Adobe Read out loud - sounds like a robot on Mac computer

Report · May 08, 2020

Please can someone advise on how to change the voice to the one that sounds like a human on Apple Mac computers? On windows it sounds like a human but on apple computers the read out loud voice sounds like a robot. I have tried different voices but still same problem. I will be grateful for some suggestions on how to resolve this problem. Thank you.

Report · May 14, 2020

I believe this has been answered before in the forums.

And the text to speech voices are taken from what the operating system provides. You can check in: Apple Icon > System Preferences > Accessibility >

There should be options there to activate text-to-speech and also to change the voice, the pitch and speed.

Report · May 17, 2020

Thank you.

Report · Jan 29, 2022

Hello, I'm running 2021.011.20039 and to ensure the reading voice in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC is the same as the one on the System Preferences, I've chosen Daniel in both menus. And as a person with accessibilty needs, I have encountered major problems.

1) The selection in Apple's System Pref/Accessibility/Spoken Content have not ported over into Adobe Acrobat, for some reason. As someone with special needs, the I have found Adobe Acrobat Pro DC to be completely incompatible for my accessibillty needs and the result is am now paying even MORE money to use Speechify. The Daniel voice in Adobe Acrobat Pro sounds like a robot (nothing like the Daniel in the OS). I paid for the annual subscription in hopes that I could make use of the "Read Aloud" function. Please do not list your program as accessibilty-enabled when it further disables me from doing my work.

2) When I go about changing the voice, there is no way to test the voices selected in the Voice drop down menu, other than to Select OK, then Shift+Command+V to play and Shift+Command+C to start/pause. Some of these voices are in difference languages and there is no indication to which of these voices is English (at least on the Mac OS); so the only way to find out which is English is to test out all 30+ voices individually. This is not only an inconvenience, but if I were in a meeting with colleagues on a new computer and had to go through each and every selection to find the English speaking voice, I would miss out on the meeting. I would not only be disadvantaged, but would consider this an insult to the disability community. The barriers for engagement must be lowered and Adobe needs to take this seriously.

Though I have used accessibility tools quite extensively, as a newbie to Pro I'm also open to the fact that I might have missed something here. Please let me know here and/or feel free to contact me with a solution that is not straightfoward on your interface.

Report · Sep 02, 2023

I had the same issue then I changed the voice to Samantha and she sounds less robotic.