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EJBSFO's avatar
EJBSFO
Copper Contributor
Mar 04, 2022

Where are Read Aloud voices for Micorsoft Word?

I'm trying to use Read Aloud in Word and can only get access to "male" and "female" voices. I know there are others, Msft David, Msft Zira, and a whole bunch of others. I've used them in other programs. Where are they? How do I get access in Word? 

Thanks,

Ed B

 

ASUS laptop/Dell desktop, Windows 10 Pro up to date, Office 365 Personal, brand new. 

  • BECrittenden's avatar
    BECrittenden
    Copper Contributor
    Jul 28, 2022
    This is not really a solution, but if you have to have David and Zira back, I stumbled upon an annoying way to cure the problem guaranteed. Cut your internet connection. Word in 365 will then display David, Zira and Mark. Probably any voice you have on your PC. I thought I was stuck with the new crappy male, female voices. Which I hate.

    I have no idea why it is like that. I can’t find away to fix it. I use Word’s read aloud to edit my books. So I like switching from David to Zira depending on if it’s a male or female talking.
    The new male and female voices have been slightly improved, but they still sound bland, choppy and they accent when they don’t need to. The old David and Zira read much more naturally and accent things like a question when it needs to be. A lot of people like the male, female. They must be reading office documents. Male Female are terrible for a story.

    Like I said, terribly annoying work around. I have no choice. I hate the new male female voices.
    • LA-JAMES's avatar
      LA-JAMES
      Copper Contributor
      Sep 17, 2022
      OMGosh thank you!! I must have David!!
      • EJBSFO's avatar
        EJBSFO
        Copper Contributor
        Sep 18, 2022

        Well, the problem came back for me. Now nothing I do will bring back David and Zira. I even upgraded to Windows 11 (mistake) in hopes it would fix the problem. Nope.

         

        BECcrittenden's 'fix' works. Except, it's not a fix if you have to disconnect from the 'net and the cloud just to get the voices back! Hellooo MSFT!

         

        Here's a word processor that works perfectly with David and Zira plus a host of other voices: LibreOffice with the text-to-speech extension. Works better with MSFT's own voices than Word ever has, and you can even make changes to the text as the voice continues.

         

        Just one of a long list of Word bugs that remind me why I stopped using it.

  • Doug_Robbins_Word_MVP's avatar
    Doug_Robbins_Word_MVP
    MVP
    Mar 05, 2022

    EJBSFO It appears to be a bit random.

     

    First I had two voices

    Then I played around with the voices under Windows>Settings>Time & Language>Speech, previewing some of them,

     

     

    then when I went back to Word, I had three voices, none of them being any of the original two (and not including the one that I had left as the default under Windows Settings

     

     

    • EJBSFO's avatar
      EJBSFO
      Copper Contributor
      Mar 05, 2022

      Doug_Robbins_Word_MVP 

      Thanks for the reply, Doug.

      I'd already tried what you recommended but got nowhere with my Asus laptop running Win10 Pro. OTOH, my Dell Desktop running Win10 Home gives me access to several voices, including David and Zira, no problem. 

       

      The settings are the same on the two, only the Pro vs Home is different. Is that part of it? It's the laptop I need the voices on, so this is frustrating. 

       

      Here's something amusing: until recently, I was using LibreOffice rather than Word, and in LO I can get David and Zira to talk just fine. But I can't in Word? It was nonsense like this that moved me from Word to LO in the first place (after years of teaching Word to others!)

       

      Would it be worthwhile to delete the voice packs and reinstall? Reinstall Windows? 

       

      Thanks,

      Ed

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