Software and online tools

Immersive Reader

Immersive Reader is a feature within most Microsoft applications designed to improve reading and comprehension. By using Immersive Reader, you can:

• Customise how text appears, such as adjusting text size, spacing, and background colour 
• Remove distractions with line focus and column width 
• Read text aloud using natural sounding speech, with accompanying highlights 
• Look up words including use of a picture dictionary 

Access Immersive Reader in Microsoft Word desktop app:

1. Open your Word document.

2. Select the View tab, then select Immersive Reader. Immersive Reader will launch a full-screen experience

• Use Immersive Reader in Word

Dictate speech-to-text

Dictate is a feature in Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and OneNote that is a speech-to-text tool, meaning it transcribes what you say into a microphone into text. With Dictate you can: 

• Create transcripts of audio files 
• Select from several spoken languages 
• Verbally brainstorm ideas into a Word document 
• Dictate an email in Outlook 
• Practice your presentation skills while making your slides in PowerPoint 

To use Dictate, find the microphone icon! In most apps it is near the top right-hand corner. 

• Dictate in Microsoft 365

Speak (text-to-speech)

Text-to-speech (TTS) is the ability of your computer to play back written text as spoken words. Depending upon your configuration and installed TTS engines, you can hear most text that appears on your screen in Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

For example, if you're using the English version of Office, the English TTS engine is automatically installed. Use text-to-speech in different languages:

• Using the Speak feature with Multilingual TTS

Learn how to configure Excel for text-to-speech:

• Converting text to speech in Excel