OS X

How To Get Safari To Speak Website Text

Safari Icon

Safari is in my opinion the best web browser out there. I’ve found it to be faster than others and it also has some really neat features that are overlooked and that not many know about. One of those is the ability for it to read you a webpage out loud, so you don’t even have to be looking at it to get the story.

However it’s not as simple as simply pressing the speech button you also need to have it in a special mode for it work as best it can. Here’s how.

1. Open Safari.

2. Browse to the webpage you want read.

3. Click the ‘Reader’ button situated in the address bar. This will isolate the story and discard any adverts and other elements, making it a much better experience when it’s read out.

4. Click Edit in the menu bar.

5. Click Speech.

6. Click start speaking.

That’s it, it will read out the story so you can close your eyes and relax without staring at the screen. It is important that you use the Reader function though, as otherwise it will be speak literally everything on the page, which will sound like complete gobbledygook. Of course, probably the main use for this is people with disabilities, so if you have impaired eyesight, this is the perfect solution. Enjoy your eyes free reading!


About the author

Chris

I've been a passionate evangelist for Apple and the Macintosh throughout my working life, my first love was a Quadra 605 working with a small creative agency in the south of Norfolk UK in the mid 1990's, I later progressed to other roles in other Macintosh dominated industries, first as a Senior graphic designer at a small printing company and then a production manager at Guardian Media Group. As the publishing and printing sector wained I moved into Internet Marketing and in 2006 co-founded blurtit.com which grew to become one the top 200 visited sites in the US (according to Quantcast), at its peak receiving over 15 million visits per month. For the last ten years I have worked as an Affiliate and Consultant to many different business and start ups, my key skill set being online marketing, on page monetisation, landing page optimisation and traffic generation, if you would like to hire me or discuss your current project please reach out to me here.

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