Natural Voices MS Word are gone

Question

I suddenly do not have the natural "Female/Male" options under my Read Aloud feature in Word anymore. All I have now are the robotic voices (Mark, Zira, and David). Does anyone have any idea as to what happened and how to get it back?

Answer 1

Note: all of the links given in this response are valid. They do not seem to be working by clicking on them. Try copying and pasting into your browser if you are getting an error message.

See: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/ive-been-unable-to-switch-the-read-aloud-function/a2acd6e5-a88f-4903-a930-39abd2ef657e and my response there.

It is apparently a bug that is for all devices.

Writing here does not bring it to the attention of anyone who can do anything about it. You are addressing your fellow users here. Microsoft is aware of the problem, though.

I recommend using the Public Feedback Portal.

https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/forum/fb6d67e3-301c-ec11-b6e7-0022481f8472

Then, once your feedback is posted, copy the URL and then come back here and post it so that others can comment and vote.

Be the squeaky wheel. Keep pressure on.

You can search for and vote on other feedback already posted. I would suggest a search for "read aloud."

https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/search/fb6d67e3-301c-ec11-b6e7-0022481f8472?q=%22read+aloud%22

Here is a list of some feedback links:

https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/5c539f58-29fc-ef11-a4de-6045bdb3947a

https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/3ca4e898-36fd-ef11-a4dd-7c1e52ead3c1

https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/cecdbcad-e1ee-ef11-a4dd-7c1e52c1c6b2

https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/a3c7a9bc-85ed-ef11-a4dd-7c1e52e3e882

Feel free to vote and vent a little.

For more on using feedback, see my article: This is a user-to-user support forum. -- You can give feedback TO MICROSOFT designers and decision makers on Microsoft Word or other Microsoft Products using their feedback mechanisms, (not here). (This is a link to directions.)

Answer 2

same here. it's a HUGE problem because i need the natural voice to read back my book, as i write it:(

Answer 3

This isn't a fix, but if you change the language of the document to English, Australia, it will allow you to choose Catherine, which is a much less grating alternative to the US versions.