How to Convert Text to Speech on PC or Mac

Co-authored by wikiHow Staff

Last Updated: September 16, 2018 Tested

This wikiHow teaches you how to use your computer's text-to-speech feature to select a character, word, line, or paragraph on your screen, and have it read out by your computer's virtual assistant, using Mac or Windows.

Method 1

Method 1 of 2:
Using Windows

1
Press and hold down the ⊞ Win key on your keyboard. The Windows key is labeled with a Windows logo. You can usually find it between the Ctrl and Alt keys on the left side of your keyboard.
2
Press Ctrl and ↵ Enter while holding down ⊞ Win. This will turn on Narrator, the text-to-speech feature in Windows. You can use Narrator's scan mode to select text and convert it to speech.
3
Use the ↑ Up and ↓ Down arrow keys move to the next or previous line. This way, you can navigate between lines in an app or on a webpage.
- Hold down Ctrl as you press the Up and Down keys to move to the next/previous paragraph.
4
Use the → Right and ← Left keys move to the next/previous character. This will allow you to select a single character to convert to speech.
- Hold down Ctrl as you press Right and Left keys to move to the next/previous word.
5
Press the Spacebar on your keyboard. This will activate text-to-speech, and read out the selected line, paragraph, character, or word on your screen.

Method 2

Method 2 of 2:
Using Mac

1
Open System Preferences on your Mac. Find and click the gear icon in your Applications folder, or click the Apple icon on the top-left and select System Preferences.
2
Click the Accessibility category. This option looks like a white human icon in a blue circle.
3
Select Speech on the left. In the column on the left, find and click Speech under "General" to view and change your text-to-speech options.
4
Check the box next to "Speak selected text when the key is pressed." You can find this option at the bottom. When it's enabled, you can use a keyboard combination to convert text to speech in any app.
- The default key combination here is ⌥ Option+Esc. If you want to set a new combination, just click Change Key.
- If you want text-to-speech to announce every new window that pops up, you can also check the Enable announcements box here.
5
Highlight the text you want to convert to speech. You can open a web browser and highlight text on a webpage, or you can open a word processor to type some text, and then highlight the text with your cursor.
6
Press ⌥ Option+Esc on your keyboard. Your Mac will read out the highlighted text.
- If you want to stop halfway through, just press the same key combination again.