Dictate Text Microsoft Word Mac Rating: 3,5/5 2971 reviews

macOS Catalina introduces Voice Control, a new way to fully control your Mac entirely with your voice. Voice Control uses the Siri speech-recognition engine to improve on the Enhanced Dictation feature available in earlier versions of macOS.1

Jan 29, 2020  When I say: Enter the word or phrase that you want to be able to speak to perform the action. While using: Choose whether your Mac performs the action only when you're using a particular app. Perform: Choose the action to perform. You can open a Finder item, open a URL, paste text, paste data from the clipboard, press a keyboard shortcut. 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. If you’ve set up Enhanced Dictation, they’ll appear immediately.

How to turn on Voice Control

After upgrading to macOS Catalina, follow these steps to turn on Voice Control:

  1. Choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Accessibility.
  2. Click Voice Control in the sidebar.
  3. Select Enable Voice Control. When you turn on Voice Control for the first time, your Mac completes a one-time download from Apple.2
    Voice Control preferences

When Voice Control is enabled, you see an onscreen microphone representing the mic selected in Voice Control preferences.

To pause Voice Control and stop it from from listening, say ”Go to sleep” or click Sleep. To resume Voice Control, say or click ”Wake up.”

How to use Voice Control

Get to know Voice Control by reviewing the list of voice commands available to you: Say “Show commands” or ”Show me what I can say.” The list varies based on context, and you may discover variations not listed. To make it easier to know whether Voice Control heard your phrase as a command, you can select ”Play sound when command is recognized” in Voice Control preferences.

Basic navigation

Voice Control recognizes the names of many apps, labels, controls, and other onscreen items, so you can navigate by combining those names with certain commands. Here are some examples:

  • Open Pages: ”Open Pages.” Then create a new document: ”Click New Document.” Then choose one of the letter templates: 'Click Letter. Click Classic Letter.” Then save your document: ”Save document.”
  • Start a new message in Mail: ”Click New Message.” Then address it: ”John Appleseed.”
  • Turn on Dark Mode: ”Open System Preferences. Click General. Click Dark.” Then quit System Preferences: ”Quit System Preferences” or ”Close window.”
  • Restart your Mac: ”Click Apple menu. Click Restart” (or use the number overlay and say ”Click 8”).

You can also create your own voice commands.

Number overlays

Use number overlays to quickly interact with parts of the screen that Voice Control recognizes as clickable, such as menus, checkboxes, and buttons. To turn on number overlays, say ”Show numbers.” Then just say a number to click it.

Number overlays make it easy to interact with complex interfaces, such as web pages. For example, in your web browser you could say ”Search for Apple stores near me.” Then use the number overlay to choose one of the results: ”Show numbers. Click 64.” (If the name of the link is unique, you might also be able to click it without overlays by saying ”Click” and the name of the link.)

Voice Control automatically shows numbers in menus and wherever you need to distinguish between items that have the same name.


Grid overlays

Use grid overlays to interact with parts of the screen that don't have a control, or that Voice Control doesn't recognize as clickable.

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Say “Show grid” to show a numbered grid on your screen, or ”Show window grid” to limit the grid to the active window. Say a grid number to subdivide that area of the grid, and repeat as needed to continue refining your selection.

To click the item behind a grid number, say ”Click” and the number. Or say ”Zoom” and the number to zoom in on that area of the grid, then automatically hide the grid. You can also use grid numbers to drag a selected item from one area of the grid to another: ”Drag 3 to 14.”

To hide grid numbers, say ”Hide numbers.” To hide both numbers and grid, say ”Hide grid.”

Dictation

When the cursor is in a document, email message, text message, or other text field, you can dictate continuously. Dictation converts your spoken words into text.

  • To enter a punctuation mark, symbol, or emoji, just speak its name, such as ”question mark” or ”percent sign” or ”happy emoji.” These may vary by language or dialect.
  • To move around and select text, you can use commands like ”Move up two sentences” or ”Move forward one paragraph” or ”Select previous word” or ”Select next paragraph.”
  • To format text, try ”Bold that” or ”Capitalize that,” for example. Say ”numeral” to format your next phrase as a number.
  • To delete text, you can choose from many delete commands. For example, say “delete that” and Voice Control knows to delete what you just typed. Or say ”Delete all” to delete everything and start over.

Voice Control understands contextual cues, so you can seamlessly transition between text dictation and commands. For example, to dictate and then send a birthday greeting in Messages, you could say ”Happy Birthday. Click Send.” Or to replace a phrase, say ”Replace I’m almost there with I just arrived.”

You can also create your own vocabulary for use with dictation.

Create your own voice commands and vocabulary

Create your own voice commands

  1. Open Voice Control preferences, such as by saying ”Open Voice Control preferences.”
  2. Click Commands or say ”Click Commands.” The complete list of all commands opens.
  3. To add a new command, click the add button (+) or say ”Click add.” Then configure these options to define the command:
    • When I say: Enter the word or phrase that you want to be able to speak to perform the action.
    • While using: Choose whether your Mac performs the action only when you're using a particular app.
    • Perform: Choose the action to perform. You can open a Finder item, open a URL, paste text, paste data from the clipboard, press a keyboard shortcut, select a menu item, or run an Automator workflow.
  4. Use the checkboxes to turn commands on or off. You can also select a command to find out whether other phrases work with that command. For example, “Undo that” works with several phrases, including “Undo this” and “Scratch that.”

To quickly add a new command, you can say ”Make this speakable.” Voice Control will help you configure the new command based on the context. For example, if you speak this command while a menu item is selected, Voice Control helps you make a command for choosing that menu item.

Create your own dictation vocabulary

  1. Open Voice Control preferences, such as by saying ”Open Voice Control preferences.”
  2. Click Vocabulary, or say ”Click Vocabulary.”
  3. Click the add button (+) or say ”Click add.”
  4. Type a new word or phrase as you want it to be entered when spoken.

Learn more

  • For the best performance when using Voice Control with a Mac notebook computer and an external display, keep your notebook lid open or use an external microphone.
  • All audio processing for Voice Control happens on your device, so your personal data is always kept private.
  • Use Voice Control on your iPhone or iPod touch.
  • Learn more about accessibility features in Apple products.

1. Voice Control uses the Siri speech-recognition engine for U.S. English only. Other languages and dialects use the speech-recognition engine previously available with Enhanced Dictation.

2. If you're on a business or school network that uses a proxy server, Voice Control might not be able to download. Have your network administrator refer to the network ports used by Apple software products.

How to Dictate Text in Microsoft OfficeDictate in Word for Office 365

There are a few different ways to dictate text in Microsoft Office. It all depends on the software edition you own. Here’s how to dictate text in Word, PowerPoint, and more.

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You can type your documents the old-fashioned way in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, but dictating your text can be a handier option. Maybe you prefer to dictate your words as they occur to you, or you require a feature with more accessibility than the typical keyboard can provide. Microsoft offers several different dictation tools and features; which one you can use depends on the flavor of Office you run.

Certain versions of Office programs include a built-in Dictate tool you can access through an icon on the Ribbon. Dictate is based on a Microsoft Garage project that was developed to test dictation across Office applications. The standalone add-on is no longer active and will stop working as of Oct. 15, 2019, but the tool itself has graduated to be included in several Office programs.

Dictate works similarly across the board, but let's just check it out in the programs where it's available: Microsoft Word for Office 365, PowerPoint for Office 365, the free Word for the web, the free OneNote for the web, and the free OneNote app for Windows 10.

Dictate in Word for Office 365

If you have Word for Office 365, launch the program and open a document. Position your cursor where you want to start dictating. Click on the Dictate icon on the Home Ribbon. The first time you do this, Word may ask for permission to use your microphone. Grant that permission. You can now start speaking.

You can dictate words, punctuation, and specific actions such as 'new line' and 'new paragraph.' You may want to dictate just a few sentences or a single paragraph at a time and then stop so you can review your text for any mistakes. To stop dictating, press the Dictate icon again.

Dictate in Other Languages

You can also dictate text in other languages. Click on the bottom arrow of the Dictate icon and choose the language you want to speak. Then click on the top half of the Dictate icon to begin dictating.

Dictate in PowerPoint

Next, let's try PowerPoint for Office 365. Launch the program if you have it. Start a new presentation or continue an existing one. 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 different language for dictation.

Microsoft Office Mac

Dictate in Word For the Web

Let's check out Word for the web. Go to Office.com and sign in with your Microsoft Account. At the main Office screen, click the icon for Word. Create a new document or open an existing document. Click the Dictate icon on the Home Ribbon and dictate your text.

When finished, click the icon again to turn off Dictation. To see other languages available for dictation, click the Down arrow next to the Dictate icon and choose the language you'd like to use.

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Dictate in OneNote

You can dictate text in two different version of OneNote. Either go to Office.com and choose OneNote, or use the OneNote Windows 10 app. In either version, start a new OneNote document or open and continue an existing one. Click the Dictate button on the Home Ribbon to dictate. Click it again to stop. Click the Down arrow to see other languages for dictation.

Windows Speech Recognition

The Microsoft Office Dictate tool doesn't work with Excel or earlier versions of Office, and Dictate doesn't offer a way to easily correct mistakes, add words to a dictionary, or manage settings.

Voice Dictate On Microsoft Word

An option that can resolve these limitations is the speech-recognition tool built directly into Windows 10. Use this feature in any Windows program, including all your Office applications.

Dictate Text Microsoft Word Mac Download

Open a program like Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. This works with all versions of Office, including Office 365, Office 2019, and prior versions. Hold down the Win key and press H. A dictation toolbar pops up. You can now begin dictating your text. As with the Dictate tool, you can dictate punctuation and specific actions.

The tool allows you to dictate actions for moving around the screen. For example, you can say 'tab' to move to the next cell in the column, or 'new line' to move to the next cell in the row. You can also say things like 'Undo that' to erase the last word you dictated. Microsoft provides a full list of phrases and actions you can dictate with Windows speech recognition.

Speech Recognition Settings

The Control Panel in Windows 10 provides you with the ability to set up a microphone, train the speech recognition, or take a speech tutorial. Open Control Panel, click Speech Recognition, then click the link you need to configure the tool.

Third-Party Programs

Finally, you can always try a third-party voice-dictation program that works with Office, other applications, and Windows in general. These products typically cost a few bucks, but they provide more power and flexibility than you'll find in Microsoft's free and built-in tools.

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One such option is Nuance's Dragon program, which costs $150 for the Home Edition and $300 for the Professional Individual Edition. Another option is Braina, which offers a free lite version and a pro version for $49 per year or $139 for lifetime use.