Making Your Mac Talk!

[Protools5LEGuy]

http://www.nhs.uk/accessibilityhelp/Vision-talk.html

http://www.nhs.uk/accessibilityhelp/Making-your-computer-talk-in-OS-8-9.html

Making your Mac talk using the Speech control panel

Note: Apple Text-To-Speech technology is a basic text reading facility built in to the operating system, it only provides a framework that other applications can use. It does not provide full screen reading but offers speech feedback in dialog boxes and will only speak in some parts of specific applications, for example a Word document.

To activate Mac Speech:

Click on the ‘ Apple ’ menu (no keyboard shortcut).

Click on the ‘ Control Panels ’ sub-menu and then click on ‘ Speech ’ to open the ‘ Speech ’ control panel; see Fig 1. (No keyboard shortcut).

speech options

Click on the pop-up menu next to ‘ Voice: ’ and select a voice, for example ‘ Kathy ’ by clicking on it and then click the speaker button next to it to play a sample of the selected voice. (No keyboard shortcut)

Click on the slider next to ‘ Rate ’ to speed up or slow down the voice. (No keyboard shortcut).

Click the drop down menu next to ‘ Options: ’ and Select ‘ Talking Alerts ’ (see Fig 2).

Click the checkbox next to ‘ Speak the alert text ’ to have your Mac speak the text in dialogue boxes. (No keyboard shortcut).

Click on a delay time on the slider named ‘ Wait before speaking: ’ below ‘ Speak the alert text ’ to have the computer speak the dialogue immediately click on ‘ 0 ’ for a 5 second delay click on ‘ 5 ’. (No keyboard shortcut).

You can also have the alert speech start with a phrase, to do this:

In the ‘ Speech ’ control panel lick the checkbox next to ‘ Speak the phrase: ’ to turn this option on. (No keyboard shortcut).

Click on the pop-up menu next to ‘ Speak the phrase: ’ to see a list of available phrases and click on one to choose it. (No keyboard shortcut).

Note: You can edit the list of phrases and add your own, to do so choose ‘ Edit phrase list ’ from the list in he pop-up menu next to ‘ Speak the phrase: ’.

Click the close icon in the top left of the speech options box or press ‘ Apple ’ + ‘ W ’ on the keyboard to close the window.

[Protools5LEGuy]

SimpleText can use Apple Text-to-Speech Mac OS facilities to read aloud text files. To do this:

Click on the ‘ Sound ’ menu and select ‘ Speak All ’ with the mouse or press ‘ Apple ’ + ‘ J ’ on your keyboard.

To stop the computer speaking click on the ‘ Sound ’ menu and Select ‘ Stop Speaking ’ or press ‘ Apple ’ + ‘ . ’ (full stop) on your keyboard.

[Protools5LEGuy]

Microsoft provide a free plug-in for Word 2001 on the Mac called ‘ Word Speak ’ that enables word to use the Mac Speech to read word documents out loud. To install it do the following:

Go to Word Speak 2001 for Macintosh

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6757

If you want to stop reading the text press the ‘ Esc ’ key on your keyboard.

[Protools5LEGuy]

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6757

Word Speak allows you to have text in Word 2001 documents read aloud using Apple Text-To-Speech technology. With this tool, you can select a voice to use to read any selection from your Word document.