Windows comes with built-in speech recognition and text-to-speech functionality, which you can easily implement in your applications. Just pass a string of text, and it will be read out loud by the default voice - even let users choose another male/female voice installed! 
- In Solution Explorer, right-click on References and choose Add Reference. Double-click on System.Speech (assembly) and click Close. Include this namespace with a "using" directive:
using System.Speech.Synthesis;...And declare a "speech synthesizer" reader in your method:SpeechSynthesizer rdr = new SpeechSynthesizer(); Caveat - avoid the Speak() method: it will "hang" your application until it is done reading. Use instead the SpeakAsync() method to read your text in a separate (background) process.
- Here's a basic example - read a string of text passed as argument:
rdr.SpeakAsync( "Hello from a robotic voice" ); - A more practical implementation, through a TextBox called "txt": if characters are selected, Windows Speech will just read that portion; otherwise, it will read the entire content inside the control:
if( txt.SelectedText.Length > 0 ) // Some text selected
rdr.SpeakAsync( txt.SelectedText );
else // Read everything
rdr.SpeakAsync( txt.Text ); - To stop reading at any point, call "rdr.Pause()" --- and "rdr.Resume()" to proceed.
- To increase or decrease the text-to-speech speed, change the Rate property: the default rate (normal speed) is zero; the fastest (10) is unintelligible - think legal disclaimers in commercials :)
rdr.Rate = -10; // lowest speed, painfully slow
rdr.Rate = 10; // fastest speed, incomprehensible - Windows reads your text at 100% of the volume currently set for the operating system: to change volume, set the reader's voice between zero (silent) and 100 (current OS sound level).
rdr.Volume = 50; // half the current OS sound level
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