MICROSOFT TEXT-TO-SPEECH

A few years ago, I wrote a post on reading aloud when editing/proofreading. I recently discovered an improvement on this in the text-to-speech function in Microsoft Word and now use it for all my editing work.

 ADVANTAGES

•  I can use this feature silently with headphones, so I don’t annoy those around me.

• There’s less chance of people doubting my sanity as it doesn’t involve talking to myself. 😉

• Humans often see what they expect to see and may overlook errors when reading aloud (such as consecutive articles, e.g. “the the”). Text-to-speech avoids this problem.

 DISADVANTAGES

• I have had issues with the response to “play” and and have often had to click on this two or three times.*

• Pronunciation is often incorrect. (Its interpretation of chemical formulae can be interesting!)

• There is a choice of voices (sometimes); however, the voice occasionally changes so that it sounds like several people speaking together, which is difficult to listen to. This can usually be resolved by stopping and restarting playback.

I’d love to hear about other people’s experience with this function.

Photo credit: Toshiyuki IMAI

*18/01/19 This issue appears to have been resolved in a recent update.