07.04.2020

Microsoft Word For Mac Set Dictation

  1. Microsoft Word For Mac Set Dictation Free
  2. Dictate Office
  3. Microsoft Word For Mac Set Dictation Windows 10

Oct 03, 2019 Click the Dictate icon on the Ribbon and dictate your text. When finished, click the icon again to stop dictation. As in Word for 365, click the bottom arrow of the icon to see and choose a.

If you have mobility or motor impairments, repetitive stress injuries, or you find typing on a keyboard difficult in any way, there's an alternative. Dictation lets you talk instead of type, and voice-to-text transcribes what you say into words on the screen. It's among the Mac's many accessibility features. All you have to do is set it up and get going.

Dictation and Enhanced Dictation not working on a Mac computer, how to fix? Open Sound under System Preferences and choose the Input tab. Try to set the input volume to a level higher than middle. If you still have problem, turn on the ambient noise reduction option. If you are using an external microphone, check the manufacturer's support. Jul 12, 2017 To use voice dictation in an application on your Mac, first select a text field in an application. Next, press the Fn (Function) key twice or click the Edit menu and select Start Dictation. Speak to your Mac and the words you speak will start appearing in the text field. Dictate, a Microsoft Garage project Dictate is an free Microsoft Office add-in for Outlook, Word and PowerPoint which converts speech to text using the state of the art speech recognition behind Cortana and Microsoft Translator. Currently available for Windows OS. 2017-11-6  After the 7-day trial is completed, you will be charged the monthly fee to continue using Dictation Pro. To avoid any charges, cancel the subscription during the trial period from the Microsoft Store. Even after canceling you can still use Dictation Pro with all word processing features enabled but you will not be able to dictate words.

How to enable and use Dictation

Basic dictation is essentially always enabled by default — you just need to activate it.

  1. Click into a text area like a document or the address bar of your web browser.
  2. Double-press the Fn key. A microphone will appear on your screen and if it's receiving audio, you'll see activity inside of it.
  3. Speak the text you want to type. You can speak various punctuation and symbols, including brackets, percent signs, and more. You can also say phrases like 'caps on' to turn on capital letters.

  4. Click Done under the microphone icon or press the Fn key once when you're finished dictating.

The more you use Dictation, the more it learns how you speak — like your accent and cadence. It may seem finicky at first, but as you use it more, it'll get better and better. Apple has a great starter guide on how to dictate punctuation and formatting, as well.

How to change your Dictation language

Did you know that you can dictate your text in multiple languages? Here's how.

  1. Open System Preferences from your Dock or Applications folder.
  2. Click Keyboard.

  3. Click Dictation.
  4. Click the drop-down next to Language.

  5. Click Add Language…
  6. Click the checkboxes next to languages that you wish to add.

  7. Click OK.

To use those languages, you can switch to the default dictation option at any time by going to System Preferences > Keyboard > Dictation Language and selecting your current language from the dropdown menu.

How to enable and use Enhanced Dictation

Enhanced Dictation enables you to dictate without an internet connection, and dictate continuously; this means that your words will convert to text more quickly since they're being processed locally on your device.

  1. Open System Preferences from your Dock or Applications folder.
  2. Click Keyboard.

  3. Click Dictation.
  4. Click the checkbox next to Use Enhanced Dictation. Enhanced Dictation will take several minutes to download if you haven't done so already.

Once enabled, you can use Enhanced Dictation the same way you would regular dictation. Press the Fn key twice when your cursor is in a text field. If the microphone shows up, speak what you want to be typed and click Done or press the Fn key once.

How to change the Dictation keyboard shortcut

While the Fn key on your Mac's keyboard is the default trigger for dictation, you can change that in the Dictation section of the keyboard preference pane

  1. Open System Preferences from your Dock or Applications folder.
  2. Click Keyboard.

  3. Click Dictation.
  4. Click the drop-down menu next to Shortcut.

  5. Click an option in the list or click Customize to create your own (seems like only the arrow keys work).

How to enable/disable Dictation Commands

Dictation Commands allow you to do things with your text just by speaking. For example, you can select a whole paragraph, go back to the beginning, or replace a phrase with another phrase.

You can only use Dictation Commands with Enhanced Dictation enabled.

  1. Click the Apple menu button on the top left of your screen.
  2. Click System Preferences.
  3. Click Accessibility.

  4. Click Dictation in the menu on the left. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find it.
  5. Click Dictation Commands…

  6. Click the checkbox next to each dictation command you'd like to disable. They're all enabled by default.
  7. Click Done in the bottom right corner of the window.

Reading through the Dictation Commands list is a great way to learn all the things you can do with text just by speaking to your Mac. You can also click the checkbox next to Enable advanced commands, which will enable system commands.

How to enable the dictation keyword phrase

Want to feel like you're in a sci-fi movie? Enable the dictation keyword phrase and you'll be able to use dictation commands even when you're not dictating. So you can be all 'computer, replace 'boots' with 'cats',' and the phrase will be replaced in your text. It's a bit finicky, but when it works, it's so cool!

You have to have Enhanced Dictation enabled for this to work.

  1. Click the Apple menu button on the top left of your screen.
  2. Click System Preferences.
  3. Click Accessibility.

  4. Click Dictation in the menu on the left. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find it.
  5. Click the checkbox next to Enable the dictation keyword phrase.
  6. Enter a keyword phrase if you want to change it from 'Computer'. (But if you leave it as 'Computer', you sound like the captain of a spaceship!)

Now when your cursor is in a text field, you can just say the keyword phrase and your dictation command and it'll do it.

How to enable a sound when a command is recognized

You have to have Enhanced Dictation enabled for this to work.

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  1. Click the Apple menu button on the top left of your screen.
  2. Click System Preferences.
  3. Click Accessibility.

  4. Click Dictation in the menu on the left. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find it.
  5. Click the checkbox next to Play sound when command is recognized.

How to enable/disable output mute during dictation

If you accidentally open a website with an autoplay video or you're listening to music but want to dictate something quickly, you can mute audio output during dictation so that you don't have to manually fiddle around with volume.

You must have Enhanced Dictation enabled to use this feature.

  1. Click the Apple menu button on the top left of your screen.
  2. Click System Preferences.
  3. Click Accessibility.

  4. Click Dictation in the menu on the left. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find it.
  5. Click the checkbox next to Mute audio output while dictating.

Dictation accessibility in macOS Catalina

In macOS Catalina, Apple has opted to change things up a bit regarding dictation and accessibility. While there was previously a section for accessibility options for dictation in System Preferences, those capabilities have been folded into the new Voice Control accessibility feature. Voice Control is a greatly expanded set of capabilities that allow you to control every aspect of your Mac, including text entry, with your voice.

Great accessories for your Mac

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These beautiful speakers offer a balanced sound in a stylish package. With no knobs on the front, a small pod attached to the right speaker controls volume, which also holds the ports for your headphones or other audio devices.

Questions?

Dictation questions? Let us know in the comments below!

Updated July 2019: Updated instructions for macOS Mojave and added a section about what's happening with dictation accessibility in macOS Catalina.

macOS Catalina

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The Fall Creators Update to Windows 10 brought a new dictation feature that allows you to translate spoken words into text a lot easier than before — and in any app and across the desktop experience.

Dictation joins the touch keyboard and handwriting as input options, and is very similar to Speech Recognition that's also part of Windows 10. Dictation focuses exclusively on converting voice into text, so you can't you can't use it to navigate the desktop and apps using your voice as you can with Speech Recognition.

In this Windows 10 guide, we'll walk you through the easy steps to start using voice dictation on your device.

How to get started with dictation on Windows 10

If you have a microphone connected to your device, dictation will be enabled by default, and you'll be able to access it using the Windows key + H keyboard shortcut or clicking the microphone button in the touch keyboard experience.

In order to properly invoke the dictation panel, make sure to place the mouse cursor on any text field, and then use the Windows key + H shortcut.

When the voice dictation panel appears, and you see the microphone icon in blue, you can immediately start dictating. However, bear in mind that using this experience, you'll also need to speak the punctuation and to dictate a symbol or letter, you'll need to use the 'start spelling' command, and then speak the symbol or letter.

For example, if you want to say 'Microsoft sells software, hardware, and accessories.' with the quotation marks, you'll need to say open quote microsoft sells software comma hardware comma and accessories period close quote.

In the same way, to input a letter using uppercase, you must use the 'uppercase' command, followed by the letter. For example, uppercase m will give you an M.

Once you're done, say 'stop dictating,' or after five seconds of inactivity, dictation will turn off automatically.

If the panel gets in the way, you can always drag it around the desktop. When you're done dictating, you can dismiss it pressing any key in the keyboard, clicking anywhere outside of the experience, or clicking the close (X) button on the right.

The up arrow button allows you to open the touch keyboard or handwriting experience, whichever you were using last.

Windows 10 dictation commands

Here's a list of the most common dictation commands that you can use. The words using 'quotation marks' are just examples. You'll need to replace them with different words to perform your task.

Voice commandsActions
Select 'word'Selects specific word or phrase
Select thatSelects recent dictation result
Select the 'next three words'
Select the 'previous two paragraphs'
Selects multiple blocks of text
Start spelling
Stop spelling
Enables and disables spelling mode
Clear selection
Unselect that
Clear current selection
Delete that
Strike that
Deletes recent dication result or selected text
Delete 'word'Deletes current word
Go after that
Move after 'word'
Go to the end of 'paragraph'
Move to the end of that
Moves cursor to the first character after specified word or phrase
Go after 'word'
Move after 'word'
Go to the end of that
Move to the end of 'paragraph'
Moves cursor to the end of the text
Go up to the previous 'paragraph'
Move back to the previous 'word'
Moves cursor backwards to the beginning of the previous block of text
Go to the start of the 'word'Moves cursor to the first character before a specified word or phrase
Go before that
Move to the start of that
Moves cursor to the start of a text block
Go down to the next 'paragraph'
Move forward to the next 'word'
Moves cursor forward to the beginning of the next block of text
Go to the end of the 'paragraph'
Move to the end of the 'word'
Moves cursor to the end of a text block
Press 'key'
Tap 'key'
Supported keys: Tab, Enter, End, Home, Page up, Page down, Backspace, Delete

If you want to learn more about the punctuation and symbol commands you can use, check out this Microsoft support page.

Wrapping things up

Overall the experience using dictation on Windows 10 is good, but not perfect, as you may find it not very reliable all the time. For example, during my test, repeatedly saying 'uppercase w' would keep on writing the words 'uppercase' and 'W.'

In addition, it's not capable of recognizing punctuations automatically. It's limited to users running the US English version of Windows 10. And despite the fact that you can use some of the Speech Recognition commands, you'll notice the absence of the commands to navigate the desktop or app using your voice.

However, improvements and changes to dictation, such as an updated interface and customization options in the Settings app are expected to arrive in the next version of Windows 10.

More Windows 10 resources

For more helpful articles, coverage, and answers to common questions about Windows 10, visit the following resources:

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Microsoft Word For Mac Set Dictation Free

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Microsoft Word For Mac Set Dictation Windows 10

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