How to enable Hover Text

[tywebb13]

I don't think this info is quite as clearly explained by apple as it should be.

What they say on their website at https://www.apple.com/macos/catalina-preview/ is

What they don't say is that this is a feature that is something that has to be manually enabled before it will work. And what is worse is that they don't even explain how to enable it.
So if you go ahead and do exactly what apple say - hover over text and press control - nothing happens! Because you didn't enable it! Because apple didn't tell you to enable it! (or for that matter how to enable it).

Anyway, rant over. Here's how to enable it.

In the Finder menu follow through  -> System Preferences... -> Accessibility -> Zoom

Then tick Enable Hover Text as follows:

And by the way, it's ⌘, not Control.

 

[casperes1996]

I mean, yeah, it probably should be spelled out in the note. But all accessibility features are like that.
VoiceOver and zoom isn't on by default either. And they'll probably have ddetails about how to enable it for the public once we get nearer a public release, in case people don't open Accessibility settings on their own.

 

[tywebb13]

There is actually an error on their website too. It says "press control". It's not actually control. It's ⌘. And then you have to click on your touchpad or mouse.

So the problem is not just lack of communication. It's also misinformation. That's pretty bad. So I hope it will improve when this is released to the public.

One consolation however is that the ⌘ instruction is actually correctly given in the accessibility preference pane itself.

 

[casperes1996]

There is actually an error on their website too. It says "press control". It's not actually control. It's ⌘. And then you have to click on your touchpad or mouse.

So the problem is not just lack of communication. It's also misinformation. That's pretty bad. So I hope it will improve when this is released to the public.

One consolation however is that the ⌘ instruction is actually correctly given in the accessibility preference pane itself.

Well, it doesn't have to be command. You can change which key it is. And you don't need to press the mouse, if you hold down the key as you move the cursor over the text. Or if you lock it on with a tripple click