Activate the Speak On Enter and Speak Cells features

- [Narrator] Excel has a not-so-well-known feature called Speak on Enter. And although it could be the subject of fun and games, it does have a number of potential uses. In this worksheet, you could imagine possibly typing in some numbers. You wanna know if they're correct. Sometimes you might do what might be called heads down typing. I'm gonna put in some numbers here, perhaps. Every time I press enter, I might want to hear that number announced back to me, by way of Speak on Enter. Now, let's start with this idea.

You will not find any of these features on any of the standard tabs as we see them here in the Excel ribbon menu system. However, if you right click the Quick Access Toolbar, or just click the arrow on the right, the drop arrow, Customize Quick Access Toolbar, and go to More Commands. In this dialogue box you will not find such entries under Popular Commands, but click the arrow above Commands Not in the Ribbon. And scroll down into the letter S and we will see a few entries here that you might want to consider using.

Speak Cells is one of them. I'm gonna add that to the Quick Access Toolbar. And there's another one here, Speak Cells on Enter. And there are a couple of others, too, you might want to experiment with. Click OK. Speak Cells on Enter. I'm going to type a number here, 345.67. We don't hear anything. Now these buttons are available up here, but you have to activate them. Speak Cells on Enter, let's activate this. - [Computer] Cells will now be spoken on enter.

- [Narrator] And you heard that message. Let's try this now, 6789.3. - [Computer] 6789.3. - [Narrator] And the next entry, 23456. - [Computer] 23456 - [Narrator] And the next one. - [Computer] 234567 - [Narrator] Let's cut down to the center here. This is roughly the world population according to the US Census Bureau in mid-August of 2016.

- [Computer] 7343725363 - [Narrator] Now, had that been formatted, it would've sounded a little bit different. So I'm going to format this column, the entire column, simply using the comma button up here. And not display the decimals this time. I'll type this number all over again. Enter. - [Computer] 7,343,725,363 - [Narrator] And at times, you might want to select data and use the other button that was activated here called Speak Cells.

- [Computer] Cincinnati, Denver, Chicago, San Francisco, Kemmerer, Coeur D'Alene, Kearney, Chatham, Worcester, Albuquerque. - [Narrator] Some of you might be alert to the idea that this city in Massachusetts isn't pronounced Worcester, it's pronounced Wor-ster-nan. It sounds like speak and spell was alerted to that. And same thing here, that's pronounced Chat-ham, not Cha-tham. But they got this one wrong, if you live in this little town in Wyoming. They pronounce it Kem-er.

But what can you expect? How about these entries here? Speak Cells. - [Computer] Fourth, St. Paul, Peachtree Ave., Peachtree S-T, Peachtree C-T. - [Narrator] Notice how St was pronounced as saint, but here is pronounced as S-T. Now, again, it sounds like a little bit of fun and games. I also put in some large words down here. Let's just try these too. - [Computer] Antidisestablishmentarian, pneumonia, mneumonic. - [Narrator] It got those right as well.

Now here's where it's gonna be useful. In going back to the entry here. Suppose you are looking at a large list and you're simply typing in the numbers. You just want that oral feedback that says the number was correct. Maybe you're looking at the sheet of paper, you'd rather not look up at the screen each time to see if the entry was correct. So maybe we're putting in numbers. Remember this has now been formatted. Just three or four digits most of the time. It might involve decimals. - [Computer] 346, 45, 46, 57.

- [Narrator] Now interesting here, these numbers have been formatted, but I hid the decimals. So I'll simply increase the decimals. And now as I continue typing, right here for example. - [Computer] 56.67, 345.78. - [Narrator] And let me erase these. And let's format these with currency. These have currency format. - [Computer] $4.56, $23.58.

- [Narrator] I'm not typing the dollar sign, of course. - [Computer] $1,234,567. - [Narrator] So, I think you can see how this works. If we don't want this feature to be active any more, the button up here is Speak Cells on Enter. I'll simply turn it off. - [Computer] Turned off Speak on Enter. - [Narrator] And from now on, if we type any entry, it doesn't have to be a number, we're not hearing that playback. If later you decide you're not going to be using these that often, we can simply right click and simply remove from Quick Access Toolbar.

Or right click, Customize Quick Access Toolbar. And then back here, click here, Remove, click here, Remove, if no longer needed. But I think it's a feature you could use productively in some situations.