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I have noticed, that the default reader voice has been changed/updated to a female voice on acrobat. I need the former androgynous / non-gender computer voice again to work with. Could you please change that or is there a plugin to install?
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Hi @neals54841224 ,
If I am not mistaken, this is handle at the operating system level.
It is possible that an unattended update might've reverted that preference to its deault voice.
In which operating system are you on?
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Hei ls_rbls ,
Thank you for your answer. At the moment i am on macOS Ventura 13.2.1. Do you think the change is with the operating system or did the developer change the default voice? In the dropdown for other voices, there are only female or male choices, so the former voice does not exist any more on acrobat but i really need this specific non-gender- robotic voice again. Are there any possibilities to get this back?
Thank you very much for your support.
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You're welcome.
Yes the voice in Acrobat will change depending on what the user has configured as the default robo-voice in the operating system.
For macOS and iOS devices is Siri Voice (Micrososoft Windows devices is Cortana, Amazon is Alexa, Google is the Google Assistant):
To change Siri's voice to "Q" (the gender neutral voice assistant) try this:
From the dropdown menu choose the desired gender type voice.
Now, I am not sure if in your specific case, with newer updates, Siri's voice has reverted back to only a male or female gender voice but it shouldn't.
You need to scroll through that dropdown menu and see an option that should say "Voice 5".
Select that option and it should give Siri a gender-neutral robo-voice.
Changing this setting in your operating system as the default Siri voice should be respected in the Adobe Acrobat's Reading preferences settings.
If you don't manually configure these voice settings in your operating system it may not be reflected in Acrobat because it is not the Adobe Acrobat preferences that controls the robo-voice options... those are made available to Acrobat by the OS (not the other way around).
To verify, go back to Adobe Acrobat Preferences settings as suggested by @jane-e and uncheck the "Default" tickbox to see all of the available voice options provided by your operating system.
You should now be able to change it in Acrobat.
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Thank You. I have done everything you said but neither the default voice nor the voicelist have changed. I think it is a change or an update from acrobat itself where the former voice has been exchanged. Or it is due to the new current macOS version. So now i have no idea what to do now...
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Is this still happaning after forcing a manual reboot?
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How do you force a manual reboot? Thanks a lot.
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or. what exactly do you mean by that?
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I ment a hard boot , that is to manually shutdown and startup the computer.
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Try going to Preferences > Reading > Uncheck "Use Default Voice" and then the dropdown for other voices will be available to you.
Jane
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So now i have no idea what to do now...
By @neals54841224
I've tagged Adobe Employee @S. S to take a look for you.
Jane
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Thank you very much jane-e
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Hi @neals54841224,
Sorry about your experience.
Since Acrobat heavily relies on the Operating System regarding accessibility and Read Aloud features, have you checked if you can change the voice on your Mac?
You might want to check if the voice change works through the steps here: Change your Mac's voice to speak text.
Please let us know if the system voice does change and if this is something exclusive to Acrobat, and we will forward this to the team for further investigation.
-Souvik.
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Hi S S.
Thank you for your help. I have tried to change the voice on the operating system and this is working but it does not uinfluence the read out loud voice on acrobat. The former default non-gender robotic voice on acrobat has been exchanged with a female voice. So i think it is a problem with acrobat. what standard voice do you have right now on acrobat generally? there must be a universal read out loud voice at the moment for every acrobat-user, or not?
I tried to downgrade acrobat to a previous version but that is not possible. can you please help to get the original default voice? i even got a example of the sound of the voice if you need one to compare. Thank you very much.
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Hi @neals54841224,
Thank you for writing back.
I tried reproducing it at my end with Mac Venture 13.2, and it worked fine.
Would you mind trying to reinstall the application from scratch?
Please run the Acrobat cleaner tool https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/Labs/cleaner.html, reboot the computer once, and install the application using the direct link https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/acrobat-dc-downloads.html and see if that works for you.
-Souvik
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Hey there
What do you mean exactly by "it worked fine"? which voice rxactly is sounding on your mac?
I reinstalled acrobat but i cahnged nothing. when i define the voice on my operating system, the activated default voice ton acrobat takes over the same defined voice on the operating system. thats fine but thats is not my problem here. The former or originally default voice that i used last year on acrobat does not exist anymore, whether on acrobat nor on my mac...there has been an non-gender and robotic voice on acrobat that was just perfect for my work and it seems that it does not exist anymore.. thats a big problem. what did adobe change actually? there must have been a change...
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Hei there
The voice does not exist anymore and i can't download it neither. I dont like the new voices, they are too real or too robotic. Why don't you answer my questions about the change there has been made in the read out loud voice system from acrobat and what voice do you have on default? Is there anything i can do to go back to the older version of acrobat? This voice must still exist somewehre by the developer of adobe acrobat. Thank you.
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Hi @neals54841224,
As mentioned earlier, we do not make any changes regarding Read Aloud or the voices available. Apple independently manages these settings, and we do not have any say in it.
As mentioned above, you can change the voice of Read Aloud from within your Mac first and then in Acrobat.
Hope this clarifies your question.
-Souvik.
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Can you see if this helps?
https://osxdaily.com/2022/04/21/how-to-use-the-gender-neutral-siri-voice/
Jane
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I think I've answered all of your questions (and I speak for others who have tried to help you here).
All the guidance that is officially available from Apple has been shared with you throughout this discussion.
The steps that were offered to you need to be manually done through your OS. But I am on a Microsoft Windows computer and I can't see what you are struggling with.
In addition, when you are changing Accessibility settings through the operating system, all applications that use text-to-speech or Accessibility screen-reader assistant voice must be completely closed for the changes to take effect globally.
Moreover, it is worth noting that, changing the narrator assistant voice is a universal preference setting that is very similar accross all different operating systems; this shouldn't be rocket science. And this is due to industry accessibility technology standards, guidelines and specifications (mostly governed by the Web Accessibility Initiative ); not because of an Acrobat developer deciding to change something out of the blue.
To be precise, the genderless voice is a an entirely new feature that was introduced last month, and reading you creates an air of confusion because the genderless narrator assistant voice didn't exist before and it may still be on an experimental phase. So, what makes sense to me is that if you've upgraded your macOS box from Monterrey ( or BigSur) to Ventura, whatever tweaks you've made in your prior OS are now reverted back to its default narrator assistant voice settings.
With that said, I think you've been confusing all along how to install a new narrator language voice (which you yourself don't even remember or have cared to specify, making it very hard to help you), versus how to configure any narrator assistant voice (male or female gender) by manually changing the pitch level and the desired speech speed.
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I have been using for the last 3 years with OS upgrades the same default out loud voice on acrobat. please go on my website : https://www.nealschaap.com/audio/ to hear the voice i have been using all the time and tell me if this voice is still available or not. i know how to install a new narrator language voice but this specific voice does not exist anymore on the operating system. i wasnt offendig adobe developer when i mentioned my problem. i just tought it may be that the developer know what voice i used before but it seems now that it is a change on the OS....
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I thought adobe acrobat has its own default read out loud voices, because it has been working over 3 years without changing anything on the OS configuration.
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The voice i have been using was the default voice on acrobat. So the use default button was clicked on all the time. when i unclick it, there is a choice of voices that are not what i am looking for unfortunately.. so when click the use default voice button on acrobat, now it takes over the same voice i have chosen on the OS, but the choice of -->