- Microsoft Text To Speech Engine is a Shareware software in the category Home & Hobby developed by Microsoft. It was checked for updates 1,257 times by the users of our client application UpdateStar during the last month. The latest version of Microsoft Text To Speech Engine is 4.0, released on.
- Hi, In Vista Home Premium SP2. Microsoft TTS Anna engine does not speak, but it highlights the words. Sound card, speakers, headphones are working properly, I tried systems TTS engine TOSHIBA and does.
Speech recognition, and text-to-speech engines, have come a long way since Microsoft's infamous Vista speech recognition presentation.
Microsoft Sam is the default text-to-speech male voice in Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP. It is used by Narrator, the screen reader program built into the operating system. Microsoft Mike and Microsoft Mary are optional male and female voices respectively, available for download from the Microsoft website.
Microsoft ships text-to-speech engines with its Windows operating systems, and uses it in some of its tools such as Narrator. Other programs may use the voices as well, for instance to provide users with text-to-speech capabilities.
The default text-to-speech engines were improved by Microsoft with new releases of Windows. While that is the case, their output is still clearly identifiable as computer generated.
Speech capabilities are added for the operating system's language by default, but you may add support for other languages in newer versions of Windows to get speech support for these languages as well.
Additionally, you may install third-party languages, language packs, or applications, that add even more voices to the operating system.
Installing new text-to-speech languages in Windows 10
It is easy to install a new language in Windows 10:
- Use the keyboard shortcut Windows-I to open the Settings application. Or select Start > Settings.
- Select Time & Language > Region & Language from the window that opens.
- Click on the 'add a language' button. Please note that text-to-speech capabilities are limited to the following languages: Chinese, English US, UK, India, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish (Mexico and Spain).
- Wait for the selected language to install.
- Go back a page, and open the Region & Language page again. You should see a notice that Windows is searching for language packs on Windows Update. If a language pack is found, it will be highlighted after a brief moment.
- Click on the language, and select Options.
- You may install the full language pack, or only one component such as speech.
Installing a Text-to Speech language in Windows 8.1
If you use Windows 8.1, the process of adding a new language to the operating system is different:
- Open the Control Panel.
- Select Language, and on the page that opens 'add a language'.
- Select the language that you want to add to the system, and click on the add button at the bottom afterwards.
- Select download and install language pack under the language that you have added.
Index of available text-to-speech languages in Windows 10 and 8
| Language (Region) | Windows 10 and Windows 8.1 | Windows 8 | Name | Gender |
| Chinese (Hong Kong) | Y | N | Tracy | Female |
| Chinese (Taiwan) | Y | Y | Hanhan | Female |
| Chinese (People's Republic of China) | Y | Y | Huihui | Female |
| English (United States) | Y | Y | Zira | Female |
| English (United States) | Y | Y | David | Male |
| English (Great Britain) | Y | Y | Hazel | Female |
| English (India) | Y | N | Heera | Female |
| French (France) | Y | Y | Hortense | Female |
| German (Germany) | Y | Y | Hedda | Female |
| Italian (Italy) | Y | N | Elsa | Female |
| Japanese (Japan) | Y | Y | Haruka | Female |
| Korean (Korea) | Y | Y | Heami | Female |
| Polish (Poland) | Y | N | Paulina | Female |
| Portuguese (Brazil) | Y | N | Maria | Female |
| Russian (Russia) | Y | N | Irina | Female |
| Spanish (Mexico) | Y | N | Sabina | Female |
| Spanish (Spain) | Y | Y | Helena | Female |
Free and Open Source text-to-speech languages
I mentioned earlier that you can add third-party languages to Windows as well. The following list is a small selection of free and open source solutions:
- ESpeak is a speech synthesizer for Windows and Linux. It includes different voices, and adds support for languages that Windows does not support text-to-speech for. The program is compatible with Windows 7 and newer versions of Windows.
- Afrikaans, Albanian, Aragonese, Armenian, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Kannada, Kurdish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Lojban, Macedonian, Malaysian, Malayalam, Mandarin, Nepalese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Turkish, Vietnamese, Welsh.
- Zero2000 offers a selection of voices for all versions of Windows from Windows 98 to Windows 10.
- different Microsoft English voices, L&H TTS3000 English voices, Microsoft Simplified Chinese voice (male), additional English voice packages by Microsoft, L&H TTS3000 language packages for British English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Russian
Commercial providers
There are also commercial providers. These offer for-personal use packages, and business packages that you may use commercially.
- Cereproc -- Windows voices are offered for about $30 each for personal use. You can test the available voices on the site directly. Commercial packages are available as well.
- Cepstral - Offers voices for personal use for Windows, Mac and Linux, as well as commercial use. The price starts at $10 and goes up to $45 for personal voices. Demos are available.
Now You: Do you use text-to-speech apps or services?
Microsoft Tts Engine Windows 7
For customers using Learning Tools for OneNote, Word, or Read Aloud in the Microsoft Edge browser, this article documents ways to download new languages for the Text-to-Speech feature in different versions of Windows.
Install a new Text-to-Speech language in Windows 10
On any edition of Windows 10, click Start > Settings, and then follow these steps:
Select the Start button, then select Settings > Time & Language > Region & Language.
Select Add a language and choose the language you want from the list. Only languages listed in the table below will have Text-to-Speech capabilities.
After the new language has been installed (this may take a few moments), select it in the Region & Language list, and then select Options.
Under Language options > Speech, select Download.
Restart your computer. The Text-to-Speech voices will be installed when your machine turns back on.
Text-to-Speech languages and voices available in Windows
Language (Region) | Male voice name | Female voice name |
|---|---|---|
Arabic | Not applicable | Hoda |
Arabic (Saudi Arabia) | Naayf | Not applicable |
Brazil (pt-BR) | Daniel | Maria |
Catalan Spanish (Spain) | Not applicable | Herena |
China (zh-CN) | Kangkang | Huihui, yaoyao |
Czech (Czech Republic) | Vit | Not applicable |
Danish | Not applicable | Helle |
Dutch | Frank | Not applicable |
English (Australia) | James | Catherine |
English (Canada) | Richard | Linda |
English (Great Britain) | George | Hazel, Susan |
English (India) | Ravi | Heera |
English (Ireland) | Shaun | Not applicable |
English (United States) | David, Mark | Zira |
Finnish | Not applicable | Heidi |
Flemish (Belgian Dutch) | Bart | Not applicable |
French (Canada) | Claude | Caroline |
French (France) | Paul | Hortence, Julie |
German (Germany) | Stefan | Hedda, Katja |
German (Switzerland) | Karsten | Not applicable |
Greek | Stefanos | Not applicable |
Hindi (India) | Hermant | Kalpana |
Hong Kong (zh-HK) | Danny | Tracy |
Hungarian (Hungary) | Szabolcs | Not applicable |
Indonesian (Indonesia) | Andika | Not applicable |
Italian | Cosimo | Elsa |
Japanese | Ichiro | Ayumi, Haruka |
Norwegian | Jon | Not applicable |
Polish (Poland) | Adam | Paulina |
Portuguese (Portugal) | Not applicable | Helia |
Romanian (Romania) | Andrei | Not applicable |
Russian (Russia) | Pavel | Irina |
Slovak (Slovakia) | Filip | Not applicable |
Korean | Not applicable | Heami |
Spanish (Spain) | Pablo | Helena, Laura |
Spanish (Mexico) | Raul | Sabina |
Swedish | Bengt | Not applicable |
Taiwan (zh-TW) | Zhiwei | Yating, Hanhan |
Thai (Thailand) | Pettara | Not applicable |
Turkish | Tolga | Not applicable |
Third-party Text-to-Speech languages:
Additional Text-to-Speech languages can be purchased from the following third-party providers:
Note: These options are provided for informational purposes only. Microsoft does not endorse any particular third-party software, nor can it offer any support for their installation and use. For help with these products, please contact their original manufacturer.
Microsoft Tts Engine 10.0 Type Library
Open source Text-to-Speech languages
Free Text-to-Speech languages are available for download from Open source provider eSpeak. These languages work on Windows 7, but some may not yet work on Windows 8, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10. View a list of available eSpeak languages and codes for more information.
Download eSpeak languages
Microsoft Tts Bing
In your browser, visit http://espeak.sourceforge.net/download.html.
Download the 'Compiled for Windows' version, titled setup_espeak-1.48.04.exe.
When the download is finished, click Next at the first Setup screen to begin installation.
Confirm the installation path, and then click Next.
Enter the two-letter code(s) for the language(s) and flag(s) that you want to install. For example, if you planned to add Text-to-Speech for English, Spanish, Polish, Swedish, and Czech, your screen would look like this:
To use alternate voices for a language, you can select additional commands to change various voice and pronunciation attributes. For more information, visit http://espeak.sourceforge.net/voices.html. Pre-set voice variants can be applied to any of the language voices by appending a plus sign (+) and a variant name. The variants for male voices are +m1, +m2, +m3, +m4, +m5, +m6, and +m7. The variants for female voices are +f1, +f2, +f3, +f4, and +f5. You can also choose optional voice effects such as +croak or +whisper.
Select Next twice, then select Install to complete installation.