Text-to-speech functionality has been available for many years in various apps, such as the Narrator for Windows, which came with Windows 2000. Not to mention text-to-speech (TTS) can be traced as far back as 1961 when Bell Labs TTS emerged as a pioneer speech synthesizer. Other examples include DecTalk (1984), the Mac tool called MacInTalk (1984), and the IBM SpeechViewer (1990). While PowerPoint was introduced in 2010, its utility has improved over the years, making it more than just an accessibility feature.
Text to Speech for PowerPoint
The TTS PowerPoint functionality can make it easier to review slides and look for common errors, improve presentation flow, and listen to slides for persons with disabilities. The text-to-speech functionality for PowerPoint has undergone various changes in its integration into the app. Depending on your PowerPoint version, it might be labeled as “Read Aloud” or “Speak in your version of the app.”
How to Use Text to Speech in PowerPoint from the Ribbon Menu
Some PowerPoint versions have the ‘Read Aloud’ feature enabled via the Review tab, whereas you might need to add it to the PowerPoint Ribbon menu or Quick Access Toolbar for other instances. If you don’t see ‘Read Aloud’ or ‘Speak’ in the Review tab, right-click on the Ribbon menu and select Customize the Ribbon.
Head over to the Customize Ribbon tab from the PowerPoint Options dialog box and select All Commands from the drop-down menu via Choose commands from.
In the next step, create a custom group in the Review tab and give it a name. This is because you will only be able to add the Speak tool to a new group.
Select the group from the right menu in the dialog box, select Speak from the left menu, and click Add from the middle to move the Speak option to your custom group.
This will add the text-to-speech option to your selected group in the Ribbon menu. Simply select the text you want to hear, click Speak, and it will read it out to you. The voice used for reading the text will be the AI-powered voice selected on your PC or Mac. You can change the voice or speed using your system’s accessibility options.
To stop the text to speech narration anytime, click Stop.
How to Use Text to Speech in PowerPoint from the Quick Access Toolbar
Unlike the Ribbon menu, it can be easier to instantly access Speak via the Quick Access Toolbar when editing PowerPoint templates to create a presentation.
To add Speak to the Quick Access Toolbar, simply right-click the bar and select Customize the Quick Access Toolbar.
Go to the Quick Access Toolbar tab, select All Commands from Choose Commands from the dropdown menu, select Speak and click Add to add it to the toolbar.
Once the Speak option is moved to the right in the Quick Access Toolbar menu, click OK.
To use PowerPoint text to speech from the Quick Access Toolbar, select the text and click Speak.
Frequently Asked Questions
The text-to-speech feature in PowerPoint reads selected text from slides to help users review presentations and assist people with disabilities.
In some PowerPoint versions, the text-to-speech feature is called Speak, whereas in others, it’s known as Read Aloud.
The text-to-speech feature for the PowerPoint 2016 edition was called Read Aloud, whereas older versions and the latest edition (PowerPoint 2024) use the name Speak. You can reveal Speak by going to the customization features for the Ribbon menu or Quick Access Toolbar via the right-click menu and adding it to them.
To add PowerPoint text to speech functionality known as ‘Speak’ to a Ribbon menu tab, customize the Ribbon menu, create a group, and then move the Speak feature from the All Commands menu to the specified group in your selected tab.
To use PowerPoint text-to-speech, called Read Aloud or Speak (depending on your version of PowerPoint), select text and click Read Aloud or Speak to listen to the text in an AI-powered voice.
PowerPoint text to speech is available for PowerPoint 2010 and later editions.
The speed and AI voice settings cannot be directly adjusted from PowerPoint. You will need to adjust the settings for your device (Windows or Mac) to change the voice and speed settings for text-to-speech.
Yes, text-to-speech is a built-in feature of PowerPoint desktop editions for Mac and PC.
The built-in text to speech feature for PowerPoint is not available for Android. However, you can use other accessibility features like TalkBack as an alternative.
The built-in text to speech feature for PowerPoint is not available for iOS devices like iPhones and iPad. However, you can use the Speak Selection feature using accessibility settings to get text to speech functionality on iOS.
Text-to-speech reads out the text, whereas voice-over allows you to record a voice-over narration to include in your PowerPoint presentation.
Yes, read aloud also supports other languages but you might need to install additional language packs and voices to support this functionality in Windows or Mac.
You can use different apps, such as Natural Reader or Balabolka, as an alternative to PowerPoint text-to-speech, or AI-powered assistants like Siri or Google Assistant. Another alternative is Google Translate’s Listen feature, which can read out text from multiple languages.
Text to speech in PowerPoint can sometimes skip certain text and characters because it might not be able to read it. Some words are sometimes pronounced incorrectly or not in line with the punctuation of the text.
PowerPoint’s text to speech feature, which is called Read Aloud or Speak, can sometimes stop working when a presentation or system hangs. It might also struggle to work even when the system and presentation file have no apparent issues. You can resolve this problem by repeatedly clicking the Read Aloud or Speak button and restarting your PowerPoint presentation or system.
PowerPoint text to speech uses the voices from the system it is running on, such as the AI powered voices available in Windows or Mac.
Final Words
When you’re thinking about how to start a presentation or how to end a presentation using PowerPoint, text to speech can be a good way to assess your content as you create slides, to proofread it for errors, as well as to check the flow of the text. The TTS feature for PowerPoint
Gives it an edge over many other presentation apps, for example, you can’t use text to speech as a built-in feature when editing Google Slides templates, as it relies on other tools like Google Assistant to provide such a functionality.
PowerPoint text to speech is available for desktop editions on PC and Mac, whereas Android and iOS users can use accessibility features to narrate slides. However, even on the desktop version, PowerPoint does not come with a built-in feature to adjust voice and speed settings, as these are determined via the accessibility settings on Windows and Mac.
Now that you know how to use the text to speech feature in PowerPoint, you can also look for other advanced options to enhance your presentations, such as by using a voice-over narration. You can learn about this feature from our tutorial about how to narrate a PowerPoint presentation.
