New natural sounding voice in Read aloud(Male, Female) missing?

Brass Contributor

We are using Microsoft 365, and switched to 2201 Current Channel version of Office apps for us to test the Read aloud feature in Word, but it's not showing.
It should be available starting from 2109 Current channel version according here: New natural-sounding voices come to Read Aloud (office.com)
Has this feature been pulled out, or do we need to download those voices?


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It should be like this I suppose but it's not.

 

RaizelX_2-1643874880698.png

 

Your inputs are highly appreciated. Thank you!

 

2 Replies

@RaizelX: I am facing this issue as well.

@RaizelX I have also found this feature spontaneously disappearing. I managed to fix this by first checking I had a stable internet connection, the "Optional connected experiences" was turned on and finally checking office 365 for updates. When the update was complete the natural voices returned.

 

It seems that the natural voices are a cloud-based feature so require an internet connection. "Optional connected experiences" needs to be activated to use features such as this. This can be done by (when in Word) file -> General -> Privacy settings -> Turn on optional connected experiences

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(when in Word) Check for update by : 

File -> Account -> update options -> update now