Sensory Readable has long had the strongest integration with Microsoft Word of any application. When Word is the active application, additional buttons appear on the Readable toolbar (not a separate row — they are added inline alongside the existing buttons), giving you direct access to Word-specific tools — font changes, line and paragraph spacing, background colour, and Word-aware reading.

The Sensory Readable toolbar shown with three Microsoft Word-specific buttons highlighted in red — Font, Spacing and Colour, and Word Check. These three buttons appear only when Microsoft Word is the active application.
The three extra Word-specific buttons (Font, Spacing and Colour, Word Check) appear on the Readable toolbar whenever Microsoft Word is the active application.

What the Word integration does

When Microsoft Word is in focus, the Readable toolbar shows additional buttons for:

When Word is not in focus, these buttons disappear from the toolbar to keep it uncluttered.

Speech access to Word's right-hand panes

Sensory Readable's speech voicing extends beyond the main document text to Word's right-hand panes. Anything visible in the Editor pane — grammar and style suggestions, readability metrics, similarity reports, and so on — can be read aloud using Readable's standard speech controls. Move the mouse pointer over the content and hold Ctrl to have it spoken, or select and press Play.

The same applies to Microsoft's Copilot pane. Copilot generates text directly inside Word, and Ctrl-hover-to-speak is a fast way to listen to that output sentence by sentence. This is especially valuable if you intend to republish Copilot's content — point the mouse, listen, verify the language is what you want, and only then commit it into your document. No need to copy text out, no breaking your reading flow.

Why integrate with Word specifically?

Microsoft Word remains the most widely used word processor in education and the workplace, particularly in the UK and Ireland. Many users with reading or writing differences spend a large proportion of their day in Word. Direct integration means Readable's most-needed adjustments happen with one click rather than navigating through Word's own menus and dialogs.

Versions of Word supported

Readable's Word integration supports:

  • Microsoft Word 2016 and later (desktop versions)
  • Microsoft 365 (Word desktop, included with the M365 subscription)