MS Excel Tutorial – Talk To Me! How to enable Excel’s text-to-speech feature
From Excel 2002 onwards, Microsoft introduced the Text -To – Specch feature. It’s an interesting feature once you explore it. You can have Excel call you the contents of a range of cells, or have it call the contents of the cell as you type data into your worksheet.
You may be wondering: when the heck am I going to use that? Me too, at first. But after trying it I realized. In fact, I use it frequently. If I need to double check data entry, I get Excel to answer me if no one else is available. This saves time and stress, as it’s like having a colleague double check my entries.
This text-to-speech feature is still available but is now hidden from Excel 2007 onwards. It’s not entirely obvious where this feature is hiding. It’s still available, and with a little preparation, you can still take advantage of its features.
You’ll need to spend a few minutes putting the feature on your Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) so you can use it from a convenient location.
Here’s how to put the function in the QAT
- Right click on the QAT
- From the context menu, select Customize Quick Access Toolbar
- Click on the drop down list
- Select the command that is not on the ribbon
- Scroll down to the items that start with speech; there must be 5 in total and select them all.
- Add later Ok
The QAT should have 5 new items, these are
- speak cells
- Speak cells: stop speaking cells
- Speak Cells by Columns
- talk in rows
- Speak cells upon entering
So, let’s use the function!
To read a range of cells, select the range and select the Read Cells button.
To read the data on entry, simply select the Speak On Entry button.
This is a love it or really hate it feature!
You can slightly modify the configuration of this function. If you want to change the voice or its speed, you have a small control. Where else would this be but in the Windows Control Panel?
You will find the setting in the Speech Properties. You can change the speed or choose a different voice.
Try this little known feature, weird at first but then extremely useful after a while to double check data entry.
