Microsoft Windows 10 comes with only two voice engines (Zira Mobile and Mark Mobile). But you can download some more voices from many free TTS voices (which may not be so good). One of the sources for downloading free Microsoft and LTS TTS voices is Zero2000.

• Microsoft Zira Voice Download For Text

A couple of days ago I posted a blog which I titled Creating an HTML Application to Convert Text Files to Audio Files, in which I showed how to create an HTML Application that will convert a text file to an audio file. I thought that I would follow up that article with a quick demonstration which compares some of the built-in text-to-speech voices that ship with Windows 7 and Windows 8.

For the text in this demonstration I will use Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem titled The Raven, which is one of my personal favorites. (I used to have the poem memorized as a teenager... that might have been when I was going through a Fahrenheit 451 phase.)

Microsoft Anna (Windows 7)

For the first demo we will take a look at the poem as read by the Microsoft Anna text-to-speech voice, which ships with Windows 7. This voice is acceptable, and certainly better than the text-to-speech voices which shipped before Windows 7 was released. But still, it has a few odd quirks to it, and as a result this voice typically sounds unnatural to me.

Microsoft David (Windows 8)

For the second demo we will take a look at the poem as read by the Microsoft David text-to-speech voice, which ships with Windows 8. This voice is considerably more acceptable that Microsoft Anna, and it sounds very natural to me. It is obviously a male voice, and several people with whom I have discussed this subject seem to prefer the Microsoft David voice over all the others.

Microsoft Hazel (Windows 8)

For the third demo we will take a look at the poem as read by the Microsoft Hazel text-to-speech voice, which also ships with Windows 8. This also much better than the text-to-speech voices which shipped before Windows 7, and it has an English accent which makes it fun for converting literary works.

Microsoft Zira (Windows 8)

For the fourth and final demo we will take a look at the poem as read by the Microsoft Zira text-to-speech voice, which also ships with Windows 8. This voice is my personal favorite, as I find it the most-natural sounding of all the text-to-speech voices which ship with Windows 7; this is the voice that I used for all of my textbook reading assignments.

In Closing

Microsoft Zira Voice Download For Text

As a parting thought, the text-to-speech voices which ship with Windows 8 are extremely good in my opinion; they sound very natural, and they are very easy to understand. As a result, I have a tendency to speed up the playback a little when I am using the script which I shared in my previous blog. That being said, I hope these samples help to demonstrate the various text-to-speech voices that are available in the recent versions of Windows.