I always use Ctrl+S as my shortcut, but you can come up with your own as well. Here you can choose your desired keyboard shortcut, which can be pressed after you select the block of text you want spoken to you. Now, to set up your keyboard shortcut, check the box next to “Speak selected text when the key is pressed” and click the Set Key button. If you’re running 10.5 Leopard, you’ll probably find the best configuration to be Alex as your voice and the speaking rate at just barely past the normal speed. Experiment with the settings that work best for you and press the Play button to test them out (Tip: make sure your volume is turned on so you can hear the voices). You can choose the system voice, speaking rate, etc. It works pretty well out of the box, but a few settings need to be configured for this feature to work optimally. Open up System Preferences, click on the Speech button (under the System header), and ensure the Text to Speech tab is highlighted. Sounds great, right? Here’s how you can set up Text to Speech to be triggered by a simple keyboard shortcut: It takes all the work out of reading so you can just sit back and listen - essentially like a book on tape. If staring at a computer screen takes a toll on your eyes, if reading that long document is growing tiresome, or if you’re just plain lazy, Mac OS X’s built-in Text to Speech feature is perfect for you. One of the coolest things to mess around with in Mac OS X is Text to Speech, which lets your Mac read any selected block of text aloud to you.

Text to speech shortcut mac