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Questions tagged [text-to-speech]

A service which "reads" text aloud to the user

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In MacOS, how do you use the Signet symbol of the Live Speech window?

I am trying to use Live Speech to easily dictate things repeatedly instead of having to say them I see a signet icon at the right of the Live Speech window, but I cannot understand how to use it. When ...
MicroMachine's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
370 views

How do I make the 'say -v PersonalVoice' command save output to a file?

Thanks to this answer, I was able to grant permission to the Terminal and iTerm2 apps to use a Personal Voice with the 'say' command; e.g. say -v MyVoice "Hello, world!" The say command has ...
Chap's user avatar
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166 views

How to reset the TTS / Spoken Content system in macOS 14 Sonoma when voices will not download/activate?

I've noted that I cannot download voices in macOS 14 Sonoma any longer and when they "seem" to download, they will not activate or show as having downloaded. I cannot seem to use another or '...
ylluminate's user avatar
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2 votes
2 answers
828 views

How do I access MacOS Sonoma Personal Voice from command line?

I've finished training MacOS 14.0 on my Personal Voice ("Myself"), and Live Speech correctly speaks phrases in my voice using the Live Speech interface. In Terminal, the command say -v '?' ...
Chap's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
608 views

Is there a free app to do AI text-to-speech?

I'm looking for a free way to do AI-powered "text to speech", so I can copy-paste an article or document and have it read to me. I've tried say on the command line, but the lack of AI means ...
Andrew Parks's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
69 views

Set several preferred custom voices on MacOS Ventura

In Ventura, under System Settings > Accessibility > Vision > Spoken Content > System Voice, I have the option to set a single preferred voice. However, I would like to maintain a preferred ...
Jason Hemann's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
33 views

Tessa voice completely fails to read sentence, how to avoid this error

Mac OS X 13.2.1 Lately, I have been having trouble with some voices on my Mac mispronouncing words depending on context. An example is the word headlines, which is pronounced correctly by itself, but ...
Kyle Jones's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
55 views

Are there any text-to-speech (TTS ) controllers on pre-Big Sur macOS?

In macOS Big Sur and onward there is a built-in accessibility tool for text-to-speech, a floating window with play/pause/speed buttons that can read aloud almost any selectable text on screen. Have ...
Ckenn 's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
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in MacOS Ventura, how to create a desktop shortcut (or other non-keyboard shortcut) to summon Text-To-Speech controller? [duplicate]

A little background: I'm helping a friend who had a stroke a few years ago and who has global aphasia; as a result it's very difficult for his brain to consistently derive meaning from written words ...
Ckenn 's user avatar
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1 answer
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How can I get `say` to use a different language for the same voice?

In the voice list output by say -v ?, some names can speak multiple languages. (The answers on this question only deal with single-language voices.) A subset of what I see includes: Sandy (German (...
Nathan Long's user avatar
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1 vote
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How to customise the speech controller in text to speech feature?

In System Preferences > Accessibility > Spoken Content, I can set a shortcut so that the computer can speak highlighted text. Further, I can change the speed to how fast I want by opening the ...
relidon's user avatar
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2 votes
3 answers
2k views

How to toggle Accessibility features with AppleScript in Ventura

Applescripts for Ventura's new System Settings My old Applescript stopped working on Ventura. Any ideas on how to fix this script? tell application "System Preferences" reveal anchor ...
Eddy Perez's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
326 views

How to make macOS Siri voice read current pasteboard (clipboard) buffer?

While the System Preferences (Settings) → Accessibility → Spoken Content → Speak selection is useful, I would very much find it more useful to use Siri voices to read the current contents of the ...
ylluminate's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
3k views

Shortcut step to get selected text without copying? How?

How can I make a services shortcut (available via right-click menu) that gets the selected text and reads it aloud? There is a "Speak Text" step, but I can't figure out how to send the ...
Sam's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
3k views

Can the iPhone be configured to read aloud (text) Messages as they come in?

Whether at my desk or in the car, it would be great to hear text messages read automatically when they arrive. Picking up the phone while driving is a bad idea and this feature could prevent a lot of ...
T Rowe's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
678 views

Where are system speech voices stored in MacOS Monterey?

The default voices in Monterey are stored in /System/Library/SpeechBase/Voices/. I used System Preferences > Accessibility > System Voice > Customize... to install a few more US, UK, and ...
Chap's user avatar
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4 votes
2 answers
451 views

lives vs lives: how can I correct the pronunciation of the 'say' command?

Is there a reliable way to correct the pronunciation of the say command without removing words or introducing pauses? MacOS's built-in say command mispronounces some words due to the pronunciation ...
Kyle Jones's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
619 views

How to fix broken text to speech rate on Big Sur

I'm on macOS 11.2 using a 16 inch 2019 MacBook Pro. I noticed when I use the text to speech functionality (system preferences > Accessibility > spoken content), the Siri voice doesn't adjust it'...
Talos Potential's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
66 views

Can I patch arbitrary apps to add Speak Text accessibility to macOS apps that don’t support it?

In many (if not, most) Mac apps that display or edit text, you can select text and have it spoken out loud, via a right-click or the Edit menu: Note: I am aware of the Accessibility setting that ...
Sam's user avatar
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0 votes
1 answer
309 views

How to stop speech in automator action

I can make an Applescript within automator so it reads text at N speed: on run {input, parameters} repeat with thisText in input say thisText speaking rate 400 end repeat end run However, ...
Emmanuel Goldstein's user avatar
-1 votes
1 answer
142 views

Clock announcing time when it shouldn't

Years ago, I turned on "announce time on the hour," but when it turned out to be stupid (for US locale, instead of "Ten o'clock" it says "it's ten hours") I turned it off. Three days ago, when I wasn'...
WGroleau's user avatar
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0 votes
1 answer
88 views

How to save text to speech as a voice recording?

say "Hello World" is pretty neato, but it requires the terminal to stay open. Is there a nice way to save the recording from what a "say" would output as a file?
madprogramer's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
52 views

Why does iOS Speak Selection read "2020" as "2020 inches" in English (UK)?

I've been using Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content > Speak Selection to read some articles from various websites on my iOS 13.3.1 iPhone 8. Whenever it reads "2020" (without the quotes), it ...
Matt's user avatar
  • 113
1 vote
1 answer
386 views

How can I use cloud-based text-to-speech services as native voices in Mac OS?

I want to be able to use cloud-based TTS services (like AWS Polly or Google Cloud Text-to-Speech) as if they were locally-installed voices. I've found the native voices to be inadequate for some ...
James's user avatar
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1 vote
0 answers
118 views

Alex TTS voice is automatically deleted

I'm using the TTS voices for some of my app. Sometimes I download new voices to check how they sound to probably move to them later. I heard that Alex voice is one of the best free voices on iOS, so I ...
Gregory Yanushkovskiy's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
277 views

Is there a good email app with text-to-speech for iPhone?

I cannot read small text due to eyesight deterioration and want an app that can read email out loud. Is there anything good that has text to speech and possibly also dictation of emails?
Lauren Hobbs's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
38 views

Way to read multiple text files in order using TTS?

I organize many text files by tags using the Finder tag system. Sometimes I want to have my Mac speak all of these files by some tag(s). Is there an easier way of going into each text file and ...
Adam Thompson's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
33 views

Text to Speech Custom Rate (beyond slider)

In System Preferences, under Dictation & Speech, there is a Speaking Rate setting: Is there a way to change the Speaking Rate to a value that is not on that slider bar? For example, if I want ...
user325215's user avatar
8 votes
3 answers
3k views

MacOS highlight individual words as they are spoken, as iOS

In iOS, it is possible to have the text read out loud using the built-in text-to-speech (TTS) while the individual words highlight as they are spoken. Like in this gif: (taken from this you video). ...
Eric Fail's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
4k views

Voice in iOS switches language during text-to-speech

Very often, as I'm listening to an article being read by an American English voice with swipe-down "Speak Screen" or selected-text "Speak Selection." A date or number would be spelled in Dutch by the ...
Ronen's user avatar
  • 113
3 votes
0 answers
401 views

Google DeepMind Wavenet voices in mac TTS?

I don't know enough about code to do this, but is it possible to use the Google wavenet voices in the Mac TTS? Under System Preferences > Accessibility > Speech you can chose voices and if you ...
Talos Potential's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
360 views

How can I run "say --output-file" without it hanging (and worse) with more than 310 bytes of input?

For my non-commercial curiosity, I'm interested in turning some of Lewis Carroll's work into machine-generated speech. When sending the output to an audio device, the say command can do this even with ...
user10543's user avatar
  • 133
0 votes
1 answer
37 views

why iphone "text to speech" english is much clearer than french?

after config in “Settings>General>Accessibility>Speak”, i could select a paragraph of text then could let iphone "speek" it out. But I found that French text are spoken much vaguely, on the contrary, ...
athos's user avatar
  • 573
9 votes
1 answer
5k views

Make Speech in Safari read different languages

It would make sense when I have Safari read Japanese text (for example on this page) by clicking Edit then Speech then Start Speaking, that it would recognize Japanese language and switch voice to a ...
MicroMachine's user avatar
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0 votes
1 answer
904 views

"Speak selected text" reads whole document in Preview

Recently I enabled Speak selected text when key is pressed feature in Accessibility menu. It works well in Safari, Finder and other apps. But in Preview and other PDF readers like Skim, it acts wired....
mohammadreza's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
1k views

How can I restart the text to speech feature?

I use the text to speech feature a lot. Sometimes, after I put the macbook to sleep and come back to it the feature no longer works. I would have to shutdown/restart the computer in order for the ...
relidon's user avatar
  • 231
5 votes
2 answers
322 views

Speak screen saying "one dollar?"

Every few sentences, the phone speaks a phrase that sounds like "one dollar." It's not in the text of the screen. Anyone know what this is? This also happens on the Uber driver app when it’s ...
Shades's user avatar
  • 111
4 votes
1 answer
150 views

Why can't my Mac say "defeat ISIS"?

I'm running Sierra (10.12.5) and I've been using the text-to-speech feature to read news articles. The system stumbled over the phrase "defeat ISIS" today, saying DEH-feh-CHURring EYE-sis. The ...
Kyle Jones's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
142 views

Is there a way to start speaking a word using macOS text to speech by hovering over it and pressing a shortcut?

I want it to speak the word without selecting it, just hovering over it + a shortcut. Or by pressing a shortcut after using the lookup feature in Mac.
Yaman KJ's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
10k views

What are all the dictation commands in iOS? (iOS 10)

iOS (10) has a speech-recognition-based dictation feature. You press a little microphone button, start talking, and it transcribes your speech into text. Commands I currently know: "new paragraph" "...
CommaToast's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
2k views

Can I add custom pronunciations to "Speech"?

When given a well-known abbreviation or acronym, Mac's built-in Text-to-Speech engine automatically speaks the correct word or pronunciation, instead of the individual letters. For example: vs ...
rubik's sphere's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
359 views

How to get around “say” command bug when setting volume?

Context: I have an AppleScript .scpt file that speaks the selected text in the System Voice. The selected text is copied to the clipboard, and then the text is spoken via the say command. The script ...
rubik's sphere's user avatar
7 votes
3 answers
3k views

How to change volume of "say" in AppleScript?

Here is a line from my AppleScript that speaks the selected text: set this_say_Pid to do shell script "LANG=en_US.UTF-8 pbpaste -Prefer txt | say > /dev/null 2>&1 & echo $!" I would ...
rubik's sphere's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
44 views

Is there any way to make my Macbook automatically subtitle the sound output?

Suppose I'm in a Skype meeting in a room with people speaking plain English, but I'm having some trouble to hear/understand what they are saying. It would be very useful to have a subtitle, so I can ...
MaiaVictor's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
562 views

AppleScript: Is it possible to check if Speech is currently running?

I want to exactly recreate macOS's built-in Text To Speech keyboard shortcut feature with AppleScript. When I say "exactly," I mean "exactly." The built-in option can be found in ...
rubik's sphere's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
625 views

Is there any real-time text-to-speech software?

I type really fast. Almost as fast as I speak. Is there any software that synthesizes text in real-time, as I type?
MaiaVictor's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
501 views

Why does my iPhone speak certain emoji in a Japanese accent?

My language settings are only set to English, but my iPhone speaks certain emoji (like 🙆‍♂️ and 💁‍♂️) in a Japanese accent when I select them in a message and tap Speak. Can anyone explain? Here's a ...
jsejcksn's user avatar
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15 votes
3 answers
4k views

Use Siri's voice as the system voice

I notice that on Sierra, Siri's voice is much superior to the selection of system voices you can select in System Preferences → Accessibility → Speech. In fact, I suspect they use a different system ...
Robert's user avatar
  • 309
2 votes
1 answer
512 views

Highlight and immediately speak selected text in one click - Text To Speech on Mac

I am a very heavy text to speech user on the Mac. Every time I use text to speech I have to triple click the paragraph to select it, and then hit option escape to activate text to speech. I wish that ...
Cliff Weitzman's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
232 views

How to make a Mac speak out system notifications?

Since a Mac can easily speak something, can it speak what is in a system notification? Specifically, it is so that when a webpage displays a system notification, the text in the notification can be ...
nonopolarity's user avatar
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