Just found this on word and hearing your work read back at you, if slightly mechanical, seems even better than reading it out yourself. You can hear someone else, even it's just a computer, read it from their point of view. I certainly think it seems like a good idea but how much should this be relied on and does anyone make use of this feature often?
I've found that TTS (Text To Speech) is my best friend. I use it in the last stage of revision (for stuff like typos, mostly). There are free online TTS pages, not necessarily Windows.
Mac machines have this feature as a baked-in part of the operating system. You can use it in any application with text. I've used it in the past, and I do think there is some merit in the action, but I think it's better to get a real human to read it to you. A real human will stumble where a machine will not, in places where the issue isn't an error or a typo, but instead a clumsy bit of syntax, a sentence that seems to be heading logically in one direction, only to make a sharp turn, using an unexpected meaning or grammatical link. These rough patches in the pavement are also needful to know, and a machine read won't really point them out the way a person will.
When i'm incapacitated to the point I can barely speak I like that feature, it's satisfying with so much of my time being spent on rhyming and phonetics.
I find the feature of Word extremely useful. Reading the same text again and again makes me gloss over it and spead read. Being able to close my eyes and listen instead allows me to pick up things that I otherwise would have missed.