MacOS highlight individual words as they are spoken, as iOS

accessibilitymacostext to speech

In iOS, it is possible to have the text read out loud using the built-in text-to-speech (TTS) while the individual words highlight as they are spoken.

Like in this gif:

tts in iOS, MacOS highlight content as spoken as iOS

(taken from this you video).

I am looking for a way to get MacOS's (10.11) built-in TTS to highlight individual words as they are spoken, as in iOS. This is extremely helpful for me when reading.

This Ask Different question get at the same issue, but it's slightly different as it's asking for a browser-based solution and I am primarily looking for native MacOS solution. Thanks.

Best Answer

VoiceOver on macOS can do this.

  1. Use VoiceOver Utility.app to activate move highlight cursor by word
  2. Activate VoiceOver with Cmd+F5
  3. Click on the text you want to read
  4. Press Control+Alt+A to "read all"

VoiceOver Utility - Visuals - move highlight by word

How well it works will vary by application and how well they support VoiceOver.

These animations were recorded on 10.13.6 High Sierra, but VoiceOver has been around since 10.4 Tiger - so you should be OK in 10.11 El Capitan.

Pages - works well

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FSNotes - works well

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Safari - depends on how the page is built

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