Geek Posted June 29, 2011 Posted June 29, 2011 <div class="KonaBody"><p><img src="http://osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/text-to-spoken-audio.jpg" alt="Convert Text to Spoken Audio the Easy Way" title="text-to-spoken-audio" width="614" height="107" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-18059" /></p> <p>I showed you how to <a href="http://osxdaily.com/2011/06/28/convert-a-text-file-into-spoken-audio/">convert text to spoken audio files via the command line</a> but some people ran into trouble with that method. It turns out I completely over-engineered how to do this, because there is a much easier way to convert text to audio that is guaranteed to work for everyone, you just have to enable it first in OS X 10.6:</p> <h2 style="font-size:1.3em;">Enable “Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track” in Services – Mac OS X 10.6.8 or lower</h2> <p>This is such a useful feature I’m surprised it isn’t enabled by default in 10.6 (it is in Lion, read on for that). Here’s how to enable text to audio conversion prior to 10.7:</p> <ul> <li>Launch System Preferences</li> <li>Click on the “Keyboard” panel</li> <li>Click again on “Keyboard Shortcuts” and select “Services” from the left side menu</li> <li>Scroll down until you see the “Text” option group, click the checkbox next to “Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track”</li> </ul> <p><img src="http://osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/enable-text-to-audio-in-services.jpg" alt="Enable Text Files to Spoken Audio in Services" title="enable-text-to-audio-in-services" width="620" height="554" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-18058" /></p> <p>Now you just need to close up System Preferences and the option to convert text files and text blocks to spoken audio is enabled. </p> <p><strong>To access the feature, just <a href="http://osxdaily.com/2011/05/24/enable-right-click-mac/">right-click</a> on any text block and select the “Add to iTunes as Spoken Track” option from the pop-up menu</strong>. You’ll then see the Services gear churning away in your menu bar and in no time the file will be automatically loaded into iTunes as a spoken audio track.</p> <p>This follows the same convention as the command line method in that the default voice is whatever you set your Mac’s text-to-speech voice option to, you can always change that in the Speech preference pane.</p> <p><span id="more-18056"></span></p> <h2 style="font-size:1.3em;">Converting Text to Spoken Audio in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion</h2> <p>The Text to Spoken Audio feature is enabled by default in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, so to use it in Lion all you need to do is right click on a block of text and select “Add to iTunes as Spoken Track” and OS X takes care of the rest. </p> <p><img src="http://osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/lion-text-to-speech.jpg" alt="OS X Lion text to speech audio file" title="lion-text-to-speech" width="525" height="321" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-18057" /></p> <p>This will also record in the default voice, but with the myriad of realistic <a href="http://osxdaily.com/2011/05/15/mac-os-x-lion-new-text-to-speech-voices-samples/">new voices available in Lion</a> this feature is going to be even more useful.</p> <p>The Lion screenshot comes via <a href="http://www.macgasm.net/2011/06/28/lion-select-text-right-click-boom-add-to-itunes/">MacGasm</a>.</p> </div> <p><a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/8XSfY0SPTMfQtU2QwV2Azu1B6E0/0/da"><img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/8XSfY0SPTMfQtU2QwV2Azu1B6E0/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"></img></a><br/> <a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/8XSfY0SPTMfQtU2QwV2Azu1B6E0/1/da"><img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/8XSfY0SPTMfQtU2QwV2Azu1B6E0/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"></img></a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?a=Cj1-JxaVlbk:wjdIPBJJPdA:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?a=Cj1-JxaVlbk:wjdIPBJJPdA:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?i=Cj1-JxaVlbk:wjdIPBJJPdA:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?a=Cj1-JxaVlbk:wjdIPBJJPdA:D7DqB2pKExk"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?i=Cj1-JxaVlbk:wjdIPBJJPdA:D7DqB2pKExk" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?a=Cj1-JxaVlbk:wjdIPBJJPdA:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?a=Cj1-JxaVlbk:wjdIPBJJPdA:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/osxdaily/~4/Cj1-JxaVlbk" height="1" width="1"/> View the full article
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