The stuff of Kryton

An eclectic selection of technology with some cookery

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Project maintained by kryton-me Hosted on GitHub Pages — Theme by mattgraham

Dictation and Text to Speech (TTS)

If you’re not the quickest on a keyboard or at reading text here are a couple of hacks to speed up life.

iOS TTS

• Select the text
• On the pop up menu tap the right arrow
• Tap speak

iOS Dictation

• Place the curser where you want the text
• Tap the microphone symbol on the keyboard
• Dictate what you want
• tap the screen to stop.

MacOS TTS via Mouse

• select the text on the screen
• “Edit” -> “Speech” -> “Start Speaking”

MacOS TTS keyboard shortcut

Set up

• System preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> App Shortc…
• click “+” (below the list on the right)
• Application = “All Applications”
• Menu Title= “Start Speaking”
• Keyboard Shortcut = cmd + shift + C
• click “add”

To use

• select the text on the screen,
• press “cmd + shift + C”

MacOS Dictation

• Place the curser where you want the text
• Double tap the Fn key
• Dictate what you want
• Single tap Fn to stop

Windows TTS

Turning off Windows sound enhancement.

If using any of the tools below you get a very bassy and hard to hear voice it’s possible Microsoft has turned on sound enhancement

• right click the speaker icon in task bar
• Click “Sounds”
• “Playback” tab -> right click the speakers / headphones you use -> “Properties”
• “Advanced” tab -> “Signal enhancements” -> un check “Enable audio enhancements” -> “Apply”

Operating system wide tool

Windows has a built in Text To Speech tool but there is no way to access it without using some form of software. To get around this I have released a basic Python script, A copy of the script can be found on GitHub. It has been tested on Windows 10 and MacOS 11. I have released this under the MIT license for maximum compatibility.

Please see the README.md file for full instructions on installation and use.

Microsoft Office only

If you just want to use it in Office tools there is a built in tool, If your not permitted to install python this may also help.

To set up:

• Click on the “Custom Quick Access Toolbar” (top left) of office window)
• Click on “More commands…”
• In the “Choose commands from:” drop down select “All Commands”
• Scroll down to “Speak” and click on it
• Click “Add»”
• Click “OK”

To use:

• Select text
• click on the square speech bubble with a play button in the top left of the Window.

Windows Dictation

Press Windows key + H The first time a banner appears at the top of the screen it may ask you to enable online speech recognition in the settings and provide a link first time. From then just hold windows key + H to stat dictation. I generally tap the space bar to stop it.

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Keywords: Dyslexia, TTS, Python