The desktop platform apps are not free, at $6.99 for macOS and $9.99 for Windows 10, although the mobile apps are free, with an optional one-time $4.99 upgrade that gives you the ability to add. Type in any text under 100 characters in length, choose a voice and click on the Read Button. Hear the text as speech and click on the Download link if you want to store it in your hard disk. Everybody, who need help with writing assignments, may get custom speech.
Hello AAzevedo71,
Thank you for the question. I recommend enabling 'Speak selected text when the key is pressed' in your System Preferences so that your Mac will read back the text in Preview.
Follow these steps:
If you have trouble reading text on your screen, you can have your Mac speak text that’s on the screen when you press a key or set of keys.
- Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Dictation & Speech, then click Text to Speech.
- Select the “Speak selected text when the key is pressed” checkbox.
By default, speaking is enabled when you press Option-Esc. To choose a different key, click Change Key, press one or more modifier keys (Command, Shift, Option, or Control) together with another key, then click OK. - To have your Mac start speaking, press the specified key. To stop the speaking, press the key again.
If text is selected when you press the key, the selected text is spoken. Otherwise, available text items in the current window are spoken; for example, if Mail is the current window, an email message is read. If no text items are available, you hear a beep.
You can view the full article here (the title of the article refers to Mavericks, but the steps apply to Mountain Lion as well):
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.
Jan 16, 2014 10:30 AM
Adjust VoiceOver voices
Enhanced-quality voices can be 100 MB or larger. Connect your device to Wi-Fi to download and install one of these voices.
With VoiceOver, you can turn on more than one voice, switch between Default and Enhanced Quality (without needing to download the voice again), and change the speaking rate for each voice. To adjust the voices:
Speak Out Loud What I Type Mac Applications
- Go to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver and tap Speech.
- Tap Add New Language.
- Tap the language and dialect that you want. This will take you back to the Speech screen.
- Tap Voice, then tap the voice that you want to use.
- Choose either Default or Enhanced Quality. If you choose Enhanced Quality, the voice hasn't been downloaded yet, and your device is on a Wi-Fi network, the voice will start to download.
Adjust speaking rate
To adjust the speaking rate:
Speak Out Loud What I Type Mac Apps
- Go to Settings and tap Accessibility.
- Tap Spoken Content.
- Use the slider for Speaking Rate to adjust the speed.
Speak Out Loud What I Type Mac Apple
Choose a voice for Speak Screen and Speak Selection
- Go to Settings > Accessibility and tap Spoken Content.
- Turn on Speak Selection or Speak Screen, or both.
- Select Voices.
- Choose the voice and dialect that you want Speak Screen and Speak Selection to use.
Remove a downloaded voice
You can't delete the Siri voices for your country or region. You can change the language and country or region settings to delete some Siri voices, but at least one of the Siri voices for your country or region will download automatically.
You can remove enhanced-quality voices and voices you have downloaded. Here's how:
- Go to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver and tap Spoken Content.
- Tap Voice, then tap the voice that you want to remove.
- Tap Edit.
- Tap , then tap Delete. Or swipe left to delete.