More strides in accessibility for Microsoft these days, as the Redmond giant recently unveiled some new “Read Aloud” features into Microsoft Word for Windows. There are a number of changes coming to Read Aloud, all of them making a big impact to help out the people who make use of the feature. The big change coming is the fact that words are now highlighted properly as words are being read out, and you can edit some of the particulars of the reading process. Microsoft explained:
We continue to improve the Learning Tools available in Word and have moved Read Aloud to the Review tab. This latest update allows your document to be read back to you with simultaneous highlighting from right within your workflow. This makes it easier to recognize and correct errors as you write, improving reading and editing accuracy for everyone, especially users with learning disabilities such as dyslexia.
The focus of the changes, as stated above, are to help out people with learning disabilities who can really benefit from the extra read-over to catch mistakes and generally proofread documents. Read Aloud has been a part of Word for a long time now, but these additions make it that much more of a polished feature. For now, this feature is only available for Office Insiders but it will be generally available on Word for Windows later this year.
