No longer possible to have PowerPoint read aloud

Tested with a slide in the same PowerPoint presentation that is in english language instead of my native language.

Read Aloud works fine on the slide that is in English after selecting the text in the text box.

Now the problem has changed a bit.

Now this happens: after selecting another slide that has a textbox written in Swedish, the Read Aloud feature still does not work. Switching back to the slide with the English textbox, and Read Aloud works.

Does not work even if the text is selected and marked as Swedish (Review/Language/set proofing lang).

Works on the same PC in the Word desktop app though. And there is no setting for the Detect language automatically option in PowerPoint, but there is in Word. (Review/Language/set proofing lang)

Putting a paragraph in French in the textbox, and the Read Aloud feature is not clickable.

Selecting the French paragraph in the textbox and setting it to be English via (Review/Language/set proofing lang), and the Read Aloud feature is clickable, but the French text is read aloud with English voice.

Hello PerAndSwe,

Welcome to the Microsoft Community, we're here to help you in any way we can.

I understand that you are experiencing an issue with PowerPoint where the read aloud feature is not working. We have tested this in the Enterprise version of Office, but unfortunately it does not reproduce the issue you are experiencing. The read aloud feature is available.

This issue can be caused by a number of reasons and you may have to look for the causes one by one, you may refer to the following first:

Is the Speak button shown in the image below what you see and click on, and when you say you can't click on it, do you mean it's not responding when you click on it, or is it something else?

If so, this may also be related to a temporary glitch in the application, you can close all Office applications and then restart PowerPoint to see if it works.

In addition you can also try to repair Office, please refer to the specific method: Repair an Office application - Microsoft Support

Our initial response may not always solve the problem immediately. However, with your help and more detailed information, we can work together to find a solution. Looking forward to your response, which will determine our next steps.

Best regards,

Ian - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Hello PerAndSwe,

Thanks for your reply.

Thank you for the tests you have done. It makes sense that the Office application on one computer has a temporary glitch.

However, after your test, multiple devices have the same problem, which seems unlikely. So I think it may be that you did not select the text to be read aloud during the operation.

According to the screenshot you provided, the text edit box is grayed out, which means it is unavailable. Usually, such a situation only occurs when the text to be edited is not selected.

Please make sure you have selected the correct text again. My test results are shown in the figure below. After selecting, the reading function is available.

Looking forward to your reply.

Best regards,

Ian - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Ping for this. Anyone know of a solution?

Checked on one computer that does not belong to my organization, with 365 apps installed and logged in - Windows 11 private PC. Same thing.

Checked on another computer that is privately owned by another individual, with 365 apps installed and logged in. Same thing.

Thank you for your reply!

The image below is what the experience in the PowerPoint desktop app is - the Speak icon is in the menu but it is not clickable. (PPT GUI Language is Swedish)

I am contemplating if this could be the result of some tenant policy that does not permit "Connected experiences" - I haven't tested if Read Aloud or Speak is a stand alone feature that works even if the client is offline.

kind regards