On this page you can find links to accessibility help articles that are written for people who use Windows voice access to control their PC and author text using their voice.
Voice access in Windows 11 is a new experience that enables everyone, including people with mobility disabilities, to control their PC and author text using their voice. For example, you can open and switch between apps, browse the web, and read and author emails using your voice. Voice access uses modern, on-device speech recognition to accurately recognize speech and works without an internet connection.
You can submit your feedback and suggestions in Feedback Hub (Windows logo key+F) under Accessibility > Voice access. You can find the link to the Feedback Hub on the voice access help menu as well—use the voice commands "Open voice access help" > "Click Give feedback" to get there.
Voice access is available in Windows 11, version 22H2 and later. For more information on Windows 11 22H2 new features, and how to get the update, see What's new in recent Windows updates. Not sure which version of Windows you have? See: Find Windows version.
Get started with voice access
Navigate & interact with your PC
Author text with voice
What’s new
Improvements in interaction
Voice access is now more flexible and supports interaction with items on the screen (UI controls) that have different names such as:
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Names which contain numbers in them. For example, in the Calculator app, you can now directly say "Click five."
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Names without any white spaces between them. For example, on the Insert tab in Excel, you can interact with items like PivotTable and PivotChart directly by saying "Click pivot table" or "Click pivot chart."
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Names with special characters in them, for example, Bluetooth & devices or Dial – up in the Windows Settings app. You can now say "Click Bluetooth and devices" or "Click dial hyphen up," and then interact with these items.
We have also added support for items such as spin controls, thumb control, and split buttons, so you can now interact with these items with the "Click" command or by using number overlays .
To learn more, refer to Use voice to interact with items on the screen.
Improvements in working with windows
We have improved the horizontal scrolling where we now support scrolling to the extreme left and right ends of a page. Similar to vertical scrolling, you can now do continuous scrolling horizontally.
We have also fixed issues with the "Snap" command for snapping to the right.
To learn more, refer to Use voice to work with windows and apps.
New commands added
|
To do this |
Say this |
Example |
|---|---|---|
|
Close the voice access app. |
"Close voice access," "Exit voice access," or "Quit voice access" |
|
|
Open a new application. |
"Show <app name>" |
"Show Edge" |
|
Close an application. |
"Exit <app name>" or "Quit <app name>" |
"Exit Word" or "Quit Edge" |
|
Show grid overlay on your screen. |
"Show window grid" |
|
|
Show the list of commands. |
"Show command list" or "Show commands" |
|
|
Release a held down key. |
"Release" |
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|
Move the cursor in a text box. |
"Move <direction and count of items>," Move <direction>," "Go <direction and count of items>," or "Go <direction>" |
"Move forward five characters," "Go back two lines," "Go to start of document," or "Move to beginning of line" |
|
Select the desired number of characters or lines. |
"Select forward <count of characters or lines>" or "Select backward <count of characters or lines>" |
"Select forward five characters" |
|
Delete the selected piece of text or last dictated text. |
"Strike that" |
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Paste text to a text box. |
"Paste here" or "Paste that" |
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Apply bold formatting to a specific piece of text . |
"Boldface <text>" |
"Boldface hello world" |
|
Capitalize the selected piece of text or last dictated text . |
"Cap that" |
|
|
Press the keyboard Backspace key to fix mistakes made during dictation. |
"Backspace" |
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Press the keyboard Enter key to move to a new line while dictating text. |
"Enter" |
|
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Press the keyboard Tab key to quickly navigate through any fields on the UI. |
"Tab" |
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Press the keyboard Delete key to fix mistakes made during dictation. |
"Delete" |
