A lot of Mac users love their keyboard shortcuts and swear that they make their lives much easier. For those of you still trying to figure out your new Mac laptop, figuring out keyboard shortcuts. The default keyboard shortcut to begin dictating is to press your Mac’s fn key twice. If you aren’t using an Apple keyboard with an f. key, make note of or choose a different shortcut key. Here’s a quick tip to help you check written content on your Mac, using the text-to-speech feature. Instead of reading the text out loud yourself, you can get your Mac to do it via a simple keyboard shortcut. This is useful if you want to check the flow of your own writing or if you simply want to listen to content rather than read it.
A quick and free way to help you spot errors in your writing
Speech To Text App Mac
Here’s a quick tip to help you check written content on your Mac, using the text-to-speech feature.
Instead of reading the text out loud yourself, you can get your Mac to do it via a simple keyboard shortcut.
This is useful if you want to check the flow of your own writing or if you simply want to listen to content rather than read it. You can use this on web pages, emails, documents and pretty much anywhere that you can select text.
The feature is built in to all modern Macs – you just need to turn it on. Here’s how.
- Go to Apple | System Preferences.
- Click Accessibility.
- Click Speech.
- Tick the box labelled Speak selected text when the key is pressed.
- Click Change Key… to select a different key combination from the default (optional).
- Click the System Voice dropdown menu.
- Click Customise….
- Tick the relevant boxes to select which voices you want.
The example above shows that voice data needs to be downloaded to enable these additional voices.
In the UK, the default voice is Daniel. Leave the box labelled Upgrade to enhanced quality ticked to download a better version of his voice.
- Click OK to download the selected voice data, or click Cancel to stay with the default voice.
- If you have added new voices, click the System Voice dropdown menu again and select the desired voice.
- Use the Speaking Rate slider and Play button to test the voice.
Once you have done all of this, you can test your Mac’s text-to-speech function on a real piece of writing.
- Open a text document, email or web page.
- Click and drag to select a portion of text (or press
Cmd-A
to select all text). - Press the key combination to speak the text.
- Press the same combination to stop speaking the text (there is no pause feature).
That’s it. Use this and my other tips on proofreading your own work to improve the standard of your writing.
For more Mac goodies like this, check out my Micro Mac Tips article, and follow #MicroMacTips on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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If you long for a secretary who takes dictation, your days of waiting are over. Follow the first set of steps to set up the dictation part of the Dictation & Speech preferences, and then read on to learn how your Mac can read text to you or alert you when something occurs, such as when you try to quit an application without saving a document.
1Choose Command→System Preferences.
Click the Dictation & Speech icon.
2On the Dictation tab, select the On radio button.
This activates Dictation.
3Select the Use Enhanced Dictation check box.
Enhanced Dictation lets you dictate even when you don’t have an Internet connection, as shown.
The dictation dictionary for the default language, U.S. English, must be downloaded. The first time you turn on Enhanced Dictation, a dialog asks you to confirm the download of this dictation dictionary.
4(Optional) Open the Language pop-up menu and click Customize to add more languages.
Select the check box for any language(s) you wish to dictate in.
Click OK. Your Mac downloads dictation dictionaries for the selected language(s).
5(Optional) Open the Shortcut pop-up menu to choose a key command for starting dictation.
Text To Speech Keyboard Shortcut
Select Off to activate dictation with apps’ Edit menus, or select Customize to specify a key command that isn’t in the list.
When you’re in an app that you use to create written text, such as a word processor or an e-mail app, use your dictation shortcut or choose Edit→Start Dictation. The mini-window shown appears, and you can begin speaking.
Text To Speech online, free
If you activated more than one language, use the arrows next to the language to switch to another.