MAC GUIDE
Hear the words in any picture.
Screenshots, scanned pages, slides, and photos of text. If you can’t select the words, your Mac can’t read them aloud. Here are two ways to fix that.
BUILT INTO MACOS
Use Live Text.
- Open the picture in Preview or Photos.
- Select the words, the same way you select text in a document.
- Press ⌥ Esc (Option-Esc) to hear them.
This needs Speak Selection turned on. How to make your Mac read text aloud shows the steps. It works only in apps that support Live Text, such as Preview and Photos.
ANYWHERE ON SCREEN
Draw a box around it.
Computer Reads Pretty reads text from any part of your screen, in any app. You don’t need to save the picture first.
- Press ⌃⇧O (Control-Shift-O).
- Drag a box around the words.
- Listen. Each word lights up as it’s read.
What you read also goes into your Playlist, so you can come back to it later.
GOOD FOR
Where it helps.
- Scanned PDFs where you can’t select the text.
- Screenshots that people send you.
- Slides in a presentation or a paused video.
- Apps and web pages that don’t let you select text.
COMPUTER READS PRETTY
Let your Mac do the reading.
Free to try, with every voice included. Unlimited listening is $20, one-time. One-time purchase. No subscription.
Steps checked in October 2026. Menu names can differ slightly between macOS versions.