How to Use the Read Aloud Feature in Microsoft Word

When you spend hours writing a lengthy document, your brain begins to anticipate the text. You become “snowblind” to your own writing, causing your eyes to skip right over missing words, duplicated words, and awkward phrasing during the proofreading process.

One of the most effective ways to catch typographical and grammatical errors is to hear the text spoken aloud. Rather than reading the document to yourself, you can force Microsoft Word to act as your personal proofreader using the powerful, built-in Read Aloud feature.

How to Activate Read Aloud

The Read Aloud tool uses advanced text-to-speech algorithms to read your document back to you in a natural-sounding voice, highlighting each word on the screen as it speaks.

1. Open your document in Microsoft Word.
2. Place your cursor at the exact point in the document where you want the reading to begin. (If you want to start from the beginning, press Ctrl + Home).
3. Click the Review tab in the ribbon at the top of the screen.
4. In the “Speech” section, click the Read Aloud icon (it looks like a capital ‘A’ with sound waves).

Word will immediately begin reading the text. You will notice a small playback control bar appear in the top right corner of your document window.

Using the Playback Controls

The control bar allows you to pause the reading to make corrections on the fly.

• Play/Pause: Use the central button to stop the audio when you hear a mistake, fix the typo in your document, and press play to resume seamlessly.
• Previous/Next: Use the directional arrows to skip backward to the previous paragraph or jump forward to the next one.
• Stop: Click the ‘X’ on the far right of the control bar to close the Read Aloud feature completely.

How to Change the Voice and Reading Speed

If the default voice is too fast for proofreading, or if you simply find the accent distracting, you can easily customize the audio output.

1. While the Read Aloud feature is active, look at the small playback control bar.
2. Click the Settings icon (it looks like a small gear or speaker with a gear).
3. Reading Speed: Adjust the slider to the left to slow the voice down (ideal for catching complex grammatical errors) or to the right to speed it up.
4. Voice Selection: Click the drop-down menu to select a different voice. Microsoft includes several high-quality male and female voices with different regional accents (such as US, UK, and Australian English).

Using the Keyboard Shortcut

If you rely heavily on auditory proofreading, navigating to the Review tab every time you want to check a paragraph is tedious. You can launch the Read Aloud feature instantly using a keyboard shortcut.

Simply place your cursor where you want to start listening, and press Ctrl + Alt + Spacebar on your keyboard. Word will immediately begin speaking the text, allowing you to quickly verify the flow of a sentence without your hands ever leaving the keyboard.