WabeWalker said:
It is possible for all of Mac OS X (in any native application)...
System Preferences-> Speech-> Spoken User Interface
Under
"Other spoken items" check
"Selected text when the key is pressed..." and then select a key combination (I use cmd+j).
This means that you can have text anywhere in Mac OS X spoken... I listen to news articles online, long posts by people, etc. I also use it to proof read post and e-mail (pretty much anything I write) before sending them off to be read by others.
Infact it was this feature of Mac OS X (more than just about any other) that moved me away from Mac OS 8/9 (where I used to write everything in Simple Text in order to have my writing proof read).
So after five years or so, I can't imagine writing on any other system other than Mac OS X now.
My system's default voice is
Fred, and I noticed that in 10.3 and later the voice needs to be sped up just a little (not sure why that changed... but it was a change in the speech engine and not the
Fred voice file.