Windows text-to-speech?

[Hawkmoon]

I have stumbled across what appears to be a burgeoning genre of YouTube videos that are nothing more than AI-written stories (some sci-fi, some love stories) narrated onto video using computer text-to-speech narration. Most seem to use basically one of three computer voices, and I suspect that they are all part of the Immersive Reader function that's built into Microsoft 365. However ... I don't have Microsoft 365, I have (depending on which computer I'm using) Office 2016, Office 2019, or Office 2021. Windows 10 offers Narrator, but I can't find any way to make that read a document I've created in Word -- it only seems to read Windows dialogue boxes.

A bit of web surfing suggests that there are several free text-to-speech apps available for Windows. Has anyone played with any of them? Any recommendations on those worth trying, or those that should be avoided?

[HeroHog]

No help here, I DO use the Speech-To-Text feature on my phones and Notebook all the time though. What I NEED to do is PROOF READ before hitting Enter better!

[Hawkmoon]

I am VERY disappointed. I have now tried three of the freeware text-to-speech apps. All three don't do anything but provide a user interface to the same voices provided by Windows.

[Brad Johnson]

Lots of YT vids with that model. String together a bunch of related topics, copy/paste info from Wiki or some other source for narration, find a few related (or more likely random or straight up stolen) video elements to accompany the audio, post to YT. Some is okay but most is generic "meh" content. It's a view count generator, nothing more. TTS narration is easier, cheaper, and far less labor intensive than scripting, recording, and editing audio.

Creators can push out a couple a day, meaning cumulative view counts can be in the millions per month even if single videos generate only modest view numbers. That's decent money.

Brad

[Hawkmoon]

Lots of YT vids with that model. String together a bunch of related topics, copy/paste info from Wiki or some other source for narration, find a few related (or more likely random or straight up stolen) video elements to accompany the audio, post to YT. Some is okay but most is generic "meh" content. It's a view count generator, nothing more. TTS narration is easier, cheaper, and far less labor intensive than scripting, recording, and editing audio.

Creators can push out a couple a day, meaning cumulative view counts can be in the millions per month even if single videos generate only modest view numbers. That's decent money.

Brad

Yep. And AI can churn out innumerable versions of the same story -- and does.