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Setup the Development Environment for System.Speech

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Speech engines are built in to Windows Vista and Windows 7. The System.Speech managed-code namespaces in the .NET Framework provide you with access to Microsoft's speech recognition and speech synthesis technologies in Windows. Use the following steps to set up the environment for speech development, for applications that will run on Windows Vista or Windows 7.

To gain access to the System.Speech namespaces

  1. Download and install the Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (Web Installer).

  2. In your Visual Studio project, add a reference to System.Speech, as follows:

    1. In the Solution Explorer window, right-click References, and then click Add Reference.

    2. In the Add Reference window, on the .NET tab, scroll until you find System.Speech and select it, and then click OK.

  3. In your Visual Studio project, add a using statement for each System.Speech namespace that you want to access. For example, if you want to work with speech synthesis, enter the following using statement

    using System.Speech.Synthesis;

    To work with speech recognition, enter the following using statement:

    using System.Speech.Recognition;

Your project should now have access to speech recognition and speech synthesis in Windows Vista or Windows 7.

Try the examples under Speech Synthesis and Speech Recognition to get started.