Video help

A short video showing this feature in Readable for Mac v2. The video only contacts Vimeo once you press play.

Reading selected text aloud with the Play button or keyboard shortcut

Read a selection

  1. Highlight the text you want to hear.
  2. Click Play on the toolbar, or press ⌥ Option+⌘ Command+P.

Readable reads just the highlighted text and underlines each word as it goes.

Play from where you clicked

If nothing is selected, Play starts from the place you last clicked in the current window and reads down to the bottom of the window. If you’ve moved to another window since that click, Readable starts from the text cursor instead.

This works in any app, including PDFs, image-based documents and apps that don’t normally share their text. Readable detects the column you clicked in, so sidebars and the second column of a two-column page aren’t mixed into what you hear.

Sample text in TextEdit with a paragraph selected and a red underline under the word being spoken; the toolbar shows a red Stop button.
Readable reading a selected paragraph in TextEdit. The current word is underlined in red, and Play has become a red Stop button.

While Readable is speaking

The Play button turns into a red Stop button. Click it, or press Esc or ⌃ Control, to stop. See Stop Speech.