We showed you how to convert text to spoken audio files via the command line but some people ran into trouble with that method. Older versions of Mac OS X can also accomplish this in one of two ways. That doesn’t mean earlier Mac OS X releases are left out however. This feature is included by default in modern MacOS releases, including MacOS Mojave 10.14, Sierra, High Sierra 10.13.x, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, 10.8 Mountain Lion, 10.9 Mavericks, El Capitan, and Yosemite. This will also record in the default voice, but with the myriad of realistic new voices available since Lion this feature is even more useful, because by changing the system voice you can also change the voice recorded used for the audiotrack. The audio track will then open up in iTunes, give it a listen, it sounds great. That’s it, the Mac takes care of the rest. Right-click on the block of text and select “Add to iTunes as Spoken Track” from the menu, or from the ‘Services’ submenu.Select a group of text you want to transform into a spoken audio file.The Text to Spoken Audio feature is enabled by default in modern versions of Mac OS, therefore, to use it in MacOS and Mac OS X, all you need to do is: How to Convert Text Into a Spoken Audio File in Mac OS X Alternatively, click 'Edit' on the application's menu, and then select 'Start Dictation.'Ĭlick the 'Done' button or press your shortcut key or keys again to deactivate Dictation when you are finished.It is, here’s how to use text to speech on the Mac to speak selected text and save that spoken audio as an audio file, and it works it in all versions of Mac OS X. Place your cursor at the location where you want to dictate your text, press the shortcut key or keys you chose in Step 4, and then begin dictating your text. You can use any application that has text fields. Launch the application where you want to convert voice to text. Click the 'Shortcut' pull-down menu and select which key or series of keys on your keyboard you want to press to notify your Mac that you want it start converting voice to text. If you only have one microphone connected to your Mac, the internal microphone is selected automatically. Click the microphone icon and select which microphone you want to use. Click the 'View' menu, and then select 'Dictation & Speech.'Ĭlick the 'Dictation' tab if it is not selected already, and then click the 'On' radio button to enable dictation.

Mac text to speech keyboard shortcut