How to Enable Dictation for Voice Input on iPhone, Mac, Android, and Windows Devices

The main working techniques – comparable to Windows and macOS for PCs, and Android and iOS for mobiles – include voice to textual content inputs built-in as an accessibility software, however for those who’re coping with a whole lot of typing, it may be useful to take a step again and make use of this function. The accuracy is not one hundred pc – it is not even 90 p.c for probably the most half – and it’s additional muddled by Indian accents, or rooms with background noise comparable to ceiling followers and air conditioners, however the outcomes are fairly usable, and after an extended day in workplace, switching to voice will help you place off carpal tunnel for one other day.

Here are the other ways in which you’ll be able to allow voice dictation, whether or not you are utilizing a Windows PC, a Mac, an Android system, or an iPhone. Here are the steps you want to observe, together with a number of quick ideas on the quirks of every platform.

How to allow voice enter on Windows

The steps to begin utilizing voice typing with a Windows PC are fairly easy. Following these steps will get you began with Windows Speech Recognition, which helps you to speak as a substitute of typing, but additionally permits you to management the PC together with your voice – a necessary software for folks with accessibility points.

If you’re on Windows 7, open Speech Recognition by clicking the Start button > All Programs > Accessories > Ease of Access > Windows Speech Recognition.

On Windows 8, press the Win key (which appears to be like just like the Windows brand) + Q. In the search field, sort in speech recognition, and then click on on Windows Speech Recognition to get began.

On Windows 10, go to the Control Panel > Ease of Access > Speech Recognition > Start speech recognition.

Then observe these steps:

1. Say “start listening”, or click on the Microphone button to begin the listening mode.
2. Open this system you need to use or choose the textual content field you need to dictate textual content into.
3. Say the textual content that you really want dictate.

That’s it!

To right textual content, you’ll be able to merely say “correct that”, and edit the very last thing you stated. In use, it really works out very well. On Windows 7 with the language set to English (United Kingdom), we had no main points, and the Windows speech to textual content additionally appeared to be extra forgiving of our accent than the opposite working techniques’ voice to textual content brokers. Windows 8 and Windows 10 allow you to use English (India) as effectively, for those who choose that.

Voice to textual content with Windows labored effectively, and you may as well use instructions comparable to “new line”, or “press control B”. You can use it wherever there’s a text-entry dialog field. Also fascinating – so long as the Windows Speech Recognition toolbar hasn’t been closed, you should utilize the instructions “start listening” and “stop listening”.

Windows 10 has another feature called Dictation. This feature was only newly added in the Windows Fall Creators Update, which only just became available to all users. This is likely connected to the improvements to the Windows virtual keyboard, which now has a microphone button you can tap to start dictating. If you’re using a regular PC, you can access dictation by pressing the Win key + H and start talking, However, unlike speech recognition, the dictation feature only works if your language setting is US English, possibly because it’s still a new feature.

How to enable voice input on macOS

Voice typing with an Apple computer is also pretty straightforward. Here are the steps that you have to follow.

1. Go to the Apple Menu > System Preferences > Keyboard > Dictation
2. Turn on Dictation by clicking on the button.
3. Check Use Enhanced Dictation – this allows you to use dictation even while offline, which is a useful feature to have. It required a 433MB download to activate.
4. You can also choose your shortcut key from the drop-down menu. We kept it at the default press Fn twice, but you can enter a custom binding as well.

This enables dictation in a text box whenever you invoke the keyboard command, and you can then talk to the computer to type the text you need. Like with Windows, can use various commands, such as “choose earlier sentence”, “go to starting”, “change ‘this’ with ‘that'”, and “cease dictation” to stop. If you go into System Preferences > Accessibility > Dictation and check Enable the dictation keyword phrase, you can also start dictation by saying “laptop, begin dictation”.

Getting started doesn’t take long, and in general the dictation is fairly accurate, however it appears to be more sensitive to accent related issues. “However” is one word that we had a lot of difficulty getting Apple to understand. Also the dictation on the Mac tends to insert the occasional “all” in the middle of sentences, which probably has something to do with the accent as well.

Note that with computers, especially, you will get much better results if you use a headset with mic, instead of relying on your laptop’s built-in mic.

How to enable voice input on Android

Dictation in Android is a breeze, and you don’t even need to go into any settings – it appears to be on by default on the phones we were able to check this on. Whenever you enter a text field with the default Google keyboard, you’ll see a mic icon on the top right of the keyboard. Just tap that and start talking, and Google does a great job of transcribing what you’re saying.

There’s a certain amount of mistakes in the text that you will have to manually check even so, but it’s fast and easy to use. You can quickly send replies to messages or mails like this, and in case you don’t see the option to voice type, here are the settings:

1. Go to Settings > Languages and Input > Text to speech output
2. In current keyboard, choose Gboard if it isn’t already selected.
3. If Gboard isn’t available as an option, you can download it from Google Play.

Other keyboards also support voice typing, though the methods to use them might be a little different. If you want to use a different keyboard, please check the provider’s website for more information.

All in all, Google’s voice typing is forgiving about the accent and incredibly fast. However, it still makes a fair number of mistakes, and so you won’t be sending in an unedited document like this. It’s a great tool, but just remember that it will also miss some words.

How to enable voice input on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

If you’re using an iPhone or an iPad, voice typing is just as simple. Open the keyboard, tap the mic, and tap on Enable dictation if you haven’t already. That’s it, you’re good to go.

We tested this on a first-generation iPad Pro, and the results were excellent. We had guessed that the voice dictation would be the same as on the Mac, but the iPad Pro either has a better mic on board, or the algorithm being used is slightly different, because this was actually the best voice typing experience of the entire lot.

For the most part, it worked really well, although a few words were missed – however, the document continues to update itself as you add more words, so when you end the dictation, it tries to re-contextualise the results. When we said “general”, it just displayed “all”, which was something we were going to have to go back and edit; but once we ended the dictation session, it took a few seconds before presenting the keyboard, and in that time, changed the text to “general”!

This can lead to some strange results though – for example, the word “sort” became “sick”, and after closing dictation, became “say what about”. AI is a mysterious factor typically, let’s simply depart it at that.

Once once more, you will not get an ideal doc on the finish of your session, however there’s loads to be stated for having the ability to shortly communicate out numerous paragraphs, and then simply tweak them to take away the errors.

So there you’ve gotten it – these are the inbuilt instruments for voice typing on all 4 main working techniques. Do you employ any specialised instruments for voice typing? If so, what has your expertise with them been like? Tell us and the opposite readers by way of the feedback.