Changing the voice used in application.speech.speak inside a macro

Question

I am playing with a macro that uses application.speech.speak

In simple terms I'd like to be able to do something like:

     Set the voice to Microsoft David Desktop

          Application.Speech.Speak ("Good morning")

      Set the voice to Microsoft Hazel Desktop

          Application.Speech.Speak ("And a good morning to you. How are you?)

I am struggling to create the code to "Set the voice to ___"

I'd be delighted if somebody could help me with this.

Many thanks

Aarnout

Answer 1

Would this help at all?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289845

In VBA you would probably want to add references to Microsoft Speech Object Library via Tools -> References and tick the box 

You can then quickly initialize the object of the type and see if there any any more voices available, for example

Dim speech As New SpVoice
    
MsgBox "You have " & speech.GetVoices.Count & " voices installed"

and if you do have more than 1 voice you can use the following to change the current voice

Set speech.Voice = speech.GetVoices.Item(0)

replacing the 0 with a number between 0 and GetVoices.Count (Count)

Answer 2

Dear Michal,

Many thanks for your kind effort to help me.

I had found the article on changing the voice via the control panel and doing that I know that my computer has three voices available.

My struggle is getting the VBA macro to do the switching.

When I add "Dim speech As New SpVoice" to the macro I get an error message: "User defined type not defined".

If you have any other suggestion I'd be delighted.

Thank you again for trying to help.

Best, Aarnout

Answer 3

Aarnout,

You are getting the error because you have not attached the library to the VBA project.

in Visual Basic Editor find Tools on the toolbar and then References. Scroll down the list and tick the box next to Microsoft Speech Object Library.

Answer 4

Dear Michal,

Thank you for you help and patience with me. Please feel free to give up on me...

The code you provided is working in as much as it does not crash anymore now that I have attached the Library - thank you.

The message box tells me that I have three voices installed.

Sadly...

Set speech.Voice = speech.GetVoices.Item(0)
Application.speech.Speak ("Test")

Set speech.Voice = speech.GetVoices.Item(2)
Application.speech.Speak ("Test")

Does not chance the sound of the voice.

Sorry to be such a pain -- but if you can help me on this last hurdle, I'd really appreciate it.

Best wishes

Aarnout

Answer 5

Do you mind setting the default voice via the Control Panel / Text To Speech and running a simple verification code:

Application.Speech.Speak ("Good morning")

just to verify that all 3 voices are actually different?

Answer 6

Ah...That is interesting.  When I change then in the control panel and preview the voices there they are very different. But running the verification code, the voice does not change...

I do hope that I have not been wasting your time.

Thanks

Aarnout

Answer 7

hmm....

try this:

Sub Main()

    Dim speech As New SpVoice
    Dim i As Long
    
    Debug.Print speech.GetVoices.Count
    
    For i = 0 To speech.GetVoices.Count
        Set speech.voice = speech.GetVoices.Item(i)
        speech.Speak ("Hello World!")
        Application.Wait (Now() + TimeValue("00:00:05"))
    Next

End Sub

Answer 8

Dear Michal,

Totally awesome! It worked! Thank you so much.

Do you think I will need to always include the line: "Debug.Print speech.GetVoices.Count" and either way what did this line do?

Thank you for all the perseverance.

Best wishes

Aarnout

Answer 9

You can safely remove this line:   Debug.Print speech.GetVoices.Count

It only prints out the number of voices available for the speech object to the Immediate Window.

Well, I am glad it has worked in the end, can you accept and upvote the answers :)

Answer 10

Sub read()

Dim speech As New SpVoice
Dim Line As String

Line = Sheets("Links").Cells(5, 1)
Application.speech.Speak "Hello"   <<<<<<<< This is the first  (default) voice
speech.Speak Line <<<<<<<< Still the default voice

Application.speech.Speak Range("A5") <<<<<<< Still the default

Application.speech.Speak Line <<<<<<< Still the default

MsgBox "You have " & speech.GetVoices.Count & " voices installed" <<<<<<< Only have 2 installed
Set speech.Voice = speech.GetVoices.Item(1) <<<<<<< Put 1 instead of 0 to change from default

speech.Speak Line <<<<<<< Changes to second voice
Application.speech.Speak Range("A5") <<<<<<< This is still default (first voice)

Speech.Speak Line <<<<<<< Changes to HER (second voice)


End Sub

Thank you for the INFO!!!

    

Answer 11

Interesting ...
 But how can I integrate in this Workaround the "SpeakSync" Parameter ?

Thanks for ideas