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Mac OS X: Text to Speech (TTS)

Apple were one for the front runners in TTS technology back in the 80’s and Mac OS was the first to include it out of the box. You would have thought that this would make the Mac the best platform for TTS but for some reason it went on the back burner and wasn’t significantly updated until the latest release of Mac OS with the introduction of the Alex voice.

So Mac OS has always had TTS but you really wouldn’t want to listen to it as the synthesized voices were either comical or just plain annoying. With the release of 10.5 comes Alex, a much more natural sounding American* male TTS engine. While Alex is a great leap forward for us Mac users there still isn’t the ability to control him. It you want a web page or document read back to you then you’ll get the whole thing, no pauses or the ability to rewind you have to stop it and reposition your cursor and start where you left off. Its fine if you do want to have a document read back but most people will want to have some control. Alternatively you can choose a modifier key in the text to speech control panel to speak selected text, this is my preferred option.

This is pretty basic technology these days so there are quite a few options around for reading back text. More useful though if you have problems with spelling, grammar or reading is having words or sentences read back to you as you type. Its like having a proofreader on hand 24 hours a day. Mac OS supports this function in one form via Voice Over but it will also read back navigation commands which for non-VI users could be a distraction. There are a few programs that I know of that provide this functionality and I’ll be looking at them soon.

Verdict: Alex is a massive improvement but if you want anything other than american pronunciations then you'll need to look elsewhere. The lack of control also makes TTS on the Mac a pain.

*You can buy third party voices by Assistiveware and Cepstral which are very good and come in many different languages.

Wiki Page on TTS
iVox
Cepstral

Mac OS X Dictionary:

Hidden deep in the depths of OS X is a dictionary, not just any old dictionary but one that can be accessed at anytime. I often type a word and wonder if I’ve gotten it in the right context handily I can 'ctrl command d' and up pops a dictionary definition, alternatively you can 'right click' and select look up. You also get the option of a thesaurus or if you click ‘more’ you can even bring up a wiki page on your chosen word however if you do decide to wiki then you’ll need to have internet access.

The dictionary is the New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd Edition and you can switch between US and UK English. By default it is set to US so us brits will have to go in and change it via preferences in the application itself. When you are in the application you can also easily increase the font size and have the definition read back to you via the in built-in text to speech service.

Interestingly the dictionary doesn’t work in MS Word 2004, probably because it has its own dictionary function.

Verdict: As a fairly unknown freebie to OS X the ability to reference a word in most applications it totally cool and it works really well.

Mac OS X: Spelling & Grammar

In part one of my review of Mac OS I'll be looking at Spelling & Grammar:

Helpfully Mac OS comes fully fitted with a fairly good spellchecker and an ok grammar checker. It picks up around 80% of the spelling mistakes I make, which I find more than acceptable but grammar works less well as only obvious mistakes are picked up but I find it a useful tool in certain applications like iChat.

The checking works in all the applications you need it to such as Safari, Mail TextEdit , iChat etc. and works in much the same way as Microsoft Word. It underlines the mistake (red for spelling, green for grammar) and you can then 'ctrl click' or 'right click' to bring up the suggested correction. You can switch off checking as you type and have the document checked once you are finished via the edit menu.

Verdict: Suitable for competent spellers but look elsewhere for much more comprehensive solutions that include support for homophones, prediction etc.