text-to-speech within Word

[Robert McN]

I own a copy of MS Office for Office XP (2002). Although this isn't the
latest edition, still it has surprised me that (as far as I know) MS has not
yet integrated a text-to-speech function into MS Word. Currently, when I
want to proofread an important document, I use a very good free app called,
"ReadPlease." The main limitations of this program is that it has a
relatively small capacity in terms of memory and it can't be integrated
directly into MS Word. I was wondering if there are any reliable, bug-free
apps out there that can be integrated into MS Word so that one can have
one's Word documents read by the computer from within the Word program.
Thanks for any information.

 

[Jay Freedman]

I own a copy of MS Office for Office XP (2002). Although this isn't
the latest edition, still it has surprised me that (as far as I know)
MS has not yet integrated a text-to-speech function into MS Word.
Currently, when I want to proofread an important document, I use a
very good free app called, "ReadPlease." The main limitations of
this program is that it has a relatively small capacity in terms of
memory and it can't be integrated directly into MS Word. I was
wondering if there are any reliable, bug-free apps out there that
can be integrated into MS Word so that one can have one's Word
documents read by the computer from within the Word program. Thanks
for any information.

See http://www.gmayor.com/word_text_to_speech.htm.

 

[garfield-n-odie]

Actually, Word 2002 (Office XP) does include text-to-speech capability if you
also have Windows XP.
1. In Windows, click on Start | Control Panel | Speech | Text to Speech |
<choose voice and volume settings> | OK. See
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=306902 "How To Configure and Use
Text-to-Speech in Windows XP" for more information.
2. Custom-install all of the Alternative User Input features from the
Word/Office CD. These features are not automatically installed in a typical
installation.
3. In Word, click on Tools | Speech. It is not necessary to completely
configure Speech Recognition at this point, so you can click on Cancel if you
want to skip this part for now. The Language toolbar should appear somewhere
on the screen. Click on the little downward-pointing triangle at the bottom
right corner of the Language toolbar, and make sure the "Speak Text" option
is checked.
4. Open a Word document, click where you want Word to begin reading aloud
or select the text that you want Word to read aloud, and click on the Speak
button on the Language toolbar.