Text, Verbosity category, VoiceOver Utility on Mac
Use the Text pane of the Verbosity category in VoiceOver Utility to customise the amount of punctuation, text and text attributes you hear, among other options.
To open VoiceOver Utility, press Command-F5 to turn VoiceOver on, then press VO-F8.
Note: VO represents the VoiceOver modifier. See Use the VoiceOver modifier.
Option | Description |
|---|---|
Punctuation | Click the pop-up menu, then choose how much punctuation you want to hear: All: Hear all special symbols and punctuation except for spaces. VoiceOver reads a sentence like this: “She turned and stopped comma then started walking again full stop”. Some: Hear keyboard symbols and many maths symbols, such as + (plus sign). None: Hear text as you would normally read it, with pauses for commas and full stops. Customise: Create a custom punctuation group to use as needed. For example, if you don’t want to hear question and exclamation marks when typing emails but do want to hear them when typing programming code, you can create a custom punctuation group to use when you type code. |
Repeated Punctuation | Click the pop-up menu, then choose how you want to hear repeated punctuation: always, with a count, or a specific number of times. |
While typing speak | Click the pop-up menu, then choose what you want to hear while typing (called the “typing echo”): Characters, Words, Characters and Words, or Nothing. |
When moving the cursor | Click the pop-up menu, then choose how you want to hear text when moving the VoiceOver cursor: “Speak text the cursor passes” or “Speak text to the right of the cursor”. |
When text attributes change | Click the pop-up menu, then choose how you want to hear changes in text attributes: Do Nothing, Play Tone or Speak Attributes. |
When encountering a misspelled word | Click the pop-up menu, then choose how you want to hear misspelled words: Do Nothing: Hear the word. Play Tone: Hear a sound effect. Speak Attributes: Hear “misspelled”, then the word. Change Pitch: Lower the pitch. |
When encountering a link/attachment | Click the pop-up menu, then choose how you want to hear links and attachments: Speak: Hear “link”, then the link text, or “embedded”, then the attachment name. Change Pitch: Hear the link text or attachment name in a different voice pitch. Play Tone: Hear a sound effect. Do Nothing: Hear the link text or attachment name. |
Read numbers as | Click the pop-up menu, then choose how you want to hear numbers: Words or Digits. |
When reading a capital letter | Click the pop-up menu, then choose how you want to hear uppercase letters or words that start with uppercase letters, depending on your settings for typing echo: Change Pitch: Hear the letter or word in a different voice pitch than lowercase text. Play Tone: Hear a sound effect. Speak Cap: Hear “cap”, then the letter or word. Do Nothing: Hear the letter or word. |
When deleting text | Click the pop-up menu, then choose how you want to hear text that you’re deleting: Change Pitch: Hear the text you’re deleting in a different voice pitch to other text. Play Tone: Hear a sound effect. Speak: Hear “deleting”, then the text you’re deleting. Do Nothing: Hear the text you’re deleting. |
Append phonetic pronunciation to single characters | Always hear characters read phonetically. For example, if VoiceOver is reading text by character, it reads “a alpha n november t tango”. |