New Voice Styles And Emotional Tones
We received feedback from customers that more voice options would help them better apply Azure Neural TTS to different user scenarios. In addition, supporting voice emotions and voice styles would help deliver the most engaging experience to end-users. With that feedback, we decided to add five new neural voices in US-English, expanding from 15 to 20. This includes two female voicesJane and Nancyand three male voicesDavis, Jason, and Tony. We also expanded to eight emotional tones for many of our existing and new voices, including cheerful, angry, sad, excited, hopeful, friendly, unfriendly, and terrified. Finally, to improve spatial experiences, we added shouting and whispering.
Watson Text To Speech
Watson Text to speech converts text into natural-sounding speech across a variety of languages and voices. Artificial intelligence voices can answer customer questions with the help of a virtual assistant for voice and speech channels.
The API cloud service allows users to convert written text to life-like audio within existing applications of Watson Assistant. By giving the business subscribers brand a voice and a pathway to communicate with customers in native languages, Watson TTS allows for accessibility for users with disabilities, provides audio options for drivers, or automates customer service inquiries to reduce long hold times.
With the implementation of customer self-service, the Watson virtual assistant can perform common call center functions over the phone and provide a pleasant user experience. With the help of Watson TTS, customers can understand the messages sent by the business by translating the written text to audio, resolving common customer issues more quickly.
With a plus option starting at $149 monthly and a custom plan for those who need more specified services, IBM Watson is one of the more affordable alternative options to Microsoft Azure.
More About Neural Text
The text-to-speech feature of the Speech service on Azure has been fully upgraded to the neural text-to-speech engine. This engine uses deep neural networks to make the voices of computers nearly indistinguishable from the recordings of people. With the clear articulation of words, neural text-to-speech significantly reduces listening fatigue when users interact with AI systems.
The patterns of stress and intonation in spoken language are called prosody. Traditional text-to-speech systems break down prosody into separate linguistic analysis and acoustic prediction steps that are governed by independent models. That can result in muffled, buzzy voice synthesis.
Here’s more information about neural text-to-speech features in the Speech service, and how they overcome the limits of traditional text-to-speech systems:
For a full list of platform neural voices, see Language and voice support for the Speech service.
Visemes: Visemes are the key poses in observed speech, including the position of the lips, jaw, and tongue in producing a particular phoneme. Visemes have a strong correlation with voices and phonemes.
By using viseme events in Speech SDK, you can generate facial animation data. This data can be used to animate faces in lip-reading communication, education, entertainment, and customer service. Viseme is currently supported only for the en-US neural voices.
Note
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Cree Una Voz Personalizada Para Su Marca
Diferencie su marca con una única voz personalizada. Desarrolle una voz muy realista para interfaces conversacionales más naturales mediante la funcionalidad de Voz neuronal personalizada, empezando por 30 minutos de audio. Estos son algunos ejemplos de organizaciones que están realizando la generación de voz de inteligencia artificial hoy en día:
Three Ways Customers Are Using This

Content reading is a popular use case for AI customers using Azure Neural TTS. Microsoft has plugins to enable Read Aloud across the web. This use case also supports improved accessibility for customers with vision challenges. The new voice style, supported by ten different emotional tones creates endless possibilities for improving the customer experience. Scaling character voice production is accelerated by Azure Neural TTS. Video game characters with lifelike voices can be trained quickly to bring your virtual worlds to life and delight gamers. Emotional tones for being terrified and friendly help add more personality to the game experiences. Long gone are the days of frustrating voice assistants and chatbots, as now you can deliver lifelike conversational experiences. Call centers can scale operations while also improving customer satisfaction.
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What About Voice Typing Tool
The Voice Typing Tool is the app on Windows 11 that takes advantage of the text-to-speech functionality. The app can be used on any text box like editors, word processors, chat programs, emails, wherever you can write on a computer.
It comes with an auto punctuation feature to accurately and correctly dot your text with the appropriate periods and commands. Voice Typing Tools also supports a variety of languages besides English, including Spanish, Simplified Chinese, and German.
This guide will tackle the other aspects of text-to-speech on Windows 11 besides the Voice Typing Tool. It will show you how to turn on text-to-speech, configure it, and go through some of the features most people may not be aware of.
How Do I Turn On Text
Narrator is switched off by default in Windows. Follow these steps to enable it.
Select the Start button and choose Settings.
Go to Settings> Ease of Access> Narrator.
Enable Narrator by toggling the button to the On position.
A Narrator dialog box will appear on the screen explaining keyboard layout changes. The blue border around the text highlights the parts read by Narrator.
Select OK to stop the message narration and exit the dialog. Also, check the box next to Dont show again if you dont want the box to appear every time Narrator starts.
A “Welcome to Narrator” screen will appear when you start using Narrator for the first time. From here, you can learn how to use the screen reader and find related learning resources like the comprehensive Narrator guide available online.
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Neural Tts And Responsible Ai
Weare excited about the futureofAzure Neural TTS with human-like, diverse and delightful quality under the high-level architecture of XYZ-Code AI framework. Our technology advancements are also guided by Microsofts Responsible AI process, and our principles of fairness, inclusiveness, reliability and safety, transparency, privacy and security, and accountability. We put these ethical standards into practice through the Office of Responsible AI , which sets our rules and governance processes, the AI Ethics and Effects in Engineering and Research Committee, which advises our leadership on the challenges and opportunities presented by AI innovations, and Responsible AI Strategy in Engineering , a team that enables the implementation of Microsoft Responsible AI rules across engineering groups.
How To Change Your Text
Now that we have added or changed the preferred language for TTS, we can choose between male or female voices. Some languages have even multiple speakers for each option.
How to change a TTS voice on Windows 11 and 10
In settings, go to Time & Language -> Speech and choose a voice from the dropdown menu.
The chosen voice will be used to read text aloud. Dont like any of the installed options? Add new ones using the Add voices button below.
How to change a TTS voice on Windows 7
Select the desired voice from a list.
Now you know how to change text-to-speech voice on Windows 11, 10, and 7. But what if you want to slow it down, change the tone of voice, or apply effects? Then you need an audio editing app.
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Install Microsoft Speech Runtime
You need to install the Microsoft Speech Runtime before you are able to use Microsofts TTS functionality. You will need to make sure that you download the same bit level as what you normally run Voice Elements under .
Microsoft Speech Runtime can be downloaded here.
Please note that it is the exact same runtime as required for using Microsofts Speech Recognition capabilities. For information on configuring Speech Recognition, please see our article Install Microsoft Speech Platform.
Does Anyone Know How I Can Get More Voices
You can download some more voices from many free TTS voices . One of the sources for downloading free Microsoft and LTS TTS voices is Zero2000. You can also purchase very high quality TTS voices for Windows from companies like Ivona, Cepstral or CereProc.
Excerpt:
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Get More Microsoft Text
I am using windows 10 and want to get more voices for Microsoft at the moment I only have two options: microsoft Hazel and microsoft Zira. Does anyone know how I can get more options?
- So how come you didn’t find the link in my answer? ) By the way it wasn’t my downvote. DavidPostillJan 2, 2016 at 14:20
- My answer also tells you where you can download new voices …Jan 2, 2016 at 14:25
- Plain links are problematic It helps to explain them to provide some context.
Privacidad Y Seguridad Completas

- El servicio de voz, que forma parte de Azure Cognitive Services, cuenta con las certificaciones de SOC, FedRAMP, PCI DSS, HIPAA, HITECH e ISO.
- Sus datos siguen siendo suyos. Los datos de texto no se almacenan durante el procesamiento de datos ni la generación de voz de audio.
- Puede ver y eliminar sus datos de voz personalizados y modelos de voz sintetizada en cualquier momento. Los datos se cifran mientras están en el almacenamiento.
- Gracias al respaldo de la infraestructura de Azure, el servicio de voz ofrece una seguridad, una disponibilidad, un cumplimiento normativo y una manejabilidad de nivel empresarial.
Also Check: Mac Text To Speech Voices
Add A Tts Voice To Your Pc
To use one of these voices, add it to your PC:
Open Narrator Settings by pressing the Windows logo key + Ctrl + N.
Under Personalize Narrators voice, select Add more voices. This will take you to the Speech settings page.
Under Manage voices, select Add voices.
Select the language you would like to install voices for and select Add. The new voices will download and be ready for use in a few minutes, depending on your internet download speed.
Once the voices for the new languages are downloaded, go to Narrator settings, and select your preferred voice under Personalize Narrators voice > Choose a voice.
Listen To Your Word Documents
There are many reasons to listen to a document, such as proofreading, multitasking, or increased comprehension and learning. Word makes listening possible by using the text-to-speech ability of your device to play back written text as spoken words.
There are multiple tools for listening to your Word documents:
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Read Aloud reads all or part of your document. You can use Read Aloud on its own or within Immersive Reader for Word in Windows and MacOS.
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Immersive Reader is a set of tools that help improve reading fluency and comprehension. For more information about Immersive Reader, see Learning Tools in Word.
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Speak reads only the text you’ve selected. Speak is available for Windows only. For more information about Speak, see Use the Speak text-to-speech feature to read text aloud.
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Narrator is the Windows Screen reader app that reads your dialog boxes, buttons, and other user interfaces as well as the text. For more information about Narrator, see Using Windows Narrator in Office for the web.
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Speech is a built-in accessibility feature of MacOS. When you set up Speech preferences in your Mac system preferences, you can select text and have it read by pressing a keyboard combination youve defined.
Read Aloud is only available for Office 2019, Office 2021, and Microsoft 365. |
On the Review tab, select Read Aloud.
To play Read Aloud, select Play in in the controls.
To pause Read Aloud, select Pause.
To move from one paragraph to another, select Previous or Next.
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Listen To Your Documents With Speech
Speech is a built-in accessibility feature of MacOS. After you activate Speech for your Mac, you can select text and have it read by pressing a keyboard combination youve defined.
To activate Speech, do the following:
On the Apple menu, select System Preferences.
In the System Preferences window, select Accessibility.
In the list, select Speech, and then select the check box next to Speak selected text when the key is pressed.In the Speech settings, you can also change the keyboard combination, select a different system voice, and adjust the speaking rate.
How To Make Microsoft Read Text Aloud
- University of Pune
- Western Governors University
- Enable Narrator from Settings> Ease of Access> Narrator.
- Select Windows logo key+Ctrl+Enter to start Narrator.
- Use keyboard shortcuts to navigate and read the screen.
This guide will answer this question and show you how to use the Windows 10 text-to-speech feature.
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Alternatives To Microsoft Azure Text To Speech
Microsoft Azure is a public cloud computing platform that provides a range of cloud services, including analytics and storage. Along with these features, Microsoft Azure cognitive services provide text-to-speech and speaker recognition speech-to-text capabilities as part of its cloud platform without machine learning expertise.
The main purpose of Microsoft Azure is to assist businesses in managing their flow, challenges, and goals in industries such as e-commerce, finance, and a variety of others. With its compatibility with open source technology, it provides its users with the tools and technologies that suit their business needs. There are four types of cloud computing that Azure offers:
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Infrastructure as a service of IaaS
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Platform as a service of PaaS
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Software as a service SAAS
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Serverless
With these cloud-based services, users can create resources to assist in the flow of their business functions, such as databases and virtual machines . Microsoft Azure bills its subscribers monthly only for the resources used and allows them to cancel at any time, making it easy to adjust as needed with no hidden fees or subscriptions.
Azures text-to-speech software allows subscribers to build apps and services with a realistic voice generated from deep learning technology. Azure TTS offers access to different voices with a variety of speaking styles and voice inflections to fit the brand and use case.
Reading Text On The Screen With Narrator
Narrator can read any text on the screen. Navigate across the content with the arrow keys or use the Scan Mode for more precise control over what you want to read.
Use the Narrator modifier key with the correct shortcut to read text by page, paragraph, line, sentence, word, or character. For instance,
- To read the current page: Narrator+Ctrl+I
- To read text from the current location: Narrator+Tab
- To read the current paragraph: Narrator+Ctrl+K
- To read the current line: Narrator+I
- To read the current sentence: Narrator +Ctrl +Comma
- To read the current word: Narrator+K
- To read the current character: Narrator+Comma
- To stop reading: Ctrl
- To navigate out of the content: Select the Tab key or use an application shortcut.
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Windows Vista And Windows 7
Beginning with Windows Vista and Windows 7, Microsoft Anna is the default English voice. It is a SAPI5-only female voice and is designed to sound more natural than Microsoft Sam.Microsoft Streets & Trips 2006 and later install the Microsoft Anna voice on Windows XP systems for the voice-prompt direction feature. There is no male voice shipping with Windows Vista and Windows 7, and neither Microsoft Mike or Mary will work on Windows 7.
A female voice called Microsoft Lili that replaces the earlier male SAPI5 voice “Microsoft Simplified Chinese” is available in Chinese versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. It can also be obtained in non-Chinese versions of Windows 7 or Vista by installing the Chinese language pack.
In 2010, Microsoft released the newer Speech Platform compatible voices for Speech Recognition and Text-to-Speech for use with client and server applications. These voices are available in 26 languages and can be installed on Windows client and server operating systems. Speech Platform voices, unlike SAPI 5 voices, are female-only no male voices are released publicly yet.
Turn The Narrator Option On

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How To Change Text
Before you change the language of the text-to-speech technology on the latest versions of Windows, make sure you have additional languages installed. Go to Microsoft Store or open the settings to get them.
Install TTS languages on Windows 11 and 10
In settings, click Time & Language -> Language -> Region .
On Windows 11, the path will be Time & Language -> Language & Region.
Tap the Add a language button and choose the language you want to install. Make sure there is the Microphone button next to the locale you choose. It means text-to-speech is available for your option.
Choose the recently installed language as the preferred one, if necessary.
How to install TTS languages on Windows 7
To add language packs on Windows 7, click Start -> Windows Update. Check the optional updates.
Choose the pack under the Windows 7 Language Packs category and click OK.
Change text-to-speech language on Windows 11 and 10
Go to the language settings and open the Speech tab.
Choose the necessary language for your device from the dropdown menu under Speech language.
Change text-to-speech language on Windows 7
That is how to change text-to-speech language on Windows 11, 10, and 7.