Using Skim to Read PDFs Aloud on Your Mac

This is one of those situations where I went looking for directions to a specific task in order to give them to a student...and couldn't find them. Yet, this is a function I use fairly regularly and refer students to, so, gosh, wouldn't it be helpful to have those instructions available?

Hence, this post.

Skim is a fabulous free program for the Mac. All of the things that I would want to do with a printed PDF I can do with Skim (except perhaps wadding up the file and shooting wastepaper baskets with it). I can highlight, circle, underline, write notes, and put stickies on the page. What's even better, though, I can also search those notes and stickies, or the whole document, quickly and easily. Further, using the Mac's built-in capability to turn text into speech, I can have the document read aloud to me. That read-aloud feature is also built into Acrobat Reader, but using Skim gives me all those annotation tools plus the read-aloud. Here's how.

The Setup

Let's get your Mac ready to read whatever you ask it to.

1. Go to System Preferences
2. Click on Universal Access
3. Check the "Enable access for assistive devices" box in the Seeing tab
4. Go back to System Preferences (Show All)
5. Click on Speech
6. Choose a System Voice that doesn't irritate you. Alex (available with OS 10.5 and later) is dandy. For older systems, Victoria or Vicki are usually good choices. Some of the others will likely drive you 'round the bend. Test them by clicking Play
   
7. Choose a speed that's comfortable by adjusting the Speaking Rate slider about some and then clicking Play
8. Create a shortcut key to read - this will make the reading process much much faster later on. Do this by checking the "Speak selected text when the key is pressed" box and pressing the key (or key combination) you want to use to start reading aloud. I use CTRL+R. Make sure you select something that isn't used for another reason, then click OK
9. Close System Preferences

Using Speech in Skim

There are two ways to read: starting from the beginning and reading straight through, or reading just specifically selected text.
To read straight through:

1. Open Skim, then open the document you want to read (make sure it's a PDF)
   
2. In the Edit menu, select Speech, then Start Speaking
3. To stop, go to the Edit menu, select Speech, then Stop Speaking

Sometimes, though, you'll want to pick up on page 2, or you only really want to read one section aloud. Here's how to do that:

1. Highlight the text you want to read aloud
2. Press the key combination you set up earlier (told you it would come in handy!)
3. To stop, press the key combination again
   

The Catch

Unfortunately, the read-aloud function will only work in PDFs that are text-based rather than image-based. If you can't highlight and select text, you won't be able to read it aloud. You also won't be able to highlight it, but you can use the other annotation tools in Skim. The good news? If you are an SOU student receiving alternate format text (or are eligible to) from us, I can absolutely convert these image-based PDFs for you. Just email them to me and I'll send you back text-based PDFs.

Have you found other great text-to-speech options on the Mac? Let me know about them in the comments!