Hi eustacewrt,
There’s a possibility that a conflict has occurred that’s why the Speak feature in Word has stopped working. Can you confirm if there were any changes that were made to your account that may have caused this to happen?
In the meantime, I’d recommend that you try the following methods to resolve your concern:
If the issue doesn't persist while on safe mode, you can use the instructions below to identify which add-in is causing it to happen:
- Click File > Option > Add-ins, then click
Go in the Manage: COM Add-ins.
- Clear the checkbox if you'll see any add-ins, then disable them.
- Close the Word and relaunch it after.
- Check if you'll still get the same behavior.
- Install an Office update. Make sure that you have the latest Office version. . Check the steps
here.
- Run a repair for Office apps. This is usually being performed if an app isn’t working accordingly as it should be. See this:
Repair an Office application
Please respond to this thread to let me know how the issue progresses. Similarly, if you have more questions, please inform me by replying to this post.