Forum Discussion
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 progra...
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.
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.
- OMGosh thank you!! I must have David!!
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.
