Visit the Apple Support Web Page
Visit the Apple Support Web Page
Mac Tip #345, 02 July 2008
Hi folks,
this week I’m taking a short, unplanned break from writing Tips.
Instead, I’d like to introduce you to the Apple Support Web Page.
It has links to videos, tutorials, manuals, troubleshooting advice, forums, and all kinds of other assistance.
Please visit and have a good look around. Your regularly scheduled MacTip will be back next week.
Cheers,
Miraz
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Your Mellifluous Mac
Your Mellifluous Mac
Mac Tip #344, 25 June 2008
Do you find your Mac’s ‘voice’ grating? You may have tried listening to your Mac reading a document aloud, if you followed last week’s Tip, What’s black and white and heard all over?, Mac Tip #343, 18 June 2008.
Perhaps you found it all too ‘computery’ and decided it wasn’t for you.
Well, try tuning up the voice and have another go. You may change your mind.
Go to System Preferences > Speech > Text to Speech, and select a System Voice from the pop-up. Then press the Play button to hear a sample. Alex is pretty smooth, but my preference is for Vicki.
Some of the Novelty voices from earlier versions of the Operating System have been hidden in Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5). Choose Show More Voices to see the whole selection.
Next try speeding the voice up or slowing it down. Move the Speaking Rate slider to the left to slow down the voice, and to the right to speed it up. Press Play to hear a sample.
Once you’ve found the settings that seem pleasing to you, try selecting some text, perhaps in Safari, and have your Mac read it to you. A short sample is all very well, but only an extended selection will really give you an idea of whether the speed is right for you. I prefer to listen to Vicki just a little faster than Normal.
Some third parties make additional voices you can buy, for example, Infovox iVox and Cepstral.
Their voices also extend the range with UK, Spanish and other voices, rather than just US. No Kiwi voices though. The demo voices on their websites sound good, but I’m happy with Vicki myself.
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What’s black and white and heard all over?
What’s black and white and heard all over?
Mac Tip #343, 18 June 2008
It was very frustrating: I had all kinds of things I needed to read, but I just had to wash a big pile of dishes. That’s when I remembered that I could do both tasks at once: by listening to the documents.
I opened the PDF I needed to read into Apple Preview — it comes standard on all Macs.
I have some small, but very effective portable speakers I like to use, so I plugged them in and turned them on. I get much better sound from the external speakers than from the built-in speakers. I made sure the sound on my Mac was turned on, with the volume up.
Then I selected the text I wanted to listen to and visited the Services menu. The Services menu is always on the Application menu — if you have Preview open, go to the Preview menu; if you have Safari open, go to the Safari menu.
Under Services I selected Speech > Start Speaking Text and my computer began reading the document to me. I got on with washing the dishes.
Caution: it can take a little while to become used to hearing a computer reading text aloud. Although modern computers have reasonably natural sounding ‘voices’, they still don’t sound quite the same as human beings. You may need to listen to a few documents before you’re comfortable with the computer’s voice. Still, it’s nothing like the robotic computer voice of the original Star Trek, for example.
Once you know how to listen to a document there is a lot you can do to customise the voice itself, and to tune up the whole process. The next few Tips will help you refine both the readings and the documents themselves.
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is jointly authored by Miraz Jordan and Maria Langer.