Alternative to ZoomText for Mac?

By KMG, 7 October, 2021

Forum
Low Vision Accessibility on Apple Products

Is there a solid alternative to Zoom text for Mac? I am having a horrible time with the dismal options built in. I need to make the typing cursor thicker (not the mouse, which Mac insists is the cursor. No!) and the text-to-speech options are awful. You have extremely limited options for tracking and highlighting, the controls are clunky, and as far as shortcuts, I don't know what the start and stop are for speech. I guessed and got it to stop but it's not obvious.

ZoomText is no longer made for Mac and the oooooold version I have (the Ai Squared version!) no longer works on my Mac.

Options

Comments

By dog on Saturday, November 27, 2021 - 04:00

Voiceover is I think the only way that I know.
Don’t know if there’s a way to have a thicker typing cursor.

You can use additional apps like a Vimac to select links, and Talon https://talonvoice.com/ to zoom and also to use your voice as commands and to dictate.

Price: botH free.

By Ryand123! on Sunday, March 27, 2022 - 04:00

You are sooooooooo right about the text cursor issue. It's maddening. When I'm writing I frequently struggle to find it and it takes me out of my work. Almost ready to run back to Windows over it as Windows lets you make it so thick you couldn't possibly miss it. I sent a suggestion to Apple to add this as an accessibility feature but who knows if they will listen. It's a shame because the 5K iMac retina display is so nice. But people with low vision have never exactly been Apple's priority. Took them several years to make iPhones with a reasonable screen size long after Android phones had gotten bigger.

By Claire92 on Tuesday, February 27, 2024 - 04:00

Hi,
I also struggle with finding the text cursor when typing long passages of text and would love an option like on Windows to add the option of a marker like Triangles of different colours.
The free Word processor Abiword used to have an option in the settings to change the colour of the text cursor which helped a little, but not sure if its still the case now.