Read Aloud Voices in WORD (they disappeared)

Anonymous
2021-11-30T00:39:13+00:00

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?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-02-01T17:26:42+00:00

    This... I've used the Male and Female voices from read aloud and all the sudden, they are both gone. David, Zira and Mark couldn't sound any more mechanical. not to mention they read as such

    "The 1st popup"

    as

    "The one'st popup"

    Microsoft, quit messing with stuff that isn't broken.

    give me back my male and female default options in Office. David Zira and the other one are horrible.

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-12-13T23:17:06+00:00

    Microsoft support responded with:

    Dear Fred,
    We are still working on it and we will share the updates soon. You can update your Office application after the update.
    Thanks,
    Sonam, Read Aloud Crew

    No explanation or acknowledgement that what I experience was real. Just a note that there will be an update someday. I hope (when it does arrive) that it's the same quality as what I was using and lost.

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-12-13T21:16:15+00:00

    This has also quit working for me as well. Same scenario as listed by Kestrel2022. I had an update that ran on December 8th and when I got on my computer on December 9th I noticed the feature not working. I have repaired my version of office and still doesn't work. It appears that Word doesn't know how to select a voice it only shows male or female and doesn't list the voice name. Again this was pointed out by Kestrel2022.

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-12-09T23:02:16+00:00

    So, yes a recent upgrade caused Word to lose the voices. The repeated suggestions to change the Narration settings is bunk. My narrations settings say Zira and have lots of options. But Word 365 has really bad "Male" and "Female" as the only settings. I have it all installed correctly and was correct before a recent program upgrade.

    So, without going to the Narration settings (as that won't work), any other suggestions as to how to get the voices back. I have seen many posts about this problem and the answer is always the same, one that doesn't actually work

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