The ribbon command Review | Speak lets you read aloud all or part of the text present in your Write document. This is also possible for text contained in tables or form objects.
If you are working with different languages in your document, format the text in the desired language on the ribbon tab Review | group Spelling | Change language beforehand (see Formatting text in another language). This allows Write to recognize which language should be used for read aloud.
Then proceed as follows to have the text read aloud:
| 1. | Place the cursor at the position where you want Write to start reading aloud. |
| Note: If only part of the text is to be read aloud, select this text section. |
| 2. | Choose the ribbon command Review | Speak  , the Text-to-speech module will open. |
| 3. | If necessary, click the Options button even before playback to adjust the settings for the speech output. For example, you can add the language pack required for a language in the dialog box if this language has not yet been installed in the Windows language settings. For details on this and the other options in the dialog box, see the paragraph below "Speech output options". |
| 4. | Press the button with the arrow  to start. Adjust the Volume and Speed as needed by using the sliders. |
| The button  pauses the read aloud. Press again to continue. |
| The button  jumps to the previous paragraph and  jumps to the next paragraph. |
| The  button stops the read aloud. If you now start again with , the read aloud starts again at the position of the cursor or at the beginning of the selected text section. |
| 5. | Click on Close to exit the Text-to-speech module. |
Text-to-speech options
If you click on the Options button in the Text-to-speech module, a dialog box opens in which you can make settings for the speech output.
The following options are available:
▪"Tables" section
| Not only the normal text passages in your document are read out, but also text that is included in tables. For this purpose, you can choose between two methods regarding the reading direction in tables. |
| Speak cells by row: After the first cell of the table has been read out, Write jumps to the cell to the right of it for further reading. Once the last cell in the horizontal direction is reached, the program jumps to the next row and continues there with the cell on the far left. |
| Speak cells by columns: After the first cell of the table is read out, Write jumps to the cell below it for further reading. Once the last cell in the vertical direction is reached, the program jumps to the next column and continues there with the cell at the top. |
▪"Options" section
| Spell numbers: With this option enabled, numbers are pronounced with special emphasis to make it easier to recognize the occurrence of a number. This option is well suited for enumerations with numbers, for example. |
| Spell punctuation: Enable this option if you want the punctuation marks of the text (. ; , ? ! - "" etc.) to be pronounced as in dictation for better orientation. |
▪Language/Voices
| There are different voices available for reading aloud. First select in the list Language the language for which the available voices are to be displayed. Then click on the desired voice for this language in the list Voices below. |
| If necessary, click the button Add Installed Voices to add more voices to the list. |
▪New language packs
| Write can only read aloud texts in the languages that have been installed in the Windows language settings. If the language required for reading aloud is missing here, you can access the Windows language settings directly via the button New language packs. Add the missing language there in the "Preferred languages" section. |
