Verifying Entries with Text to Speech

Excel includes a powerful feature known as Text to Speech that can help you through the drudgery of checking and verifying the accuracy of your data entries. By using Text to Speech, you can have your computer read out loud your data entries either as you make them or afterwards. As you listen to the computer read the data entries, you can check the hard copy from which they came to ensure that you haven't made any typos. If you notice a discrepancy between a spoken data entry and what's on the paper copy, you can stop Text to Speech and make the necessary corrections before continuing with the reading.

To use the Text to Speech feature, your computer must be equipped with a sound card and have access to speakers or headphones (minimal requirements that I'll bet every computer that can run Excel 2003 can easily meet). Note that you can use Text to Speech without having installed and set up Excel's Speech Recognition feature for entering data entries by voice and issuing voice commands.