How to add new voices to Windows to use in System.Speech.Synthesis?

Question

Calling this API:

        using System.Speech.Synthesis;

        foreach (InstalledVoice voice in synth.GetInstalledVoices())
        {
            VoiceInfo info = voice.VoiceInfo;

            Debug.WriteLine(" Name:          " + info.Name);
            Debug.WriteLine(" Culture:       " + info.Culture);
            Debug.WriteLine(" Age:           " + info.Age);
            Debug.WriteLine(" Gender:        " + info.Gender);
            Debug.WriteLine(" Description:   " + info.Description);
            Debug.WriteLine(" ID:            " + info.Id);
        }

Returns:

Name:          Microsoft Anna
Culture:       en-US
Age:           Adult
Gender:        Female
Description:   Microsoft Anna - English (United States)
ID:            MS-Anna-1033-20-DSK

How can I add more voices to the system? I have tried installing SAPI5 and SAPI4 voices from this link: http://biblprog.com/en/speech_api/voices_sapi/

But they do not appear in the list.

I have gone into the "Text to Speech" tab in "Speech Properties" control panel and also only Anna appears on the list. Not sure why this is hard.

I am using Windows 7 64 bit OS. Any ideas?

I just want to understand how to add new voices. As I want to purchase one from here http://www.textaloud.com/englishaustralian.shtml but want to make sure it will work ok.

I think it didn't installed properly, since you couldn't find them at the control panel. — Max, Jul 17 '15 at 07:07
There's a hacky way of getting Speech Platform voices to work that I listed here on SO a while ago that you might find useful. [here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31167967/python-3-4-text-to-speech-with-sapi/31172101#31172101) — Lesley Gushurst, Jul 17 '15 at 17:06

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 17 '15 at 17:22

SAPI voices have code, along with voice data. So it matters whether the voices are 32 or 64 bit. I suspect that the voices you initially downloaded are 32 bit voices, and don't show up in the 64 bit control panel.

You can double-check this by making sure that your program is compiled as "Any CPU 32 bit Preferred" (or x86 if your version of visual studio doesn't support that).

How to add new voices to Windows to use in System.Speech.Synthesis?

1 Answers1