1. Go to Home > Dictate. First-time users will be prompted to enable microphone permissions.A picture of the Dictate button in the ribbon.

  2. A mic icon will appear - wait for it to turn on to be sure it started listening.

    Tip: On Windows, use Alt + ` (backquote) to toggle the mic.

  3. Insert punctuation any time by saying them explicitly.

  4. Fix mistakes with suggestions or keyboard without having to turn off the Mic icon.

  5. Exit dictation with Close (X) in the Dictation toolbar or pressing the button in the ribbon again.

Click on the gear icon to see the following settings:

Dictation Toolbar Settings

Auto Punctuation: Toggle the check-mark on or off, if it is available for the language chosen.

Voice Commands: Toggle commanding on or off. By default, it is turned on for supported languages. 

Spoken Language: View and change languages in the drop-down. By default, Dictation is set to your document language in Office.

Supported Languages

Chinese (China)

English (Canada)

English (United Kingdom)

English (United States)

French (France)

German (Germany)

Italian (Italy

Spanish (Spain)

Spanish (Mexico)

Preview languages *

Danish

Dutch (Netherlands)

English (Australia)

English (India)

Finnish

French (Canada)

Hindi

Japanese

Korean

Norwegian (Bokmål)

Portuguese (Brazil)

Swedish (Sweden)

* Preview Languages may have lower accuracy or limited punctuation support.

Fix mistakes with suggestions or keyboard without having to turn off the Mic icon. At the moment, corrections cannot be made fully with voice.

Markings may appear under words with alternates that we may have misheard.

If the marked word is already correct, you can select Ignore.

Dictation suggestion marked word.

What can I say?

Troubleshooting

Microphone doesn't have access

If you see "We don’t have access to your microphone":

  • Make sure no other application or web page is using the microphone and try again.

Microphone isn't working

If you see "There is a problem with your microphone" or "We can’t detect your microphone":

  • Test the microphone to make sure it's working.

If you see a lot of incorrect words being output or missed words:

  • Make sure you're on a fast and reliable internet connection.

  • Avoid or eliminate background noise that may interfere with your voice.

  • Try speaking more deliberately.

Privacy

This service does not store your audio data or transcribed text.

Your speech utterances will be sent to Microsoft and used only to provide you with text results.

For more information about experiences that analyze your content, see Connected Experiences in Microsoft 365.

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