Reverse Close Captioning for Facetime?

Question

Level 1

8 points

Reverse Close Captioning for Facetime?

My mother had a stroke and now has trouble speaking. We still want to use FaceTime since we live far apart and that is how we "see" each other. Is there a way for her to type what she wants to say and I can see it on the screen? If not, maybe that is a new feature that could be introduced. I'm sure we aren't the only people in this situation.

MacBook Air

Posted on Dec 9, 2017 1:38 PM

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Answer 1

judysings

Community Specialist

Dec 11, 2017 4:26 PM in response to bcarson70

Good afternoon bcarson70,

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!

I understand how important it is to keep your FaceTime communication with your mother after her stroke. I'll include some accessibility resources below for you:
You can use a feature like "Speak Selected Text" where your mom can type something, then select the Text and press a key combination for the computer to read the selected text.
You can try this out yourself:

Click the Apple Menu > System Preferences > Accessibility > Speech
Select the option "Speak selected text when the key is pressed". (You can change the key combination if you wish - for example "Command + T")
Now, Open TextEdit or Stickies so that its window is beside the FaceTime window.
Type a sentence like "It's a beautiful day here" (without the quotes).
Select the text and press the key combination

If this works for you, your mother could type out the things she wants to share with you ahead of the FaceTime call so all she has to do is select the sentence she wants when she is ready. (In addition to typing answers to your questions as explained above).

macOS Sierra: Hear your Mac speak text

Apple Accessibilty Support

Wishing you all the best.

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