Mac Alex Text To Speech

VoiceOver

VoiceOver is a full function screen reader somewhat similar to using JAWS. It reads all elements of the window and uses specific keystrokes and trackpad swipes to interact with menus and the contents of programs. It was designed for people who are blind so it may be too feature rich for people just wanting to read text in a document. The hotkey for starting VoiceOver for all Mac version since OS 10.5 is Command+F5.

VoiceOver will not read in Microsoft Office for Mac or in Adobe Acrobat Reader for Mac. Comparable programs that VoiceOver will work in are Pages (an Apple word processor) and Preview (the default PDF viewer for Mac). More information can be found at
http://www.apple.com/accessibility/voiceover/.

TTS

Mac OS X also has a Text to Speech Option which will read selected text when the user presses a user defined Shortcut Key. The text to speech option also works in the Apple Calculator to make it self voicing. It is a simpler option than VoiceOver to use for reading e-texts for people with learning disabilities.

1. To start, open the System Preferences panel under the Apple icon and click on Dictation and Speech.
2. Select the Text to Speech tab
3. Check the option 'Speak selected text when the key is pressed
4. Click the Set Key option
5. Choose one modifier key — Command, Control, Option, or Shift — plus one other key of your choice
6. Then click OK

Now each time you type this key combination, your Mac will read aloud any text you have selected. To stop the speech, type the same key combination again.

Mac Alex Text To Speech Download

Just enter your text, select one of the voices and download or listen to the resulting mp3 file. This service is free and you are allowed to use the speech files for any purpose, including commercial uses. How to capture image on mac. A new, much more natural-sounding voice, called 'Alex' has been added to the Mac text-to-speech roster with the release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. With Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, voices are available in additional U.S. English and other English accents, as well as 21 other languages. MacinTalk is Apple's text-to-speech, or speech synthesizer, extension that allows Mac documents to 'talk' their text using a range of computerized voices. MacinTalk (v1.0.2) was relased on April 15, 1985 and works on Mac OS 1.x to Mac OS 6.x.

The default hotkey for TTS is Option+Escape. You can adjust the voice and speech rate in the Dictation and Speech options in System Preferences.

• You can change the voice that your Mac uses to read text and notifications by going to the System Preferences menu. There are about a half-dozen voices available on your Mac by default, but you can.
• If Text-to-Speech capability is available for your book, you'll see Text-to-Speech: Enabled on the product detail page before you purchase your book. While reading, tap the center of the screen, and then tap the menu icon in the upper right corner. Tap Additional Settings, and then tap the switch next to Text-to-Speech to turn it on.

Selecting a Different Reading Voice

Alex is the default reading voice on the Mac OS. It is an incredibly realistic voice but there are other options for text to speech voices in Mac. Mac OS has a large number of high quality voices available from Nuance in many languages and dialects. To access these voices do the following.

1. Open the Apple menu and select System Preferences
2. Open Dictation and Speech
3. Click on the System Voice combobox and click on Customize
4. Check the checkbox for the voices you wish to install and click OK

The additional voices will take some time to download. Each file is around 200 megabytes. If you install voices for different languages it will also download additional files Mac will need to support those languages. You probably do not want to download more voices than you will use.

Creating MP3's with a Mac

Books2Burn is a free Text-To-Speech MP3 creation program for the Mac OS X Leopard. It can use the high quality Alex voice to create MP3's that you can load onto your iPod. This program has not been tested by our office yet but our understanding is that it will only open text files. You may need to cut and paste the text you want for the MP3 in the user interface.

Click here for more info and to download Books2Burn.

For more details about Apple and Mac Accessibility visit:
http://www.apple.com/accessibility/ Best external ssd for mac 2019.

• You can change the voice that your Mac uses to read text and notifications by going to the System Preferences menu.
• There are about a half-dozen voices available on your Mac by default, but you can download more.
• When you change the text-to-speech voice on a Mac, you can also set how fast it reads or change its language.
• Visit Business Insider's Tech Reference library for more stories.

One of your Mac's various accessibility features is its ability to read out text that's on the screen. This is great for users who can't see the screen very well.

But if you use this feature, you might not be satisfied with the default voice, which can sound very robotic.

Luckily, you can change the voice at any time. Mac crop image. There are over a hundred different voices available in a variety of languages.

Here's how to change the speech voice on your Mac.

How to change the speech voice on a Mac

1. Click the Apple icon in the top-left corner of your screen and select 'System Preferences.'

2. Click on the 'Accessibility' option.

3. In the left sidebar, select 'Speech.' This will open the menu where you can change the speech settings.

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Mac Text To Speech Online

4. To change the voice, click on the 'System Voice' tab to open a dropdown menu. By default, you can choose from two male voices and three female voices.

5. To change the rate at which your Mac speaks, click on the 'Speaking Rate' slider and move it left or right to slow it down or speed it up, respectively.

6. To enable your Mac to speak out announcements — it'll let you know when a program needs your attention, and read alerts — read text that you select, or read text that you hover your mouse over, click the box next to those options.

How to add new speech voices on your Mac

1. Open the 'Speech' menu again.

2. Click on 'System Voice' and scroll down to 'Customize.'

3. You'll now be shown a list of all the voices of various languages and dialects that you can download and add to your speech options. You can select most voices and then click 'Play' at the bottom to hear what it sounds like.

4. When you find a voice and language you want, check the box next to it and click 'OK' at the bottom of the window. Your Mac will download the voice, and you can then select it.

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