Your Mac, just like any iOS devices you own, comes with the ability to speak selected text. This comes in handy when you can’t see the text very well and would find it useful to have the text read out loud to you.

Sep 30, 2021 Controlling Mac and transcribing text using speech: Free: Voice Finger: Windows 10: Hands-free computer use: Free: IBM Watson Speech to Text: Requires API: High volume, single voice transcriptions: Free / $0.01 per minute: Braina: Windows XP to 10, the app works on Android and iOS: People who need multi-language support: Free / $79 per year.

• Mac keyboard shortcuts By pressing certain key combinations, you can do things that normally need a mouse, trackpad, or other input device. To use a keyboard shortcut, press and hold one or more modifier keys and then press the last key of the shortcut.
• Voices is a command line tool for changing the default text-to-speech voice. But the author of the tool warns that: As of macOS 10.12 (Sierra), there is no documented programmatic way to change the default voice.

Go to a document or other text field and place the insertion point where you want your dictated text to appear. Press the keyboard shortcut for starting dictation, or choose Edit > Start Dictation. The default shortcut is Fn Fn (press the Fn key twice). Worked immediately in Safari, Mac OS 10.5.6 Just to confirm, entering 'Start Speaking Text' as the menu command does indeed make a functional keyboard shortcut.

App shows a menu of supported speech languages but some of the desired language cannot be selected I previously wrote a negative (2.) preview because after i purchased the Pro Version, I tried to set the app to do the voice-to-text in the language i selected but did not see any button or a box to confirm the selected language beside the “Dismiss” option. Click Voice Control in the sidebar. Select Enable Voice Control. When you turn on Voice Control for the first time, your Mac completes a one-time download from Apple. Voice Control preferences. When Voice Control is enabled, you see an onscreen microphone representing the mic selected in Voice Control preferences. Best Program for voice to text dictation. Which are the best paid or free programs (not website like Google Docs or Speechnotes) for voice to text dictation, that isn't the built-in Dictation in Mac?

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how you can make your Mac speak a selected body of text with ease.

Why to have your Mac speak selected text

If you’re hard at seeing, or you’re trying to multitask, sometimes having your Mac speak a body of text out loud to you, instead of you needing to read it, can be helpful.

I particularly find it useful when I want to listen to something and type at the same time, because rather than having to read and type at the same time, which involves looking back and forth, having the text read aloud to me lets me remain focused on my typing.

I can see this being useful for anyone who can’t see well because when text is too small to make sense of, you can simply select it and press your hotkeys on the keyboard to have your Mac say it aloud. This will ensure you understand what you’re looking at, even if you have to listen to it instead.

How to make your Mac speak text you select

Making your Mac speak selected text is easy. This is an accessibility feature that you have to enable from the System Preferences app on your Mac.

To ensure the feature is enabled on your Mac, follow these steps:

1) Launch the System Preferences app and open the Accessibility preferences pane.

2) Click on the Speech tab in the sidebar and ensure the Speak selected text when the key is pressed option is enabled.

With this feature turned on, you can now use the keyboard shortcut whenever text is selected to have your Mac speak it aloud. The default shortcut is pressing Option + Esc on your keyboard, but you can change it to anything.

To change your keyboard shortcut, simply click on the Change Key… button, and when prompted, press the keyboard shortcut on the Mac you want to use instead and click OK.

Making your Mac speak selected text

After you’ve got the speak selection feature enabled on your Mac, it’s pretty easy to use. Just head over to any body of text that supports text selection, such as on a web page, highlight the text, and hit your keyboard shortcut.

Changing the voice used for speaking text

Keyboard Shortcut Text To Speech Mac

Your Mac will speak out the text using your system’s selected voice. By default, Alex will be your system’s speaking voice, but you can choose any other voice that comes with your Mac to do the talking if you don’t like the default voice.

To do that, just follow these steps:

1) Launch the System Preferences app and open the Accessibility preferences pane.

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2) Make sure you’re in the Speech tab in the sidebar, and click on the System Voice drop-down menu to select any of the available voices in the list.

Wrapping up

Speaking any text selection on your Mac is a quick and easy way to make sense of text that is otherwise too small to see, but it can also help you to type along to something without having to look back and forth between a body of text and your document. Whatever the case, it can also prove to be quite entertaining in some cases – just wait until you hear some of the funny pronunciations of some of those weird words out there!

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