[Tom_Diola]

My Son is taking Spanish in Summer School. We used to use those synthesized voices - one was even Spanish and if you typed in spanish text it would read it back in 'spanish'.
So can OS X do the same thing in one of the text editors?

[jpmhughes]

If you use many apps, even text edit, whatever you type can be read back (regardless of the language).
Type in the words and then select Speech under Edit, the "start speaking".
As usuall the "speech' does the best it can...
Is this what you mean?
Jim
BTW, many other applications (Cocoa apps) can also use the speech feature. It can be found under the application name and then services, speech..

[AKS9]

Yeah, but it doesn't actually say it in spanish. It reads them as if they were english words and it's not understandable.
I havn't found a way to use the voices in spanish, but I don't use them anyway. Although (as you probably know) you can make the Finder and other applications appear in Spanish via System Preferences.

[Tom_Diola]

Hi - Actually it was first called plaintalk and then called macintalk pro and there were a couple of custom voices (one was a spanish guy) and if you put spanish words in there he would enunciate it correctly with the accent). I tried to boot into OS 9 to see if it was still there and it seems I can't boot into OS 9 any more ..?

[SueG]

PlainTalk is for speech recognition. You're probably thinking of Text to Speech. Put what you want into Textedit, go to the Apple menu / System Preferences / System / Speech for all the options you need. Most of us did not install the Mexican Spanish Text to Speech option, but it should be on your CDs somewhere, no?
There are always third party apps to extend the capabilities of system utilities. Dejal Narrator allows text to speech to assign different voices to different parts of a text. Rainbow Flight's Speech Queue adds Applescript support and customisable voices.

[Tom_Diola]

I never uninstalled OS 9. But when I ask it to boot it comes up with the Loading System OS 9.2 and it never shows up it just disappears from my dock ... arghh
I wanted to go searching around OS 9 for that Mexican thing ...

[SueG]

In OS 9 you type into Simpletext, with Text to Speech installed there should be a Sound menu with Speak All and Speak Selection choices. Text to Speech and Mexican Spanish Text to Speech are separate apps, so probably there would be two Sound menus (er, uno sonido?).
I don't see anything for OS X Speech, either. Maybe you need to have the Spanish version of the OS, since it's in the system now?

[AKS9]

Spanish version of the OS? When you install OSX, you can choose what languages you want to install, and you can switch languages via System Preferences.
As for booting OS9, Tom you are actually launching classic, which is to use classic apps, you aren't actually going to get to the classic desktop, etc. Go to Startup disk in SystemPreferences, and chose "System Folder" instead of "System" to restart the computer into OS9.

[Tom_Diola]

Whoa it's been so long since I used OS 9.2 that I had forgotten what happens. I still have a version of Dreamweaver that only works in OS 9.2 and it started fine. I think I'll have to use Cocktail to get some of OS 9 back onto my OS X desktop... I think I'll just try to use the Spanish voice in OS 9 . . .