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Mac OS, MMA 10 -- I accidentally discovered that typing CtrlV between cells reads out the cell below, or, if you have text selected, reads out the text.

CtrlV would be Edit > Paste on Windows, so the text-to-speech feature would be triggered differently on Windows, if it's present at all.

I know there is a global Mac text-to-speech function (System Preferences > Dictation & Speech), but I have it turned off. Just to be sure, I changed the global Mac text-to-speech voice to "Vicky", but the voice in MMA stayed on "Alex." That is evidence that I'm triggering a MMA special.

Where is this text-to-speech configured; in particular, can I change the keyboard shortcut for it? It would be nice to explore if it has any other configurable features. I trolled the menus and the Preferences dialog box for a hint, but didn't find one.

MMA has a Speak built-in function, but that appears to be something else altogether.

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  • $\begingroup$ In previous versions of Mathematica for Linux, you would simply highlight any text and then wait for somebody to walk by and kindly ask them to read the text out loud. This was highly inefficient... but you could get a "Christopher Walken" accent fairly easily. Version 10 finally has built-in text-to-speech ! $\endgroup$
    – cjpembo
    Aug 19, 2014 at 2:17

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Mathematica uses the voice set in System Preferences for it's built-in speech functions. It determines that voice when it is launched, so to get it to recognize a new voice preference you have quit and relaunch.

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Under Windows, you select an expression then right-click on it and choose the Speak selection menu item from the contextual menu.

The voice used is the one set in the system preferences.

Using Speak or SpokenString give you some options, but they do not seem to relate to the Speak Selection Menu Item mentioned above.

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