How to dictate on Mac

While I am sighted and a fast reader, I’m a notorious multitasker, which means having to read lots of text can sometimes be a burden. Luckily, Apple devices are highly accommodating, with accessibility options in vision, hearing, and motor categories.

How do I get my Mac to read text aloud? One useful function on Mac is the VoiceOver function, which is your solution if you’re wondering. I'll show you how to turn this feature on and introduce a couple of useful third-party apps to make your experience smoother.

Can a Mac dictate?

If you’ve wondered how to dictate on a Mac or if it offers that function at all, you'll be happy to know that Macs have two dictation-related features — Dictation and VoiceOver. 

When you turn on the Dictation feature, you can simply press the dedicated shortcut you’ve selected and start talking. If you have auto-punctuation turned on, the Mac will help you format that text properly as you’re speaking.

VoiceOver will provide both brailled and spoken descriptions of items on your screen and also let you control your computer using a keyboard (if you wish to do so). VoiceOver Training is also available, where there are modules that will teach you exactly how to use it and a VoiceOver Utility section where you can change a variety of settings. Everything from speech verbosity, speed, voice, braille settings, navigation, and more can be altered to suit your preferences.

How to read text on Mac out loud in one click

The Mac's built-in Speak Selection feature is pretty handy, but if you want something faster and smoother, you should try Voice Dream Reader. It's awesome for anyone who likes to listen to text, whether these are articles, long documents, or even eBooks.

What's cool about it is that it doesn't just read stuff to you; it has super natural-sounding voice options, and you can tweak the playback speed and voice style to your liking. Plus, you can pause and pick up wherever you left off. 

Voice Dream Reader is perfect for being productive on the go or just giving your eyes a break while still getting your reading in. Overall, it really ups your reading experience.

Manual way to make MacBook read text

Aside from the VoiceOver feature, there’s another more manual way you start dictation on Mac, and that’s the Speak selection feature. What makes Speak selection different from VoiceOver is that once activated, you have to highlight the text you want your Mac to read and then press the shortcut to start reading. To activate it:

1. Front the Apple menu, choose System Settings.
2. Go to Accessibility.
3. Click Spoken Content.
4. Turn on Speech selection.

5. Select a line or block of text and use the shortcut Option + Esc to start dictation.

Within the spoken content section, you can choose the language you want to set the system to, the voice used, and the speaking rate and volume to further customize your experience. When you press the shortcut to activate speech, you can manually slow down or speed up the pace, play, stop, fast forward, and rewind.

What’s even more magical about this app is that you can adjust audio levels for specific apps, so rather than simply increasing or decreasing the volume system-wide, you can pick and choose where you want louder or quieter settings.

Customize how your Mac reads text

Once you’ve learned how to get your MacBook to read to you, the customization options can improve your overall listening experience. Each language has a different list of voices, split by accent and dialect, so you can choose a voice that feels most familiar or pleasant to listen to. To get to the customization section:

1. From the Apple menu, choose System Settings.
2. Go to Accessibility.
3. Click on Spoken Content.

From there, you can use the sliding scales for speaking rate and volume, system voice, drop-down menus, and more.

Bonus tip: Amazing text editors for Mac

Now that you know how to make your computer read to you using a Mac, why not take that accessibility and workflow further? High-quality text editors act like a hub or a canvas for dictation, giving you an interface to write, edit, and keep all your content together. 

One of these is Ulysses, a functional writing platform with a markdown editor, integrated grammar and style checking, and the ability to export your content in beautifully presented formats.

I find it the best place to write distraction-free, as it boasts a clean-cut UI, and when I’m ready to activate the speak text on Mac feature, the app will highlight each word in yellow as it goes along.

If you’re more concerned about fast formatting to make text reading or dictation go more smoothly, TextSoap could be a more suitable app to download.

For example, if I was reading this excerpt from Wikipedia on patchwork quilts, I could copy and paste it into the workspace and remove the citation numbers for clearer listening. If you frequently listen while you read like you would with subtitles, for instance, you can use the formatting options on top or look through the auto formatting option in the sidebar.

If I’m writing or dictating something from scratch, TextSoap can clean up text in a jiffy, eliminating the manual effort required to remove extra spaces or unnecessary characters.

Solved: Getting VoiceOver or Speak selection to read text on Mac

After reading this article, you’ve hopefully gone from frantically searching “how to get my Mac to read to me” to being a whiz at all things voice-over. With a comprehensive built-in automatic voice-over and manual dictation function, anyone can capitalize on their benefits and even bolster them with third-party apps like Boom 3D, TextSoap, and Ulysses. While TextSoap and Ulysses are great text editors with their own individual benefits, Boom 3D brings out the potential of your Mac’s audio through audio enhancements for movies, voiceovers, and music and video editing.

All these apps and 250+ are available through a 7-day free trial of Setapp, the perfect subscription service if you want access to a variety of useful apps to improve your digital experience.