How to Enable a Voice Over on a Mac

A high-resolution screen on your Mac computer displays vivid color and crisp text, but can be harsh on the eyes if you suffer from a visual disorder. Rather than squint to read what's on the screen, the VoiceOver tool reads selected text out loud to reduce eye strain. As a part of the Accessibility preferences the VoiceOver 3 feature in Snow Leopard is enhanced with braille display mirroring, web page summaries and web spots to improve the use of VoiceOver regardless of the application in use.

Things You'll Need

• Mac OS X v. 10.6 or later

Instructions

1. Click "Apple" located in the top-left corner of the desktop, and click "System Preferences."

2. Click "Universal Access" in the System Preferences menu, and click the VoiceOver tab to access the tool's settings.

3. Click the circle next to "On"in the VoiceOver section to enable the feature. Click "VoiceOver Utility" to configure the way VoiceOver operates when in use. Click the General tab in the side menu of the VoiceOver Utility.

4. Click the circle next to "Grouping items" to organize webpages by items. Click the blank checkboxes next to "Speak webpage summary" and "Move the VoiceOver cursor to it" to have the computer automatically read webpages and move the mouse's cursor where the text is located on the screen.

5. Close the window to save the VoiceOver changes.

References

• Apple: Accessibility - VoiceOver - In Depth
• Apple: Mac OS X - Universal Access