexttoAudio.aiff"
set the fullpath to userpath & audiofile as text
say newText saving to fullpath
return input
end run

3. Get Specified Finder Items. Add TexttoAudio.aiff in Desktop folder.

4. Import Audio Files. Convert to AAC and delete source files

5. Import Files into iTunes

6. Set Options of iTunes Songs

7. Set Info of iTunes Songs

Convert text to speech is a great feature and well worth the small effort to set up.

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