📢 Microsoft Office users can now use voice search to find commands, contents, and more

Natural-sounding voices with Read Aloud

With the release of Microsoft Office Build 14228.20044 (version 2107), Microsoft adds more natural-sounding voices for an improved listening experience in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Outlook client.

To access the feature, click the Read Aloud button found on the Message tab in Outlook and on the Review tab in Word.

To switch between different voice options, select the Settings icon at the upper-right corner of your message or document and click the Voice Selection drop-down menu.

Use your voice to search

Using your voice to accomplish tasks is becoming more and more common in many productivity apps. Now, in Microsoft Word, you can use your voice to search within your Word document. You can also find commands, content, and more without typing a thing.

To use this feature, click the microphone icon in the search bar present at the top of your Word document. Then speak your search terms.

Fixes and Improvements

Microsoft Word

• Microsoft fixed an issue that improves integration with the new commenting pane in Word and JAWS, a popular screen-reading software.
• Microsoft fixed an issue relating to using a different CommentId than lTagNil for cleared selection and highlight.
• Microsoft fixed an issue where the unloading queue would become unresponsive.

Microsoft Outlook Client

• Microsoft fixed an issue that caused the translation options to be disabled for some users.
• Microsoft fixed an issue where mail tips were not showing for one-off addresses.
• Microsoft added a registry key to allow for the Voicemail form to be displayed in the UI in Outlook Desktop due to the retirement of Unified Messaging in Exchange Online. For users, enterprises, and organizations that want the Voicemail form to appear, the following registry key needs to be set as: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins] “AllowVoicemailForm”=dword:00000001.
• Microsoft fixed an issue where default text increase includes text scaling, so another call of LayoutChanged does not need to be used.
• Microsoft fixed an issue relating to the “failed to load” response status. The default response flag was set to “None.” We didn’t show any strings in the UI when hovering over a calendar where we didn’t have edit permissions.

Microsoft Excel

• Microsoft fixed an issue where an exception occurred from a CFR execution.