If you don't like the default Mac text to speech voice, you can change it to other voices.

This Mac text to speech capability is also available in the TextEdit editor, but it's not available in the Mac OS X Preview app. For instance, I use the Firefox and Google Chrome browsers much more than I use Safari, but when I want to use this 'text to speech' capability, I know I need to use Safari. In this article I've specifically said 'Use Safari' because this text to speech reading capability doesn't seem to be available in all browsers or applications. Mac text to speech - reading in other browsers and applications The voices still have room fror improvement, but from a technical standpoint, wow. (I wish the Apple Remote would make this stop, but it doesn't. Fortunately you can mute the Mac voice as it is reading/speaking.)Įvery time I use this text to speech technology it just blows me away.

(You may need to adjust your volume to hear it.)Īny time you want to stop the system as it's reading, just follow the same steps, but choose the 'Stop Speaking' menu item from the popup menu.

The system should begin reading the text to you, using the default system voice.On the popup menu that appears, select the 'Speech' menu item, then click 'Start Speaking'. Right-click on the text you have highlighted.Highlight a sentence or two of text (using the typical click and drag technique you'd normally use to copy some text).As an example, here's a link to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland on the Project Gutenberg website. Open a web page in the Safari web browser.To hear your Mac 'speak' some text to you, just follow these steps: One of the easiest ways to experiment with the Mac 'text to speech' capability is to open the Mac Safari web browser, highlight some text, and tell the system to read the text to you, using the built in Mac text to speech system. As I keep diving deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole that is the Mac OS X text to speech (voice) capability, I'm reminded that one cool thing you can do is have your Mac OS X system read text to you. Here's a quick example of how to get your Mac to read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to you.

Mac to read text out loud