OS X Dictionary, Google Search, and Text to Speech

Kurzweil 3000 has some great products. I have a customer that utilizes them to master difficult(extremely complex) topics in a short order. This customer switch to OS X last fall and had the Parallels Desktop installed. One of the guys installed a interface for Dragon Dictate OS X app. Worked better than on Windows.

Now on Friday came the wish for the Kurzweil 3000 on the Mac. I buckled and suggested using the built in apps from OS X. I had no problem with the Text to Speech. I turned it on in System Preferences>Speech>TexttoSpeech I set the hot key for control + V

Then came the request for dictionary definitions. I suggested we add a google search too. The solution is built into OS X. Double Click the word, right click(control click), select "Look up in Dictionary" or "Search on Google"


Bonus Solutions

In Cocoa Apps > Double Click Word > control+command+D

In Firefox

Install DictionarySearch 3.0
Restart Firefox
Go Tools>Add-ons>DictionarySearch 3.0
Preferences Button
Change the Dictionary 1 text to "OS X Dictionary Search"
Change the URL 1 to "dict:///$"
Click OK
Right Click to access dictionary in Firefox