This browser is no longer supported.
Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
After upgrading my laptop to Windows 11, I tried Read Aloud in Word. To my surprise there were several voice options that were not there when I was using Windows 10. Then, after a week of using it to proofread my manuscript, I rebooted my laptop (something I do regularly to ensure updates) and the Read Aloud was ****. I tried to change back to the good voice and there were only the standard three voices (David, Zira, Mark). I worked with Microsoft support, who reinstall my Office 19 twice before finally saying there were only the three voices and I had to live with it.
Was I in some weird twilight zone for a week and not in the real world? What happened to my good Read Aloud voice? and how can I get it back?
A family of Microsoft word processing software products for creating web, email, and print documents.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
I have discovered that they are only available to subscribers of office 365. I managed to get them back on my PC by reinstalling office from my Microsoft login page. Didn't work on my laptop though, so very strange.
Last I heard, they released the new voices with Office 365 updates (the online version of office). Those with Office 2021 and earlier apparently are not going to get it back. [EDGE updates have it]. It's probably a drive toward orphaning the standalone versions of Office before dropping them completely.
Any update on this? I've spent 2 hours chatting with microsoft to no avail. Seems most had the "natural" voice pack originally but was subsequently removed quietly during an update. Not sure what is going on.
I have 365 and the same thing has happened to my office concerning the voices. A real shame.
I just read something in the help files that said the new voices are only available on Word 365. Those of us who prefer to not have our work stored in the cloud are apparently left out. I paid a lot for Office 2019 professional only to have it be obsolete so soon.