Use VoiceOver to adjust the verbosity while navigating text on Mac
Verbosity in VoiceOver refers to the settings that control the amount of spoken detail while navigating text. When reading or editing text, VoiceOver can indicate punctuation, repeated spaces, leading indentation, and other text attributes—like bold and italic text. All of these settings can be customized in Verbosity settings.
Note: VO represents the VoiceOver modifier that you press with additional keys to enter VoiceOver commands. By default, you can press Control and Option together or just press Caps Lock.
Hear punctuation
To open the Verbosity rotor, press VO-V.
Press the Left Arrow or Right Arrow key until you hear “Punctuation” and the current setting.
Press the Up Arrow or Down Arrow key until you hear the setting you want to use, such as All or None, or a custom punctuation group you created, then press the Space bar to select it.
To close the rotor, press the Escape key or Fn-Tab.
Hear repeated spaces
VoiceOver can indicate when text contains repeated spaces between words and at the end of a line. VoiceOver does not indicate single spaces.
Go to VoiceOver Utility (press VO-Fn-F8 when VoiceOver is on).
Click the Verbosity category, then click Text.
Click the “Repeated spaces” pop-up menu.
Choose how you want VoiceOver to indicate repeated spaces: Speak with Count or Play Tone. If you don’t want VoiceOver to speak repeated spaces, choose Do Nothing.
Hear leading indentation
VoiceOver can speak leading tab and space indentation as a count of tabs and spaces or as the level of indentation. This can be especially useful when reading or writing programming code.
Go to VoiceOver Utility (press VO-Fn-F8 when VoiceOver is on).
Click the Verbosity category, then click Text.
Click the Line Indentation pop-up menu.
Do one of the following to hear VoiceOver speak or sound indentation:
As a count of tabs and spaces: Choose Speak Number of Spaces and Tabs.
As the level of indentation: Choose Speak Level or Sound Level. Choose Customize Level to set a default number of spaces per indent.
Note: In some apps, such as Xcode, the level of indentation may be inferred from context, and may not match your VoiceOver Utility customization.
If you don’t want VoiceOver to speak indentation, choose Do Nothing.
If you’re using portable preferences on a guest computer when you change whitespace settings, the settings are saved to the portable preferences drive and not to the guest computer.
Hear text attribute changes
To open the Verbosity rotor, press VO-V.
Press the Left Arrow or Right Arrow key until you hear “Text Attributes” and the current setting.
Press the Up Arrow or Down Arrow key until you hear the setting you want, such as Play Tone.
To close the rotor, press the Escape key or Fn-Tab.
You can also choose a text attribute setting in the Text tab of the Verbosity category in VoiceOver Utility.
To hear details about the text style closest to the VoiceOver cursor, press VO-T.
If you’re using portable preferences on a guest computer when you change text attribute settings, the settings are saved to the portable preferences drive and not to the guest computer.
You can also set punctuation options in the Text tab of the Verbosity category in VoiceOver Utility. To open VoiceOver Utility, press VO-Fn-F8 when VoiceOver is on.
If you’re using portable preferences on a guest computer when you change punctuation settings, the settings are saved to the portable preferences drive and not to the guest computer.
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