speech to text in word app

How to use speech to text in Microsoft Word

Speech to text in Microsoft Word is a hidden gem that is powerful and easy to use. We show you how to do it in five quick and simple steps

Master the skill of speech to text in Microsoft Word and you'll be dictating documents with ease before you know it. Developed and refined over many years, Microsoft's speech recognition and voice typing technology is an efficient way to get your thoughts out, create drafts and make notes.

Just like the best speech to text apps that make life easier for us when we're using our phones, Microsoft's offering is ideal for those of us who spend a lot of time using Word and don't want to wear out our fingers or the keyboard with all that typing. While speech to text in Microsoft Word used to be prone to errors which you'd then have to go back and correct, the technology has come a long way in recent years and is now amongst the best text-to-speech software .

Regardless of whether you have the best computer or the best Windows laptop , speech to text in Microsoft Word is easy to access and a breeze to use. From connecting your microphone to inserting punctuation, you'll find everything you need to know right here in this guide. Let's take a look...

How to use speech to text in Microsoft Word: Preparation

The most important thing to check is whether you have a valid Microsoft 365 subscription, as voice typing is only available to paying customers. If you’re reading this article, it’s likely your business already has a Microsoft 365 enterprise subscription. If you don’t, however, find out more about Microsoft 365 for business via this link . 

The second thing you’ll need before you start voice typing is a stable internet connection. This is because Microsoft Word’s dictation software processes your speech on external servers. These huge servers and lighting-fast processors use vast amounts of speech data to transcribe your text. In fact, they make use of advanced neural networks and deep learning technology, which enables the software to learn about human speech and continuously improve its accuracy. 

These two technologies are the key reason why voice typing technology has improved so much in recent years, and why you should be happy that Microsoft dictation software requires an internet connection. 

Once you’ve got a valid Microsoft 365 subscription and an internet connection, you’re ready to go!

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Step 1: Open Microsoft Word

Simple but crucial. Open the Microsoft Word application on your device and create a new, blank document. We named our test document “How to use speech to text in Microsoft Word - Test” and saved it to the desktop so we could easily find it later.

Step 2: Click on the Dictate button

Once you’ve created a blank document, you’ll see a Dictate button and drop-down menu on the top right-hand corner of the Home menu. It has a microphone symbol above it. From here, open the drop-down menu and double-check that the language is set to English.

One of the best parts of Microsoft Word’s speech to text software is its support for multiple languages. At the time of writing, nine languages were supported, with several others listed as preview languages. Preview languages have lower accuracy and limited punctuation support.

Step 3: Allow Microsoft Word access to the Microphone

If you haven’t used Microsoft Word’s speech to text software before, you’ll need to grant the application access to your microphone. This can be done at the click of a button when prompted.

It’s worth considering using an external microphone for your dictation, particularly if you plan on regularly using voice to text software within your organization. While built-in microphones will suffice for most general purposes, an external microphone can improve accuracy due to higher quality components and optimized placement of the microphone itself.

Step 4: Begin voice typing

Now we get to the fun stuff. After completing all of the above steps, click once again on the dictate button. The blue symbol will change to white, and a red recording symbol will appear. This means Microsoft Word has begun listening for your voice. If you have your sound turned up, a chime will also indicate that transcription has started. 

Using voice typing is as simple as saying aloud the words you would like Microsoft to transcribe. It might seem a little strange at first, but you’ll soon develop a bit of flow, and everyone finds their strategies and style for getting the most out of the software. 

These four steps alone will allow you to begin transcribing your voice to text. However, if you want to elevate your speech to text software skills, our fifth step is for you.

Step 5: Incorporate punctuation commands

Microsoft Word’s speech to text software goes well beyond simply converting spoken words to text. With the introduction and improvement of artificial neural networks, Microsoft’s voice typing technology listens not only to single words but to the phrase as a whole. This has enabled the company to introduce an extensive list of voice commands that allow you to insert punctuation marks and other formatting effects while speaking. 

We can’t mention all of the punctuation commands here, but we’ll name some of the most useful. Saying the command “period” will insert a period, while the command “comma” will insert, unsurprisingly, a comma. The same rule applies for exclamation marks, colons, and quotations. If you’d like to finish a paragraph and leave a line break, you can say the command “new line.” 

These tools are easy to use. In our testing, the software was consistently accurate in discerning words versus punctuation commands.

Microsoft’s speech to text software is powerful. Having tested most of the major platforms, we can say that Microsoft offers arguably the best product when balancing cost versus performance. This is because the software is built directly into Microsoft 365, which many businesses already use. If this applies to your business, you can begin using Microsoft’s voice typing technology straight away, with no additional costs. 

We hope this article has taught you how to use speech to text software in Microsoft Word, and that you’ll now be able to apply these skills within your organization. 

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Transcribe your recordings

Note:  This feature is currently only available in Word for Microsoft 365 on Windows.

The transcribe feature converts speech to a text transcript with each speaker individually separated. After your conversation, interview, or meeting, you can revisit parts of the recording by playing back the timestamped audio and edit the transcription to make corrections. You can save the full transcript as a Word document or insert snippets of it into existing documents.

You can transcribe speech in two ways: 

Record directly in Word

Upload an audio file

Record in word.

You can record directly in Word while taking notes in the canvas and then transcribe the recording.  Word transcribes in the background as you record; you won't see text on the page as you would when dictating. You'll see the transcript after you save and transcribe the recording.

Go to  Home  >  Dictate  > Transcribe .

Be careful to set the correct microphone input on your device, otherwise results may be disappointing. For example, if your computer's microphone input is set to your headset mic based on the last time you used it, it won't work well for picking up an in-person meeting. You can change which microphone is used in Windows sound settings.

If you want to record and transcribe a virtual call, don't use your headset. That way, the recording can pick up the sound coming out of your device.

Wait for the pause icon to be outlined in blue and the timestamp to start incrementing to let you know that recording has begun.

Start talking or begin a conversation with another person. Speak clearly.

Leave the Transcribe pane open while recording.

When finished, select Save and transcribe now  to save your recording to OneDrive and start the transcription process.

Transcription may take a while depending on your internet speed. Keep the Transcribe  pane open while the transcription is being made. Feel free to do other work or switch browser tabs or applications and come back later.

Note:  The recordings will be stored in the Transcribed Files folder on OneDrive. You can delete them there. Learn more about privacy at Microsoft.

You can upload a pre-recorded audio file and then transcribe the recording. 

Go to  Home  >  Dictate dropdown > Transcribe .

Choose an audio file from the file picker. Transcribe currently supports .wav, .mp4, .m4a, .mp3 formats. 

Transcription may take a while depending on your internet speed, up to about the length of the audio file. Be sure to keep the Transcribe  pane open while the transcription is happening, but feel free to do other work or switch browser tabs or applications and come back later.

Note:  Recordings are stored in the Transcribed Files folder on OneDrive. You can delete them there. Learn more about privacy at Microsoft.

Note:  Users with a Microsoft 365 subscription can transcribe a maximum of 300 minutes of uploaded audio per month.

Interact with the transcript

Your transcript is associated with the document it’s attached to until you remove it. If you close and reopen the pane or close and reopen the document, the transcript remains saved with the document.

You can interact with the transcript in a few different ways.

Access the audio file

Play back the audio

Use the controls at the top of the Transcribe pane to play back your audio. The relevant transcript section highlights as it plays.

Select the timestamp of any transcript section to play that portion of audio.

Change the playback speed up to 2x .

Relabel a speaker or edit a section

The transcription service identifies and separates different speakers and labels them "Speaker 1," "Speaker 2," etc. You can edit the speaker label and change all occurrences of it to something else. You can also edit the content of a section to correct any issues in transcription.

In the Transcribe pane, hover over a section you want to edit.

Add a transcript to the document

Unlike Dictate, Transcribe doesn't automatically add the audio to the document. Instead, from the Transcribe pane, you can add the entire transcript, or specific sections of it, to the document.

To delete the transcript or create a new one, select New transcription . You can only store one transcript per document; if you create a new transcript for the document, the current transcript will be deleted. However, any transcript sections you've added to the document remain in the document, but not in the Transcribe pane.

Rename a recorded audio file  

You can rename an audio file that has been recorded.

Go to the Transcribed Files folder in OneDrive, or at the top of the Transcribe pane, click the name of the recording. When the audio player interface appears, close it to return to the Transcribed Files folder.

Note:  TheTranscribed Files folder looks different depending on whether your OneDrive account is for a business or personal.

Close the Transcribe pane in Word and then reopen it to see the name update.

Share the transcript and recording

You can share the transcript with someone in two ways:

Select  Add all to document  to add the entire transcript to your document, then share the Word document as usual. The transcript will appear as regular text in the document and there will be a hyperlink to the audio file in the document.

Share the Word document as usual. The recipient can open the  Transcribe  pane to interact with the transcript. To protect your privacy, playback of the audio file is by default not available in the  Transcribe  pane for anyone that you share the Word document with.

You can also share the transcript and enable playback of the audio file in the Transcribe  pane:

On your version of the Word document, click the filename at the top of the  Transcribe  pane to go to where the audio file is saved in OneDrive.

The Transcribed Files folder in OneDrive opens.

Find your recording, then select Actions > Share   and add the email address of the person you want to share the recording with.

Share the Word document as usual.

The person that you shared both the Word document and audio file with will be able to open the Word document, open the  Transcribe  pane, and interact with both the transcript and audio file.

Make sure you’re signed into Microsoft 365, using the new Microsoft Edge or Chrome.

If it’s your first time to transcribe, give the browser permission to use your mic. There might be a dialog that pops up in the browser or you may have to go to the browser settings. 

Be careful to set the correct microphone input on your device, otherwise results may be disappointing. For example, if your computer's microphone input is set to your headset mic based on the last time you used it, it won't work well for picking up an in-person meeting.

Make sure you’re signed into  Microsoft 365, using the new Microsoft Edge or Chrome.

System requirements

System requirements are:

Transcribe only works on the new Microsoft Edge and Chrome.

Transcribe requires an Internet connection.

Note:  This feature is currently available only on the Windows platform in OneNote for Microsoft 365.

Voice and Ink are a powerful combination. Together for the first time in Office, transcription and ink  makes it easier than ever to take notes, focus on what’s important, and review your content later. With transcription on, you can record what you hear. You’re free to annotate, write notes, or highlight what’s important. When you’re ready to review, your ink will play back in lockstep with the recording. You can easily jump to a specific moment by tapping on any annotation to recall more context. 

Note:  Transcribe is not available for GCC/GCC-H/DoD customers.

You can transcribe speech in two ways:  

Record directly in OneNote.

Upload an audio file.

Note:  When you play back the audio, you can see the ink strokes that you made during the recording.

Record in OneNote

You can record directly in OneNote while taking notes in the canvas and then transcribe the recording.  OneNote transcribes in the background as you record; you won't see text on the page as you would when dictating. You'll see the transcript after you save and transcribe the recording. The ink strokes you make while recording it will be captured and replayed. 

Make sure you’re signed into Microsoft 365 and using the latest version on OneNote. 

Be careful to set the correct microphone input on your device for the best result. For example, if your computer's microphone input is set to your headset mic based on the last time you used it, it won't work well for picking up an in-person meeting.

If you want to record and transcribe a virtual call, don't use your headset. That way, the recording can pick up the sound coming out of your device.

If it’s your first-time transcribing, give the OneNote app permission to use your mic:  How to set up and test microphones in Windows (microsoft.com) .

Tip:  When the pause icon is outlined in purple and the timestamp starts to change, the recording has started and you can speak, have a conversation, or record a lecture. Speak clearly or make sure the incoming audio is clear.

Note:  The recordings are stored in the Transcribed Files folder on OneDrive. You can delete them there. Learn more about privacy at Microsoft.

You can upload a pre-recorded audio file and then transcribe the recording. Make sure you’re signed into Microsoft 365 and using the latest version on OneNote. 

Choose an audio file from the file picker. Transcribe currently supports .wav, .mp4, .m4a, .mp3 formats.

Transcription may take a while depending on your internet speed, up to the length of the audio file. Be certain to keep the Transcribe pane open while the transcription is happening, but feel free to do other work, switch browser tabs or applications, and come back later.

You can delete stored recordings in the Transcribed Files folder on OneDrive.  Learn more about privacy at Microsoft.

Use Ink while recording

Note:  Inking strokes made during the paused state replay at the same time.

Interact with the transcript 

Your transcript is associated with the OneNote page it’s attached to, until you remove it from that document. If you close and reopen the pane or the document, the transcript remains saved with the document. 

You can interact with the transcript these different ways. 

Access the audio file 

Play back the audio 

Use the controls at the top of the  Transcribe  pane to play back your audio. The relevant transcript section highlights as it plays. 

Relabel a speaker or edit a section 

The transcription service identifies and separates different speakers and labels them "Speaker 1," "Speaker 2," etc. You can edit the speaker label and change all occurrences of it to something else. You can also edit the content of a section to correct any issues in transcription. 

Add a transcript to the document 

Unlike Dictate, Transcribe doesn't automatically add audio to the document. Instead, from the Transcribe pane, you can add the entire transcript, or specific sections of it, to the document. 

Note:  You can only store one transcript per document; if you create a new transcript for the document, the current transcript will be deleted. However, any transcript sections you've added to the document remain in the document, but not in the Transcribe pane. 

Rename a recorded audio file 

You can rename an audio file that has been recorded. 

Go to the   Transcribed Files   folder in OneDrive, or at the top of the  Transcribe   pane. Select the name of the recording.  When the audio player interface appears, close it to return to the Transcribed Files folder.

Close the Transcribe pane in OneNote and then reopen it to see the name update.

Note:   The Transcribed Files folder looks different depending on whether your OneDrive account is for a business or personal. 

Share the transcript and recording

Select the  Add all to document  button to add the entire transcript to your OneNote page, then share the OneNote page as usual. The transcript displays as regular text in the page with a hyperlink to the audio file in the document.

Share the OneNote page as usual. The recipient can open the  Transcribe  pane to interact with the transcript. To protect your privacy, playback of the audio file is, by default, not available in the  Transcribe  pane for anyone that you share the OneNote page with.

On your version of the OneNote page, click the filename at the top of the  Transcribe  pane to go to where the audio file is saved in OneDrive.

Also share the OneNote page as usual.

The person that you shared both the OneNote page and the audio file with will be able to open the OneNote page, open the  Transcribe  pane, and interact with both the transcript and audio file.

Transcribe + Ink only works on version 2211 Build 16.0.15819.20000 or later.

Transcribe + Ink requires an Internet connection.

Troubleshooting 

Can't find the Transcribe button 

If you can't see the button to start Transcription, make sure you're signed in with an active Microsoft 365 subscription. 

Switch accounts 

Note:  If you see the message “Switch account to transcribe on this notebook”, you need to switch your active account to the identity that has the required edit permissions. This message displays when you try to transcribe a page of the notebook where you don’t have the edit permission.  

Select the user profile currently displayed on the top right corner.

Select the user profile that has edit permissions for that page.

Language Availability 

Transcribe experience works with 80+ locales:

Arabic (Bahrain), modern standard

Arabic (Egypt)

Arabic (Iraq)

Arabic (Jordan)

Arabic (Kuwait)

Arabic (Lebanon)

Arabic (Oman)

Arabic (Qatar)

Arabic (Saudi Arabia)

Arabic (Syria)

Arabic (United Arab Emirates)

Bulgarian (Bulgaria)

Chinese (Cantonese, Traditional)

Chinese (Mandarin, Simplified)

Chinese (Taiwanese Mandarin)

Croatian (Croatia)

Czech (Czech Republic)

Danish (Denmark)

Dutch (Netherlands)

English (Australia)

English (Canada)

English (Hong Kong SAR)

English (India)

English (Ireland)

English (New Zealand)

English (Philippines)

English (Singapore)

English (South Africa)

English (United Kingdom)

English (United States)

Estonian (Estonia)

Finnish (Finland)

French (Canada)

French (France)

German (Germany)

Greek (Greece)

Gujarati (Indian)

Hindi (India)

Hungarian (Hungary)

Irish (Ireland)

Italian (Italy)

Japanese (Japan)

Korean (Korea)

Latvian (Latvia)

Lithuanian (Lithuania)

Maltese (Malta)

Marathi (India)

Norwegian (Bokmål, Norway)

Polish (Poland)

Portuguese (Brazil)

Portuguese (Portugal)

Romanian (Romania)

Russian (Russia)

Slovak (Slovakia)

Slovenian (Slovenia)

Spanish (Argentina)

Spanish (Bolivia)

Spanish (Chile)

Spanish (Colombia)

Spanish (Costa Rica)

Spanish (Cuba)

Spanish (Dominican Republic)

Spanish (Ecuador)

Spanish (El Salvador)

Spanish (Guatemala)

Spanish (Honduras)

Spanish (Mexico)

Spanish (Nicaragua)

Spanish (Panama)

Spanish (Paraguay)

Spanish (Peru)

Spanish (Puerto Rico)

Spanish (Spain)

Spanish (Uruguay)

Spanish (USA)

Spanish (Venezuela)

Swedish (Sweden)

Tamil (India)

Telugu (India)

Thai (Thailand)

Turkish (Turkey)

About Transcribe

Transcribe is one of the Office Intelligent Services, bringing the power of the cloud to Office apps to help save you time and produce better results. The Transcribe feature in Word for desktop requires optional connected experiences to function properly.

Your audio files are sent to Microsoft and used only to provide you with this service. When the transcription is done your audio and transcription results are not stored by our service.  For more information see  Connected Experiences in Office.

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Speech to Text - Voice Typing & Transcription

Take notes with your voice for free, or automatically transcribe audio & video recordings. amazingly accurate, secure & blazing fast..

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Speech to Text online notepad. Professional, accurate & free speech recognizing text editor. Distraction-free, fast, easy to use web app for dictation & typing.

Speechnotes is a powerful speech-enabled online notepad, designed to empower your ideas by implementing a clean & efficient design, so you can focus on your thoughts. We strive to provide the best online dictation tool by engaging cutting-edge speech-recognition technology for the most accurate results technology can achieve today, together with incorporating built-in tools (automatic or manual) to increase users' efficiency, productivity and comfort. Works entirely online in your Chrome browser. No download, no install and even no registration needed, so you can start working right away.

Speechnotes is especially designed to provide you a distraction-free environment. Every note, starts with a new clear white paper, so to stimulate your mind with a clean fresh start. All other elements but the text itself are out of sight by fading out, so you can concentrate on the most important part - your own creativity. In addition to that, speaking instead of typing, enables you to think and speak it out fluently, uninterrupted, which again encourages creative, clear thinking. Fonts and colors all over the app were designed to be sharp and have excellent legibility characteristics.

Example use cases

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Fast turnaround - results within minutes. Includes timestamps, auto punctuation and subtitles at unbeatable price. Protects your privacy: no human in the loop, and (unlike many other vendors) we do NOT keep your audio. Pay per use, no recurring payments. Upload your files or transcribe directly from Google Drive, YouTube or any other online source. Simple. No download or install. Just send us the file and get the results in minutes.

• Transcribe interviews
• Captions for Youtubes & movies
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• Students - transcribe lectures
• Podcasters - enlarge your audience by turning your podcasts into textual content
• Text-index entire audio archives

Key Advantages

Speechnotes is powered by the leading most accurate speech recognition AI engines by Google & Microsoft. We always check - and make sure we still use the best. Accuracy in English is very good and can easily reach 95% accuracy for good quality dictation or recording.

Lightweight & fast

Both Speechnotes dictation & transcription are lightweight-online no install, work out of the box anywhere you are. Dictation works in real time. Transcription will get you results in a matter of minutes.

Super Private & Secure!

Super private - no human handles, sees or listens to your recordings! In addition, we take great measures to protect your privacy. For example, for transcribing your recordings - we pay Google's speech to text engines extra - just so they do not keep your audio for their own research purposes.

Health advantages

Typing may result in different types of Computer Related Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI). Voice typing is one of the main recommended ways to minimize these risks, as it enables you to sit back comfortably, freeing your arms, hands, shoulders and back altogether.

Saves you time

Need to transcribe a recording? If it's an hour long, transcribing it yourself will take you about 6! hours of work. If you send it to a transcriber - you will get it back in days! Upload it to Speechnotes - it will take you less than a minute, and you will get the results in about 20 minutes to your email.

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Speechnotes dictation notepad is completely free - with ads - or a small fee to get it ad-free. Speechnotes transcription is only $0.1/minute, which is X10 times cheaper than a human transcriber! We offer the best deal on the market - whether it's the free dictation notepad ot the pay-as-you-go transcription service.

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$0.1 /minute.

• Pay as you go - no subscription
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Privacy Policy

We at Speechnotes, Speechlogger, TextHear, Speechkeys value your privacy, and that's why we do not store anything you say or type or in fact any other data about you - unless it is solely needed for the purpose of your operation. We don't share it with 3rd parties, other than Google / Microsoft for the speech-to-text engine.

Privacy - how are the recordings and results handled?

- transcription service.

Our transcription service is probably the most private and secure transcription service available.

• HIPAA compliant.
• No human in the loop. No passing your recording between PCs, emails, employees, etc.
• Secure encrypted communications (https) with and between our servers.
• Recordings are automatically deleted from our servers as soon as the transcription is done.
• Our contract with Google / Microsoft (our speech engines providers) prohibits them from keeping any audio or results.
• Transcription results are securely kept on our secure database. Only you have access to them - only if you sign in (or provide your secret credentials through the API)
• You may choose to delete the transcription results - once you do - no copy remains on our servers.

- Dictation notepad & extension

For dictation, the recording & recognition - is delegated to and done by the browser (Chrome / Edge) or operating system (Android). So, we never even have access to the recorded audio, and Edge's / Chrome's / Android's (depending the one you use) privacy policy apply here.

The results of the dictation are saved locally on your machine - via the browser's / app's local storage. It never gets to our servers. So, as long as your device is private - your notes are private.

Payments method privacy

The whole payments process is delegated to PayPal / Stripe / Google Pay / Play Store / App Store and secured by these providers. We never receive any of your credit card information.

More generic notes regarding our site, cookies, analytics, ads, etc.

• We may use Google Analytics on our site - which is a generic tool to track usage statistics.
• We use cookies - which means we save data on your browser to send to our servers when needed. This is used for instance to sign you in, and then keep you signed in.
• For the dictation tool - we use your browser's local storage to store your notes, so you can access them later.
• Non premium dictation tool serves ads by Google. Users may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Ads Settings . Alternatively, users can opt out of a third-party vendor's use of cookies for personalized advertising by visiting https://youradchoices.com/
• In case you would like to upload files to Google Drive directly from Speechnotes - we'll ask for your permission to do so. We will use that permission for that purpose only - syncing your speech-notes to your Google Drive, per your request.