Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

The Mac Talks Back

So far in this chapter, you’ve read about the Mac’s listening ability. But the conversation doesn’t have to be one-way; it’s even easier to make the Mac talk.

In fact, thanks to the beefed-up talking features of 10.2, the Mac can read almost anything you like: text that you pass your cursor over, alert messages, menus, and any text document in any program. It can speak in your choice of 22 synthesizer voices, ages eight to fifty. The Mac’s voice comes out of its speakers, reading with a twangy, charmingly Norwegian accent.

Setting Up the Mac’s Voice

To configure the way the Mac talks, revisit the Speech panel of System Preferences. Click the Default Voice tab at the top of the window. As you can see in Figure 14-13, you can control which of the Mac’s voices you want your computer to use, as well as how fast it should speak.

As with the other aspects of Mac OS speech, this one is filled with whimsical touches. Four of the voices, as it turns out, sing rather than speak.They are: Good News, which sings to the tune of “Pomp and Circumstance,” otherwise known as the Graduation March; Bad News, which sings to the tune of the Chopin Prelude in C minor, better known as the Funeral March; Cellos, which sings to the tune of Grieg’s “Peer Gynt” suite; and Pipe Organ, which sings to the tune of the Alfred Hitchcock TV theme.

In other words, these voices sing whatever words you type to those melodies. (To hear the melody in its entirety, don’t use any punctuation.)

Figure 14-13. For ...