How to Proofread with Microsoft Word Voice Reader

About this video

(Summarized from the Arabic caption track.) Dale shares a proofreading trick credited to Anthony, a close friend and longtime channel supporter: using Microsoft Word’s voice reader (the Speak command) to hear your manuscript read aloud instead of reading it yourself. He explains that editing and proofreading are not easy, editors miss things, and even reading aloud yourself is unreliable because your brain skips over errors and auto-corrects them before you notice. Having the computer read the text makes mistakes much easier to hear and identify, even though the voice sounds robotic and stilted. Setup: open Word, click the small down-arrow to customize the Quick Access Toolbar at the top left, choose More Commands, set ‘Choose commands from’ to All Commands, scroll to Speak, click Add and OK. Then highlight the text you want read and click the speech-bubble-with-play icon. To change the reading voice, adjust the voice in your computer’s speech settings, choosing among the available Microsoft voices. Then sit back, let the computer read, and take notes on changes to make before sending the manuscript to an editor or publishing it.

Key takeaways

• Have Word read your manuscript aloud because your own brain auto-corrects errors when you read, whether silently or aloud yourself.
• Add the Speak command via Customize Quick Access Toolbar > More Commands > All Commands > Speak > Add > OK.
• Highlight any passage and click the speech-bubble play icon in the top-left to hear exactly that selection read back.
• Change the narrator voice through your computer’s speech settings, not inside Word itself.
• Listen hands-off and take notes on fixes while it reads, then apply the changes before the manuscript goes to an editor or to publication.

Episode details: published April 15, 2018 · 2:38 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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