{"id":100,"date":"2017-08-30T10:59:54","date_gmt":"2017-08-30T14:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tbplante\/?p=100"},"modified":"2020-09-16T09:42:57","modified_gmt":"2020-09-16T13:42:57","slug":"ms-words-new-read-aloud-feature-helpful-for-dyslexia-and-typo-finding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tbplante\/2017\/08\/30\/ms-words-new-read-aloud-feature-helpful-for-dyslexia-and-typo-finding\/","title":{"rendered":"MS Word’s new Read Aloud feature: Helpful for dyslexia and typo-finding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

New in MS Word 365 is Read Aloud<\/strong>. It’s a pretty straightforward, stripped down\/simplified text-to-speech (TTS) tool. If you have dyslexia or otherwise are having a difficult time finding typos in your work, try this feature. It’s very helpful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To turn it on, just head over to the Review<\/strong> tab and click on the Read Aloud<\/strong> button.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It’ll automatically start reading from your cursor forward. Traditional icons for audio playback will float in the top right corner of your document window. These include play\/pause, skip back (one paragraph), ad skip forward (one paragraph).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is an icon of a dude with radio waves coming out of his head. That’s the settings button.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I like cranking the speed up by a few notches. You can also switch to other installed voices. I’m a fan of David’s sonorous speech. I’d totally pay a few bucks to have a Gilbert Gottfried voice though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if you have an older version of MS Word? Well, before this feature was released, I was using WordTalk<\/a> v4.3. It’s a free, standalone app from the folks at the University of Edinburgh. It has some nice keyboard shortcuts that you can enable. The interface is very klunky though. In a pinch, it’ll do the trick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2017-09-28 update<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After using Read Aloud<\/strong> consistently for the past month, I still enjoy and recommend its use. However, I find it to be a bit glitchy with documents that have many co-author comments or embedded references from Zotero. In these documents, the playback will stop mid-word on occasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are also some keyboard shortcuts for Read Aloud<\/strong>, documented here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n