Have you ever wished for a better way to verify the data you've entered into a worksheet? In Microsoft Excel 2002, new text-to-speech and speech playback features can read your data back to you so that you can double-check the numbers and text you've entered.

When you use the Speak Cells button on the new Text To Speech toolbar in Excel 2002, you can hear the numbers or text you entered into the cells read aloud. (You must have speakers installed on your computer to use this feature.) You can compare the data you entered with your original data by listening to the computer while looking at your notes or records.

When you use the Speak Cells button in Excel 2002 for verification, each cell is highlighted as the value is spoken. When you hear a difference between the data you entered and the data you need, you can stop the sound playback to make changes and resume checking when you're done.

To play back worksheet data

1. On the Tools menu, point to Speech and then click Show Text To Speech Toolbar.
2. Select a group of cells to play back.
3. Click the Speak Cells button for the computer to read back each cell in your selection.

Note  By default, the computer will read across a row and then move down to the next row. To have the data read back by columns, click the By Columns button on the Text To Speech toolbar.

To correct an error

1. Click the Stop Speaking button on the Text To Speech toolbar.
2. Make the changes you need.
3. Click the Speak Cells button to have the computer resume reading your selection where you left off.

To turn off speech playback

• Click the Stop Speaking button on the Text To Speech toolbar.

Listen as you go

You can also choose to hear the value of the cell spoken immediately after you enter data in each cell. To turn on this option, click the Speak On Enter button on the Text To Speech toolbar. To turn off this option, click the Speak On Enter button again.

More information

To learn more about speech in Microsoft Office XP, see Help for the Office program you are using.