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Text To Speech, Not Working

Anonymous
2009-10-23T17:10:46+00:00

Hi, I'm having issues with my text to speech. I don't think it's ever worked since i've had my laptop. I've recently upgraded to windows 7 hoping it would fix the issue but it hasn't

When i go to the text to speech, or use any application which makes use of text-to-speech, the computer will 'show' that it's 'reading' it, but no voice comes out. ie. When i press preview, the words are highlighted as it 'should' read it, but no voice is playing. I've checked all the output settings and they seem to be correct, but i'm not sure what is wrong with it.

It causes a pain when trying to play games and needed to run text to speech to hear irc ectt

could anyone find me a solution, thanks :)

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Music, photos, and video

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  1. Anonymous
    2009-10-24T14:51:09+00:00

    Hi Cythis,

    Thank you for Visiting Microsoft windows7 answers Forum.

    Please make following settings on your computer and see if it works.

    Configure Text-to-Speech Options

    Determine the Selected TTS Voice or Engine

    To determine the selected Text-to-Speech voice, follow these steps:

    1.       Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Speech.

    On the Text-to-Speech tab, the displayed name in the Voice selection drop-down list is the currently active voice.

    2.       Click Preview Voice to hear the active voice. The text is spoken and the words are highlighted as they are spoken.

    Preview TTS Voice

    To preview the Text-to-Speech voice, follow these steps:

    1.       Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Speech.

    On the Text-to-Speech tab, the displayed name in the Voice selection drop-down list is the active voice.

    2.       Click Preview Voice to hear the currently selected voice. The text is spoken and the words are highlighted as they are spoken.

    3.       During playback, Preview Voice will change to Stop. Click Stop to interrupt the voice playback.

    NOTE: You can change the text to be read by the Preview Voice by highlighting the text and typing in new text. These changes are not permanent and when you reopen Speech properties or select a different voice, the text will reset to the default.

    Change the TTS Voice or Engine

    To change the Text-to-Speech voice or engine, follow these steps:

    1.       Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Speech.

    2.       On the Text-to-Speech tab, the name displayed in the Voice selection drop-down list is the active voice.

    3.       Click the active voice inside the drop-down list, or use the arrow to display a list of available voices.

    4.       Click a new voice to select it.

    The newly selected voice speaks the text in Preview Voice box.

    5.       Click OK or Apply to accept the new voice.

    Notes:

    ·         A Text-to-Speech voice is closely associated with a particular speech engine. It may not be clear from the displayed name which language a voice is using. After selecting a speech engine or voice, test the voice and language by clicking Preview Voice.

    ·         The language or voices supported by a speech engine may not be obvious from the engine's displayed name. Refer to the specific user's guide for detailed information about the engine. This includes not only the language supported, but also the lexicon purpose. The lexicon purpose indicates whether it is a general grammar or jargon specific to a profession such as legal or medical.

    ·         Microsoft does not provide additional speech engines (voices), but a number of third-party products are available that support the new Microsoft Speech API. For information on these products, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

    http://www.microsoft.com/speech/evaluation/thirdparty/engines.mspx

    For more information please follow the link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306902

    The KB article shows for windows XP and vista only but for windows7 also it remains same. (http://www.microsoft.com/speech/evaluation/thirdparty/engines.mspx)

    Thanks and Regards,

     Vijay   

    • Microsoft Support.

    Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

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  1. Anonymous
    2009-12-23T08:40:39+00:00

    My personal sound issue solved: Keep Matrix Button Off.Microsoft, was that response supposed to help the user? In no way did it address the issue. Anywho... I have Windows 7 installed on a new Core i5 gaming computer. Everything works well except TTS. As the previous user experienced, TTS looks like it's working, as the words are being highlighted, but there is no audio output. I can play MP3's and all other audio related tasks easily. I've played with the TTS settings and have no idea how to fix the issue. Ideas?Thank you,Royce BarberFresno Californiawww.roycebarber.comUpdate: Solved!!!! All I had to do was turn OFF the "Matrix Mode" on my speaker receiver. Matrix Mode is where stereo sound is changed into surround sound. Matrix Mode worked with Vista, but perhaps I'm using a different audio driver this time around. Issue resolved for me, unless of course anyone has ideas about why my Matrix mode cuts out voices and some sound channels such as Microsoft Text To Speech.

    3 people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Anonymous
    2010-03-25T23:17:25+00:00

    I had the same problem of all audio working except TTS. I found for that the audio format max is 24bits 48000Hz, anything below that is fine, but anything above that and TTS could process anything. Also, my sound card has Dolby Prologic IIx and if I enable it TTS still works. So try setting you audio format at or below 24bits, 48000Hz. I hope that works.

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-03-25T23:17:55+00:00

    I had the same problem of all audio working except TTS. I found for that the audio format max is 24bits 48000Hz, anything below that is fine, but anything above that and TTS could process anything. Also, my sound card has Dolby Pro-logic IIx and if I enable it TTS still works. So try setting you audio format at or below 24bits, 48000Hz. I hope that works.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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  4. Anonymous
    2010-05-13T15:26:31+00:00

    These helpful articles work in Windows XP, but not in Windows 7.

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