This chapter explains how to customize your VoiceOver environment to best suit your needs. You’ll learn how to customize settings for voices, spoken details, braille displays, pronunciations, and more. You’ll also learn how to reset, export, and import your preferences, as well as use portable preferences.
You can customize the voice, rate, pitch, volume, and intonation using a keyboard command or VoiceOver Utility.
If the last adjustment you made was to pitch, that’s the first setting you will hear; for example, “Pitch 50 percent.”
The new settings are applied only to the default voice.
To display pop-up menus where you can choose different voices to speak specific items, such as status or attributes, click the disclosure triangle to the left of Default.
You can type a number in the fields or use the steppers next to each field to adjust the values.
If you install Mac compatible voices in the Library/Speech/Voices folder of your home folder, they appear in the list of available voices. To make the voices available to other users who have access to your computer, install the voices in /Library/Speech/Voices.
If you’re using portable preferences on a guest computer at the time you change settings, the settings are saved to the portable preferences and not to the guest computer.
By default, VoiceOver speaks a high level of detail to help new Mac and VoiceOver users. But you can choose a different default setting. You can also choose a verbosity setting for specific items, such as checkboxes or scroll areas, and change the order in which item details are spoken.
For a description of the verbosity options, click the Help button (looks like a question mark) in the lower-right corner.
If you have a refreshable braille display connected to or paired with your computer, you can customize its layout. For example, you can choose to use contracted braille or specify which status cells you want to use.
For a description of the options, click the Help button (looks like a question mark) in the lower-right corner.
You can change the Web Item rotor to list only the types of items, such as links or tables, that you use most often when browsing webpages.
For a description of the options, click the Help button (looks like a question mark) in the lower-right corner.
The types of items you include in the rotor determine the statistics VoiceOver speaks in the webpage summary.
You can set the preferred pronunciation for words such as names or acronyms, and select word substitutions so that when certain text or symbols appear, a preferred word is substituted for the text or symbol. For example, when you’re in a chat where symbols are used to convey emotion, hear “Wink Smiley” instead of “semicolon dash right parenthesis.”
The menu displays only the applications that are open. To use the pronunciation in any application whenever it’s open, leave “All applications” selected.
Select the pronunciation and click the Remove (-) button near the bottom of the window.
You can assign a command for adding a pronunciation to a key on the numeric keypad or keyboard, or on a braille display. If you’re using a Multi-Touch trackpad, you can assign the command to a VoiceOver gesture.
You can create or rename a label for many user interface elements, such as images, buttons, tables, and more, in applications and webpages. You can export your custom labels to a file to share with other users.
When you create a custom label for an element, VoiceOver remembers pertinent information about the element and its location to associate with your label. If the element changes in a significant way, such as moving to a new location, VoiceOver may not recognize it as the same element. If this happens, you can re-create the custom label.
You can’t create labels for scroll areas, toolbars, or groups.
When you import a custom label preference file, VoiceOver merges those labels with your current set of custom labels.
If your computer has a numeric keypad, you can enable the NumPad Commander and assign VoiceOver commands to numpad keys, so you can enter the commands using only the numeric keypad. You can use the Keyboard Commander to assign VoiceOver commands to keyboard keys.
By default, the NumPad Commander has already assigned basic navigation and interaction commands to some keys. The Keyboard Commander has assigned scripts and shortcuts for opening applications to some keys. To use the default key assignments, just enable the Commanders. You can change the defaults or add your own.
Using a modifier key with numpad keys is optional. However, using a modifier key with keyboard keys is required. In the Keyboard Commander pane, select the left or right Option key as the modifier key.
You can use the Custom Commands menu to assign scripts and Automator workflows to keys. For example, you could run a script (such as a Perl, Ruby, Python, or AppleScript script) when you press a specific key on the keyboard.
If you have changed VoiceOver settings, you can reset all or specific preferences to their default values.
Important:It’s recommended you export your preferences before you reset them, to be able to use the export file as a backup of your preferences. If you’re using a portable preferences drive on your computer, eject the drive before you reset preferences; otherwise, the reset preferences will be synced to the portable preferences drive.
You can choose to reset basic, custom (such as hot spots or Keyboard Commander key assignments), or all preferences.
You can export all or specific VoiceOver settings as a file to save or share.
You can import preference files from VoiceOver in Mac OS X 10.5 and later. If a preference existed in Mac OS X 10.5 or later but no longer exists in Mac OS X 10.6, the preference is not imported.
To choose from more folders, click the disclosure triangle after the filename.
The default filename indicates the type of preferences exported and has a .voprefs extension. This file is not updated and will not reflect changes you make to preferences after exporting.
In VoiceOver Utility, choose File > Import Preferences or press Shift-Command-I.
VoiceOver replaces the current preferences of that type with those in the file. If you’re importing web spots or labels, VoiceOver merges them with your existing web spots or labels.
You can use portable preferences, stored on a removable storage device, to easily use your settings on other Mac computers and to keep an up-to-date copy of your current settings always available.
You can use portable preferences, stored on a removable storage device, to easily use your settings on other Mac computers and to keep an up-to-date copy of your current settings always available.
Do this set of steps once for each removable drive you want to use.
VoiceOver creates a VoiceOver folder on the drive.
VoiceOver detects the portable preferences drive and asks if you want to use it. When you use the drive:
In the computer where it was created: Any changes you make to VoiceOver preferences until you eject the drive are automatically saved to the drive. For example, if you increase the speech rate, your change is instantly saved to the portable preferences drive.
In another computer (as a guest): VoiceOver uses the drive for VoiceOver preferences. Any changes you make to VoiceOver preferences until you eject the drive are automatically saved to the drive and not to the guest computer.
When you’re done, eject the portable preferences drive using Finder, or click Stop in the General category table in VoiceOver Utility.
If you chose not to use the portable preferences drive when VoiceOver asked you, but later want to use it, click Start in the General category table in VoiceOver Utility.
If you chose to always use the portable preferences drive when VoiceOver asked you, but later want to use it only sometimes, delete the preferences file from the drive in Finder by pressing Command-Delete, and then set up the portable preferences drive again.
If you changed preferences while using the portable preferences drive on a guest computer, then the next time you use the drive in the computer where it was created, VoiceOver synchronizes preferences on the computer and the drive based on the most recent change to a preference.
You can export all or specific VoiceOver settings as a file to save or share. This file is not updated and will not reflect changes you make to preferences after exporting. You can import preference files from VoiceOver in Mac OS X 10.5 and later.