YouTube clip of WordTalk
A free 'text-to-speech' plugin for Microsoft Word created by Rod Macaulay.
It will act as a 'text reader' and create a spoken sound version of the text in the document and read it back to you as it highlights the words.
WordTalk has the following features:
- Highlights the text as it goes;
- Choose to Speak the entire document, paragraph or sentence;
- Talking dictionary to help decide the word spelling;
- Adjust the highlight colours;
- Change the voice and the speed of the speech;
- Convert text to speech and save as a .wav or .mp3 file.
You can download directly from:
It will only work with:
- Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Word.
How do I use WordTalk?
WordTalk is not a program, it's a plugin (or 'add-on') for Microsoft Word.
The WordTalk toolbar sits neatly in your Microsoft Word toolbar. It allows you to use Word as a 'text-reader'.
To do this, you simply click you cursor where you want WordTalk to start speaking,
and then press one of the following buttons (first 4 on toolbar):
- Speaks the entire document;
- Speak the paragraph;
- Speak the sentence;
- Speak the word.
WordTalk will now highlight a word as it is spoken.
Using different voices
- Click on the Options button (spanner icon),
- A pop-up Configure box will appear,
- Select your preferred voice from the list of voices on the Speech tab
- Press OK.
