Save wav or mp3/mp4 - Text to Speech audio files

Download the free open-source program Audacity from https://www.audacityteam.org/ and install it. Although Audacity can do much more, it will be simple to do what you asked for.

• Start both Audacity and Word. Open the document that contains your text.
• In Audacity, click the large Audio Setup button, choose Recording Device in the menu, and choose Speakers from the secondary menu (I think that's the default). Then click the Record button (the one with the red dot) or just press the R key.
• In Word, click at the beginning of the text you want to read, and then click Review > Read Aloud. As the text is read, you'll see the waveforms being recorded in Audacity's display.
• When the reading stops, click the Stop button (the one with the black square) in Audacity. At this time you can edit the recording if you want to, such as trimming off unwanted sound from the beginning or end.
• In Audacity, click File > Export > Export as WAV or one of the other export formats. In the dialog, enter a name and select the folder, then click Save.

Hi Katrina,

the Audacity solution might work, but it is recording everything that comes though your speakers. Sound, but also aeroplanes flying by. My solution - also not the best, though - is to make a Zoom meeting (would work with every video conference tool, though) with just myself, share the Word document with sound (that is really important!), press record and then start the text to speech in Word. With Zoom, you get a dedicated audio file afterwards, but other tools from Microsoft or Google would work as well - you might have to extract the audio from the video, though.

Like I said, not perfect, but you just have the Word as sound source with that solution!

Have fun with your training
Dietmar

//Update

Now I found a tutorial for Audacity on how you can directly record system sound. But I have to say, I couldn't figure out how to do it, even with the tutorial. But it may be useful for someone else: https://support.audacityteam.org/basics/recording-desktop-audio