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
    2022-06-28T15:05:43+00:00

    So this is the problem in tech-y terms:

    Office 365 embeds voices rather than drawing upon voices that are available in the Windows operating system.

    This means that no matter what you do to the registry and no matter how many voice packs you download, this will not solve / change the voices that pop up in word, outlook or any other app/program.

    This really is something that MS needs to fix on their end, through an update. There is no real way for a normal customer to change the embedded voices in MS Office 365.

    ...

    Sadly, the best 'fix' for this is to get on amazon or ebay and buy Office 2019 as a stand alone program, install it and never update it!

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-06-10T22:18:19+00:00

    All my voices are gone the only choice i have is male or female that are both annoying as crazy. what happened and how do i get it back?

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-05-27T21:04:24+00:00

    Suzanne,

    That didn't work. I updated to 2205 in my Office 2019 installation, and I still only have the three original voices. I've tried looking on Microsoft's website and can't find anything newer than the statement I read that said only Office 365 will get the good voices for Read Aloud.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-03-26T23:33:52+00:00

    Read Aloud has apparently only been given back to Office 2019 and newer. And Office 365. But my Word 2019 still doesn't have it. I'm trying to force some updates to see if that will help.

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