I want it to speak the word without selecting it, just hovering over it + a shortcut. Or by pressing a shortcut after using the lookup feature in Mac.
MacOS – way to start speaking a word using macOS text to speech by hovering over it and pressing a shortcut
macosshortcutspeechtext to speech
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If you're on Lion, you can turn on iOS-style spelling corrections in System Preferences under Language and Text. I don't always have luck noticing or reacting to these corrections while typing, but moving back over the misspelled word with your cursor will bring up the iOS-style popup and you can select the correct spelling with the down arrow and Return.
A similar question was asked on superuser, see Keyboard Shortcut to Right Click. To paraphrase that answer here:
- Use Cmd : to activate spellcheck
- Focus the floating window with Ctrl F6. (You need "Full Keyboard Access" shortcuts enabled in System Preferences. And unfortunately for me while typing this, Ctrl F6 is already used by the Stack Exchange editor.)
- Use Tab and Arrows to navigate and select the right spelling
- Use Escape to dismiss the floating window
You can also "Activate Mouse Keys", but I find that solution unsatisfying.
I was also met with this speech popup a few weeks ago. It can be turned on or off system-wide, but is sometimes app-specific for when it appears. For me, it was because I was using the Chess app, which uses "Speakable Items" so that the player can speak moves.
I had to uncheck "Allow Player to Speak Moves" in the Chess preferences pane. Depending on the application, you may or may not be able to disable this option.
You can disable "Speakable Items" system-wide through System Preferences by opening the Accessibility pane and scrolling down to "Speakable Items" and ticking the Off radio button.
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Best Answer
You can use the following Keyboard Maestro macro:
⌥⎋ the default shortcut for ‘Speak selected text’, set in System Preferences → Accessibility → Speech. Change this to match the preference at that location.