Forum Discussion
Read Aloud on Mac vs. Read Aloud on iPad
I've made the same discovery and would also love to use the female voice from Read Aloud on iPad on the Mac. The problem seems to be that on the Mac the system defaults to the MacOS voice software, which is vastly inferior.
I spoke to Microsoft Support about this, and was not able to get a satisfactory explanation for why this capability would be limited to the iPad. I’m under the impression that this better voice isn’t local on the iPad, but is instead coming from some source within Microsoft. If you’re not connected to WiFi it doesn’t work.
I’ve just tried an experiment using Read Aloud on my iPad and you’re right about the internet connection. I loaded Word and opened a document on Dropbox and clicked on Read Aloud. Perfect, decent female voice, proper intonation. I kept the document open and switched WiFi off. Read Aloud now has a robotic male voice - horrible. On my brand new MacBook (which I bought specifically for to use for editing writing on a proper keyboard) I can only choose from Apple’s own voices. So it looks like an Apple problem, but why do they make the iPad Os capable of using Microsoft’s voices yet not on the MacOS. Incidentally the voices on Word on iPhone work just as well as the voices on iPad - but again only when an internet connection is open.
