Listen To Writing Aloud on Your Computer with a Keyboard Shortcut

Did you know that listening to your writing aloud can allow you to catch more grammar errors, identify plot holes, hear poor sentence structure, and correct lulls in pace? It's true. You simply get a new perspective listening to your writing—or reading it aloud—that you can't get by reading silently to yourself. This has been proven time and time again by a number of different companies, including Poynter.org and The University of North Carolina among many others. 

I find that a simple writing trick that many people miss is that most computers have the ability to enable you to play text aloud with a keyboard shortcut. This functionality is called text-to-speech, or TTS. Since I discovered this handy little trick, I've been using it for reading and writing emails, blogs, my own novel, and pretty much everything else I read or write online. Here's how you can enable it for yourself

Enabling a Text-to-Speech Keyboard Shortcut on a Mac

Step 1: Go to preferences

First click the apple icon in the top left corner of your monitor and click system preferences. 

Step 2: Go to Accessibility Settings

Once in system preferences go to your "Accessibility" settings using the icon below. 

Step 3: Choose Your Voice and Speed 

Once in accessibility settings you'll want to select "Speech." From there, you can choose the speed and voice with which you want your highlighted text to be read to you. Make sure to use the play button to test out your settings. 

Step 4: Set Your Keyboard Shortcut 

Select the "Change Key..." button you see in the image above. From there, you simply have to set the keyboard combination you'd like to speak highlighted text aloud. I chose "option + S" but you can choose whatever you like. One small trick... You'll have to push both keys at the same time to set the shortcut, but make sure to push the "S" before "Option," "Shift," or "Ctrl" if you are using a key combo to activate text-to-speech. 

Enabling a Text-to-Speech Keyboard Shortcut on Windows 10

Step 1: Turn on Narrator

First, go to Settings >> Ease of Access >> Narrator to view narration options. From there, you can flip the "Turn on Narrator" switch to "On". 

Step 2: Explore Narrator Settings

Narrator has settings that allow you to automatically start the narrator after sign-on, Show Narrator home when Narrator starts, and most importantly, allow a keyboard shortcut to start the Narrator. (Win key + Ctrl + Enter is the default). 

Windows is a little more fully-featured than Mac on the narration front. You'll need to select your custom options for things like whether you want the text on the buttons spoken or simply the text on the screen, how the cursor follow the words spoken and other details. Play with the settings and test them out to get the text-to-speech just right so you can edit your writing faster.

Listen and Add Comments on the Go With Edit Out Loud

Now you can listen to your writing aloud from your home computer, but what about the vast majority of your day when you don't have time to sit at a desk? In those cases, use Edit Out Loud. It allows you to play Word or Google Docs from your mobile device, and tap, type, or speak comments that will be waiting for you in your Word doc when you get back to a computer. Learn more about Edit Out Loud at www.editoutloud.com.