Abby FineReader does a fantastic job in achieving this. The underlying assumption here is that the pdf document you want to read has character recognition. To stop the speech, type the same key combination again. Each time you type an appropriate key combination, your Mac will read aloud any text you have selected. (These two options require VoiceOver to be active)ġ) Navigate the window using ‘Quick Nav’ – Press the left and right arrow keys simultaneously to toggle Quick Nav on and off – Once Quick Nav is active, use the arrow keys to anchor the VoiceOver cursor to the precise part of the page from which you want VoiceOver to start readingĢ) Navigate the window using the ‘Item Chooser’ - Activate the ‘Item Chooser with VO-I - This brings up a list on your screen on where to anchor the VoiceOver cursor to begin your reading On Mac running Big Sur, click Accessibility > Spoken Content, then tick the 'Speak selection ' checkbox.

I currently know of 2 ways to achieve this. Single Page view locks VoiceOver on the particular page of the pdf document you wish to read – Say, for example that you wish to start on page 47 of a 100 page pdf documentģ)Ĝhoose the starting page of the pdf document you want to readĪt this point you have selected your desired page and are at single-page mode on Preview and are ready to position the Voiceover cursor precisely at the point where you want VoiceOver to start reading.

It may not give you great lasagna but it will give you voiceover on any pdf file you want or need to read on your Mac!ġ) Use ‘Preview’ to view the pdf documentĢ) Make sure you have ‘Single Page’ selected on Preview’s ‘View’ drop-down menu – You may also choose – to ‘View Thumbnails’ of the pdf pages There may be better ways but this is what I know right now and it works! Follow the recipe below. I want to share my current knowledge on achieving this.

Reading pdf on mac