#Text to speech on mac whisper for mac os x#
#Text to speech on mac whisper full#
#Text to speech on mac whisper download#

#Text to speech on mac whisper download#

You can download some English voices (Daniel, Emily and Serena, all quite close to RP) and others for different countries, but none has the same high-quality timbre as Alex.ĭespite these issues, I still argue that this method is quick, effortless and better than the alternatives. Alex is an American Caucasian male (what else?), so he might not match the voice you’d have chosen for your project. Inevitably, Alex can’t get every cadence and emphasis right, so you might still have to use your imagination a bit.Īnother problem is the nature of the actual voice. The major stumbling block, of course, is the quality of the elocution. Obviously, these tweaks could make your text look weird and/or gramatically incorrect, so you might want to do them in a separate version from the one you send to the client. Along with the speed setting I mentioned above, this gives the sort of rhythm you’d expect to hear. When I’m doing a video script, I have each sentence in a paragraph on its own, and full-stop-paragraphs in between when I want longer pauses.

#Text to speech on mac whisper full#

Between sentences, you can use a full stop in a paragraph on its own to make him pause even longer. Within a sentence, you can insert a comma to make him pause. That can be difficult, since you’ll probably hear something you want to edit the second Alex opens his digital gob.Īlex does tend to rattle through, but there are ways to hold him back. It works in Safari too – if you’ve done the setup, select a bit of this post and fire away.įor the full effect, put headphones on and close your eyes, or at least avert your eyes from the screen. To make him stop, just press the same key combination again.

You can now type away in Word, select all or part of your text, and press your chosen key combination to hear Alex recite it. To set up Text to Speech, go to System Preference and select Speech from the System section. Earlier systems are similar as far as I know.

#Text to speech on mac whisper for mac os x#

These instructions are for Mac OS X 10.7. I’ve started using this for nearly every short piece of writing I do, and always for anything that will be spoken out loud. Once Text to Speech is set up, you can have Alex read back any text you select on screen with a single keypress, allowing you to check the sound of your writing as you go along. Things have improved in recent years, and Apple’s ‘Alex’ voice, introduced with OS X 10.5, does a pretty good job of sounding like a person. However, the ‘Whisper’ voice did drop some guest vox for Air on 10,000Hz Legend: Incredibly, speech synthesis has been part of Mac OS since 1984, but it’s only really been of interest to those who need it for accessibility. The solution I’ve found uses a feature that, until recently, I’d completely ignored: Text to Speech. It’s hard to do ‘is this copy OK?’ if you can’t get past ‘do I really sound like that?’ Text to Speech Even after more than 200 phone interviews, I still wince when I hear my provincial quack on the recording. How about recording your voice? That’s certainly an idea, but in my experience, hearing your own voice is incredibly distracting. You want to replicate the experience of either actively reading (which is easy) or passively listening. But the problem is that you’re then reading and speaking the words at the same time, which nobody in your audience will ever do. One simple remedy for this is to read your text out loud. And it’s even worse if your writing is actually destined to be spoken out loud in a broadcast ad, video voiceover or similar medium. You’re neglecting a major part of your writing’s sensory appeal. Since neuroscientists have found that people ‘hear’ the words they read internally, this isn’t ideal.

In the process, it’s easy to neglect the sound, rhythm and overall flow of your words.

You type it in Word, read it through on paper and send it off without it ever being articulated out loud. If you work on your own, as I do, it’s easy to fall into the trap of treating your writing as, well, just writing.