Text to Speech on a Mac

Text to Speech in Mac OS X Leopard sounds better than ever due to the addition of a new System Voice named Alex. When using Mac OS Tiger, I grew accustomed to hearing the robotic voice of Fred reading aloud to my daughter. She used this Text to Speech feature so often that I created a keyboard shortcut for her. Here’s how.

First, go to Apple Menu → System Preferences and select the Text to Speech tab. Then click the popup menu labeled System Voice to view all the available voices offered by Mac OS X Leopard. Alex is still a trifle stilted but sounds much more human-like than previous System Voices.

You can listen to your Mac speak with each System Voice by choosing a voice and clicking the Play button. You can even have your Mac announce the time every hour or when alerts are displayed or when an application needs your attention.

Once you’ve settled on a System Voice, check the box labeled Speak selected text when the key is pressed. Note the Set Key button located to the right of this text. You may use this to set a preferred Mac keyboard shortcut. If you do, be sure your user-defined shortcut doesn’t conflict with an existing shortcut.

To be truthful, I rather miss Fred’s robotic voice. It always reminded me of the voice of the WOPR (War Operation Planned Response) computer from that old movie Wargames, starring Matthew Broderick. I can’t help it — it’s just the geek in me.