I’ve been playing around with the Text to Speech feature within the Dictation & Speech settings in System Preferences in 10.8, and was reminded that I mentioned in a previous issue that I’d report back on my impressions. (Thanks, Jim M.!)
Text to Speech is a nice feature for those of you who prefer hearing to reading — and less time squinting at a screen is always better, especially if you’re prone to eye strain or are visually impaired. I chose the voice “Alex,” since it’s designed to be the most natural and least robotic. (The other voices, especially Victoria, are nostalgic to me, though, as they remind me of when I first used a Mac with OS 8.6 — I’m sure many of you go further back than that!)
Upon setting it up, I wasn’t prepared for how much it would affect my workflow. At first, I found the audible prompts unsettling, but quickly got used to them, partially because I use a dual-screen setup at work. This meant that I could concentrate on my main screen, a 30” Apple display, and not have to look away for certain things.
To go beyond Alex’s alerts and prompts and have “him” read something to you, copy the text you want dictated to the Clipboard and launch TextEdit. Then, paste the text into a new document and select where you want Alex to start speaking. Choose Speech >Start Speaking from the Edit menu in TextEdit, and listen to him go.
Alex stumbled on a bunch of unusual words at first — he read from a list of grocery items, including Stevia and Echanacea, and pretty much butchered them. However, it got the job done, and of course, I knew what he meant. (As my mother-in-law says, “listen to what I mean, not what I say.”)
I’ll talk (write?) more about the other half of this technology, Dictation, next week. That’s where it gets fun.