MS Word Read Aloud voice changes tone

This solution worked for me, but I want a real solution. The change to Female and Male is simply not acceptable. I need to be able to chose from the voices I have installed and there is no justification for MS to change the intonation of the voice at will. Some of us use it for work and have no use for an emotional voice to read a research paper.

Yes, I remember the named voices too, and used Zira at times as well. I just want the old Female voice back. She was so natural and didn't assault us with emotional garbage that doesn't fit the text.

HelloScott,

My name is EngineTyme, an Independent Advisor and a Microsoft user like you and I would be glad to help you.

The Read Aloud feature in Microsoft Word can indeed exhibit variations in tone, and it’s not uncommon for users to notice these changes. Let’s explore a few possible reasons for this behavior:

Voice Selection: The Read Aloud tool uses different voices based on the language and locale settings in your Windows system. If you’ve customized your system’s voice settings, it might impact the tone you hear during Read Aloud. To change the voice, follow these steps: Open your document in Microsoft Word. Go to the Review tab at the top of the window. Click the Read Aloud button. Click the Settings button on the right side of the window. Under Voice selection, choose a different voice

Please let me know if you have any questions or concern.

Best regards, EngineTyme.

Umm... no. For me 'perky lady' is still there. I'm not fond of perky lady. I prefer the female robotic voice, if you are referring to Zira. The inflection and dramatic over stimulated voice that is currently a part of my Microsoft Read Aloud is just annoying for me. I'm hoping Microsoft will get this straightened out soon and with AI rapid advances and being that it IS Microsoft, you would think they could come up with a variety of voices for Read Aloud. But since it has been months now and the same male and female voices are still there (sigh), I'm not holding my breath.

The same thing has happened to me! I’m an author who listens to my book using Read Aloud on iOS. I will sometimes write in the Notes app and then copy and paste the text into Word. I did this just now and the voice changed entirely. It’s now some super perky, almost Valley Girl voice I don’t care for at all. When I click on text written before the voice change (i.e. previous chapters), the old, more traditional voice plays. What in the world is going on?

Yeah, this is what I'm getting now. My personal suspicion is a patch or something that may have come in behind our backs. I've had troubles with Read Aloud in the past relating to a patch that either changed it, disabled it, or did something else weird to it. So, I guess we'll just have to wait until they figure it out.