MS Word Read Aloud voice changes tone

Anonymous
2024-03-20T11:04:45+00:00

I'm using the Read Aloud feature, and the "female" voice changed its tone when it hit this one paragraph. I don't think there's anything special about the text, but the voice changed to sound emotionally elated. Why is it doing this, when I never hear it use emotion anywhere else?

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-04-13T17:54:13+00:00

    I've spent a lot more time with it since this thread started because I figured out I can open my Zotero PDFs to Word to use Read Aloud on iOS. I don't notice the valley girl inflection nearly as much anymore, but I think what a lot of people object to is the breathiness more than the misplaced inflection. If you can ignore the lack of context awareness, speeding up the voice a notch removes the breathy feel.

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-04-13T16:51:02+00:00

    Actually Word updated in March and the reading voice now includes inflection.

    I suppose I would not mind the inflection if it were to at least reflect upon the context of what is being said. Like some others in here, I write books, and having that "valley girl" inflection is entirely inappropriate to the context.

    On the other hand, if MS is putting so much attention into this new Copilot AI thing, that might be cool if it could analyze the context for any statements like "so-n-so said 'this' angrily, while whosits said 'that', happily." Otherwise, it should go back to no inflection, as this would be the best for the neutrality of the idea.

    Furthermore, I would still say, if you're going to involve anything at all, it should be a choice so you can customize it your way.

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