Editing PlainTalk (section)

====Text-to-speech in Mac OS X====
Text-to-speech has been a part of every [[Mac OS X]] (later macOS) version. The Victoria voice was enhanced significantly in [[Mac OS X v10.3]], and added as Vicki (Victoria was not removed). Its size was almost 20 times greater, because of the higher-quality diphone samples used.

A new, much more natural-sounding voice, called "Alex" has been added to the Mac text-to-speech roster with the release of [[Mac OS X 10.5]] Leopard.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.apple.com/macosx/accessibility/ |title=Accessibility - OS X |publisher=Apple |access-date=2016-04-27}}</ref>

With [[Mac OS X 10.7]] Lion, voices are available in additional U.S. English and other English accents, as well as 21 other languages.
<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is/accessibility.html |title=Apple - OS X Lion - Universal Access |access-date=July 23, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110924130741/http://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is/accessibility.html |archive-date=September 24, 2011 }}</ref>

The ''Speak selected text when key is pressed'' feature allows selected text from any application to be read via a key combination. From [[Mac OS X 10.1]] to [[Mac OS X 10.6]], the feature would copy the selected text to the clipboard and read it from there. From [[Mac OS X 10.7]] to [[Mac OS X 10.10]], a new implementation of the feature required software developers to implement a speech synthesis [[Application programming interface|API]] into their applications.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/SpeechSynthesisProgrammingGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html |title=Introduction to Speech Synthesis Programming Guide |website=Developer.apple.com |date=2006-09-05 |access-date=2016-04-27}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/SpeechSynthesisProgrammingGuide/SpeechOverview/SpeechOverview.html |title=Speech Synthesis in OS X |website=Developer.apple.com |date=2006-09-05 |access-date=2016-04-27}}</ref> This prevented the clipboard from being overwritten, but also meant that, for applications that did not use the API, the feature would not function as expected, reading the title bar rather than the selected text.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=74278 |title=[Solved&#93; Text to speech only reads the document title (View topic) • Apache OpenOffice Community Forum |website=Forum.openoffice.org |access-date=2016-04-27}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://github.com/scottmartin/speak-selected-text-sublime |title=scottmartin/speak-selected-text-sublime: A plugin to use the Mac's text to speech from Sublime Text 2 |website=GitHub.com |access-date=2016-04-27}}</ref>

In macOS Sierra 10.12, Siri was introduced for the Mac, however, the voice was not available as a System Voice, which meant that the Siri voices could be only used in Siri. Siri was made available as a System voice in macOS Catalina 10.15, so that it would work for any text. The Siri voices work in a completely different way and the {{code|say}} command remains unable to use Siri.

In the macOS Big Sur 11.3 update, gender references to all voices were removed, coinciding with the change in Siri voices on iOS 14.5 and macOS 11.3 and later, as part of Apple's efforts to promote gender inclusivity.