Comments on: How to Make a Mac Talk: Text to Speech

By: 7 Advanced Tricks to Reclaim Disk Space for Pro Users of Mac OS X

7 Advanced Tricks to Reclaim Disk Space for Pro Users of Mac OS X — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:09:44 +0000

[...] note that text to speech will no longer function at all if you do this. It’s also possible to delete all voices using [...]

By: clunk

clunk — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:02:40 +0000

>My daughter’s name is ubnusual

That’s a strange name.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 10:28:03 +0000

You can also go to speech in preferences, select speech, in the text to speech tab, look for the check box that says “speak selected text when the key… is pressed” by default it is option+escape, but you need to turn this on. That allows you make it speak any text that you selected.

By: How to Enable & Use Dictation in OS X Mountain Lion

How to Enable & Use Dictation in OS X Mountain Lion — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 17:38:40 +0000

[...] help in much the same way that typing things how they sound rather than are spelled can help with text-to-speech. Background noise can easily mess up the conversions too, so it’s best to use in an otherwise [...]

By: Add the Voice of Siri to Mac OS X

Add the Voice of Siri to Mac OS X — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 17:31:40 +0000

[...] the voice active you can now use any of Mac OS X’s text to speech abilities to hear Siri talk to [...]

By: Donovan

Donovan — Sat, 19 May 2012 05:31:49 +0000

For those who think that blind people use this method, I can tell you that we don’t. What you guys are playing with here is raw input ran right in to the speech engine. What we use is a program that layers over the engine. A screen reader, or in this case it is called Voice Over, takes the text from programs and then runs it thru the engine. It also allows us to use certain keys to logically navigate in computer programs. To give it a try hit Command+F5 to toggle it on and off.

By: Announce When a Command Line Task is Completed in Mac OS X

Announce When a Command Line Task is Completed in Mac OS X — Tue, 08 May 2012 20:57:41 +0000

[...] say” portion, which can also be customized with other voices from Mac OS X’s text to speech options by using the -v flag followed by a voice name, like [...]

By: juzzyD

juzzyD — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:55:11 +0000

Easier still Harry, if you open system preferences and go into the speech settings, you can turn the hotkey on.

Once switched on, just select text you want to hear and press Opt+Esc

By: HarryMonmouth

HarryMonmouth — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 18:51:16 +0000

Surely there must be more to it than this. I would think that tts is a feature that would be of most use to blind people.
I am not blind but at the moment I want to have a webpage read out and I have to say opening the terminal, typing say and then pasting the contents of the webpage or doing similar with textedit seem like far too much trouble.
How is someone who is blind going to cope if that is how text to speech works.
I would have imagined if it does not have a simple shortcut to start it then it is not fit for purpose; that does not sound like Apple.

Actually I have already found a better way so maybe this article needs updating. I simply selected a section of text and when I did a two finger click I found an option at the bottom of the list to add the text to itunes as a spoken track. It is still not good enough in my opinion. But it is better.

By: HarryMonmouth

HarryMonmouth — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 18:47:44 +0000

By: Eddy

Eddy — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 06:33:18 +0000

Why does it that when I paste something or have it read my email does it not stop to breath between periods? It reads like a run on. It’ll actually top at the end of sentences properly if there is a separate paragraph the text to speech is about to read. It’s as if it doesn’t recognize the periods in a group of sentences in a paragraph. Just one long speech. Any ideas to fix that?

By: How to Add New Voices to Mac OS X Lion

How to Add New Voices to Mac OS X Lion — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 19:30:07 +0000

[...] are one of the many new great features in Mac OS X Lion, you can test out the new voices with the standard text-to-speech methods of making your Mac talk to you, either through compatible apps or the command line [...]

By: Convert a Text File into Spoken Audio

Convert a Text File into Spoken Audio — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 22:25:01 +0000

[...] OS X, Tips & Tricks – June 28th, 2011 – Leave a Comment Using Mac OS X Text to Speech tools, we can convert any .RTF or .TXT file into a spoken audio file which can then be transferred [...]

By: Ricardo Flamingo

Ricardo Flamingo — Mon, 16 May 2011 22:15:39 +0000

Is there any place to download different voices? I had real sexy female voice I liked that came with Tiger. I don’t have it in Leopard. If so, how would I install it?

By: Mac OS X Lion Adds Amazing New Text-to-Speech Voices – Listen to Samples

Mac OS X Lion Adds Amazing New Text-to-Speech Voices – Listen to Samples — Sun, 15 May 2011 19:56:35 +0000

[...] in Lion’s new Speech preferences. As you can hear, they are significantly improved from the current voices in Mac OS X text-to-speech, some of which are comically drone-like (Cellos [...]