Problem: Turning voice over speech on and off

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Level 1

0 points

Problem: Turning voice over speech on and off

I am trying to turn the speech option for voice over on a friend's Macbook running Snow Leopard who is visually impaired. They just bought the Macbook with Voice Over turned on at the store. Somehow she says that she must have hit an option or key that turned off the speech. When I go into the Voice Over utility, under the speech option, the box for muting speech is unchecked, yet Speech is still turned off. I checked and unchecked the box, and still speech is off. Is there another way other than the keyboard gestures that would turn speech on or off? Thanks in advance for your help.

Macbook, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Sep 13, 2010 8:02 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 13, 2010 9:08 AM in response to radioaktvt

Hi,

If you are absolutely sure that neither the sound output of the Macbook nor the sound output of VoiceOver are muted then try to reset VoiceOver.

1. Open VoiceOver Preferences.
2. From the File menu choose "Reset All VoiceOver Preferences …".
3. Click "Reset.
4. Turn VoiceOver Off and On again. (hold command and press F5 twice).

If you still don't hear anything then it could be that the main sound output of the Macbook got muted somehow. I find that I often hit the mute button on my Apple wireless keyboard without noticing. So just make sure that its not muted and also hit the "Volume Up" a few times. Its so terribly obvious I know but its also very easy to miss. Lots of people do that.

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Answer 2

Sep 13, 2010 9:37 AM in response to radioaktvt

As pointed out above, check the system volume/mute settings.

The keyboard shortcut to toggle VO on & off is cmd FnF5 (which is generally not too easy to do accidentally), and of course it can be turned on & off from the Universal Access pane in System Preferences.

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Answer 3

Sep 13, 2010 9:44 AM in response to radioaktvt

Also,
Before trying any of the above just make sure that VoiceOver is on. Press command F5. Or open System Preferences, click on Universal Access and make sure that "Turn On VoiceOver" is checked.

Just Opening VoiceOver preferences does not actually turn VoiceOver on.

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Answer 4

WPLJ42

Level 1

19 points

Sep 13, 2010 10:33 AM in response to The Blind

There is an ability is System Preferences to decide how the F Keys are used. In my case, the feature is in keyboard and mouse, but I still have returned to Leopard. With Snow Leopard, it should be in the keyboard section. There is a checkbox to control how the F Keys operate.

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