PowerPoint 365 way back to PowerPoint 2010 all have a ‘text to speech’ or ‘Speak’ feature to read aloud the text in a slide. It’s hiding away behind the ribbon but works fine once you’ve found it.
The PowerPoint Speak or Real Aloud feature is similar to the Speak option in Word.
Speak button can be put on the Quick Access Toolbar or Ribbon.
Select some text or Ctrl + A for the whole slide then click the Speak button.
If there’s no selection, Speak will say the current word at the cursor.
Adding the Speak button
You’ll find Speak on the ‘Commands not on the Ribbon’ list. The easiest choice is adding it to the Quick Access Toolbar.
Now it’s on the QAT, select some text and click the Speak button.
Changing Voices
The controls for Speak or Read Aloud are in Windows | Control Panel | Speech Recognition | Text to Speech. Office ‘Speak’ is making use of a little-appreciated ‘Text to Speech’ part of Windows.
That means the Speech options available depend somewhat on the version of Windows, not Office.
Voice Selection – the English language options are ‘David’ or ‘Zira’ – male or female.
Preview Voice – click to hear the current voice.
Voice speed – faster or slower than the Normal setting.
Read Aloud in Word 365 and 2019 in depth
Hear a document with Speak in Word 2016, 2013 and 2010
No nonsense guide to fixing Windows audio problems – speakers
