Use VoiceOver to hear whitespace on Mac
When reading or editing text, VoiceOver can indicate repeated spaces and speak leading indentation.
Note: VO represents the VoiceOver modifier. See Use the VoiceOver modifier.
Hear repeated spaces
VoiceOver can indicate when text contains repeated spaces between words and at the end of a line. VoiceOver does not indicate single spaces.
Open VoiceOver Utility (press VO-F8 when VoiceOver is on), click the Verbosity category, then click Text.
Click the “Repeated spaces” pop-up menu.
Choose how you want VoiceOver to indicate repeated spaces: Speak with Count or Play Tone. If you don’t want VoiceOver to speak repeated spaces, choose Do Nothing.
Hear leading indentation
VoiceOver can speak leading tab and space indentation as a count of tabs and spaces or as the level of indentation. This can be especially useful when writing programming code.
Open VoiceOver Utility (press VO-F8 when VoiceOver is on), click the Verbosity category, then click Text.
Click the “Leading tab and space indentation” pop-up menu.
Do one of the following to hear VoiceOver speak indentation:
As a count of tabs and spaces: Choose Speak Number of Spaces and Tabs.
As the level of indentation: Choose Speak with Level, 2 Spaces per Indent or Speak with Level, 4 Spaces per Indent.
If you don’t want VoiceOver to speak indentation, choose Do Nothing.
If you’re using portable preferences on a guest computer when you change whitespace settings, the settings are saved to the portable preferences drive and not to the guest computer.