Workaround - iPad mail MS Office365 Attachments And READ LOUD voices in MS Word for iPad
Some months ago, I began having problems in the iPad MAIL app. New emails would not attach Microsoft Office365 documents (MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint).
File names are visible through MS ONEDRIVE when you try to attach them, but the app hangs and never attaches the file after you try to select them.
Note: Same symptom may occur with dedicated email clients from web email systems like GMAIL, GMX, ZOHO, etc.
This appears to be a combination due to changes to iPad OS/iPhone OS and Microsoft Office. Does not appear to be a single cause, as Microsoft claims.
I have also noticed that the READ ALOUD feature in MS Office for the iPad will lapse into a rather primitive sounding computer voice, when a previously selected “natural sounding” voice was used and was working. especially after updates to the iPad OS or iOS.
Workaround for File Attachments to eMails:
- Open Document in MS Word, Excel, Etc for the iPad.
- Save a Copy of the document, but save it LOCALLY to your iPAD using the iPad FILES app. (Do not save to MS OneDrive).
- Create your email in iPad/iOS MAIL app
- Attach from the copy saved locally to your iPad or iPhone
Workaround for MS Word READ ALOUD voice issue:
- Manually login to your Office365 Account through a browser.
If necessary, do this from a laptop or desktop, not your iPad.
- Open an existing MW Word Document or create a new one.
- Open SETTINGS and select either the male or female voice.
- Logoff MS Word / Office 365 from the web.
- Go to your iPad or iPhone.
- Close MS Word and logout of OFFICE 365 on your iPad
- Manually shut down your iPad.
- Cold Boot your iPad.
- Login to Office 365 on your iPad
- Open up a saved MS Word doc and READ ALOUD.
Voice that you hear now should be the “natural sounding” MS voice you chose.
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I believe that this is occurring because preference settings between the software are getting erased or not being preserved when Microsoft or Apple update their OS and cloud apps.
Since multiple email clients get screwed up, I would speculate that Something is happening at the Microsoft ONEDRIVE layer.
Whenever you change where the file is saved and read from, the attachment issues go away.
There is no way to confirm this one way or another, but Microsoft Support for Office 365, Azure, and even their desktop and OS products has never really had any high level of historical quality.
When in doubt, suspect the vendor who tends to exaggerate, mislead and lie the most. The vendor with the worst track record of support accuracy trust is often the culprit.
Someone may want to try verifying this by storing MS Office documents in some third party cloud storage location (ergo: IceDrive, Sync.Com, pDrive, etc) that is not owned by either Microsoft or Apple.