What is Rehearse Mode?
Rehearse Mode reads a script out loud but mutes the readback when it's your character's turn to speak. Learning lines has never been easier!
To begin a Rehearse session, simply tap on the Rehearse icon on the Top Toolbar:
The top toolbar icons and the Annotation toolbar are hidden and the Rehearse controls are now onscreen.
Settings
At the top left is the Settings gear; touch or click this to display the Rehearse Settings sidebar:
Select Narrator to set the narrator's speed, pitch, volume, language, region, and voice:
Select Font Type to choose a font:
Use the slider to set the size of the display font. This setting won't affect the page count in annotation mode.
Also in the Settings section are switches that let you turn Voice Cue on and off. Voice Cue uses Apple's Speech Recognition to listen to you rehearse as a character and waits for you to finish your line before resuming the readback. Voice Cue defaults to on. You can also set what's shown and heard: Off is hidden, View is displayed, and Voice is displayed and read aloud.
At the bottom of the sidebar, select the overlay you prefer: Highlight places a grey highlight around the line being read, and Fade slightly lightens all but the line being read.
To change whether the highlights appear over both a character's name and dialogue, their name only, or their dialogue only, see What is Auto-Highlighting?.
Character Voices
The Character Voices icon opens a sidebar in which you can assign voices to your characters:
Touch or click the color dot to the left of the name to choose a color for highlighting the character on the page, or touch or click the name to open this character's voice settings window. Here you can adjust this character's speaking rate, pitch, volume, language, and voice.
Rehearse as this character
If you want to read the lines as a particular character, select that character and toggle the switch to on. Now this character's lines won't be read out loud — that's your job!
Once you've customized a set of voices to perfection, you can save them by clicking the Save icon at the upper left of the panel. These voices will be available for any other scripts you open with characters of the same name (helpful for TV shows with recurring characters).
To review and edit the saved voices, click the 3-dot menu at the upper right of the Voices panel and choose Saved Voices. Here you can open any voice to adjust its settings. Click the left-pointing caret until you're back at the main Voices panel. If there are any current voice settings that don't match the saved settings, they'll have a blue triangle indicating that they need to be synced (click the Save icon at the upper left).
To delete a saved voice, click the 3-dot menu at the upper right of the Saved Voices panel and choose Delete. Click the red circle to the left of the character's voice you want to delete and then the red Delete square to confirm the deletion. Click OK to return to the Saved Voices panel.
Readback Speed
There are three settings to control the speed at which the script is read aloud:
- The script: The overall speed of the readback is set by the slider at the bottom left of the screen. Left is slower and right is faster;
- By character: If a character is selected in the Character Voices sidebar, there is a speed slider that controls how fast this character delivers lines;
- By line: Individual lines of dialogue may be slowed down or sped up by choosing the three-dot icon to the right of a line and adjusting the slider.
Readback Options
Just above the bottom toolbar is a small drag handle; drag it up to reveal additional settings. Drag it down (if it's up) to reduce the toolbar to one with only the speaking rate slider, the switch for single- or multiple-voice readback, and the play controls.
- Slate Countdown: Move the slider to the right to set a 1 to 30-second countdown before the readback begins;
- Speaking Rate: Set the overall speed of the readback;
- Voices: Switch between a single narrator reading the script or, if you have assigned voices to characters, those lines will be read in those voices;
- Line reminders: If you're rehearsing as a certain character, Scriptation will mute the readback of your character's lines so you can say them. If you need a little help remembering them, choose Before and you'll hear the lines read before the readback pauses so you can recite them. Choose After and the readback will pause for you to deliver the lines, then read them aloud;
- Loop: Choose Scene to have Scriptation repeat the readback of the current scene once it's finished, or Script to repeat the readback of the entire script.
To exit Rehearse Mode, click the X at the upper right corner.
What's Next
Are there better Playback voices available?
Updated on: 28/05/2026
Thank you!