How To Set Up & Use MacOS Dictation.
I write a lot. This is my occupation, my hobby and almost the only thing I’m good at. If I don’t write articles, I write books, which means that I not only messed up a lot of keyboards, but also injured my hands and wrists when I speak at 130 words per minute.
So I recently started experimenting with dictation. I do not mean to hire a pretty secretary to sit on my lap while I “dictate.” That would be nice, but I think my wife would have serious problems with this. No, I mean computer dictation and macOS has it built in.
Set up dictation on macOS
The first step is to go to System Preferences and then to Accessibility.
Now go to the Dictation tab and enable Dictation.
When enabled, the Use Advanced Dictation feature will be activated. If this is your first time using dictation, you will be prompted to download a small file for “extended dictationâ€. Come on, let it. It does not take much time.
It is worth using “extended dictation” because, as the saying goes, it allows you to use it offline.
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Now choose which language you will speak so that the computer will recognize what you are speaking. If your language is not already displayed, open the Language field and you will be prompted to select your language.
For example, there are four different types of English available.
When you select a language, the corresponding language pack will be downloaded.
Now choose a keyboard shortcut you can easily remember to activate dictation mode. Expanding the context menu gives you options or you can customize your own.
Finally, choose which microphone you will use to dictate. By default this is Internal Microphone, but if you connect another microphone (for example, I have a Yeti microphone), you can expand the menu and choose which one you want to use.
After you have done all this, dictation will be set up on macOS. It’s time to try it.
Implement dictation on your macOS
First you need to open something to catch your words. It could be a text editor, your email, or even your browser’s address bar (you can dictate website addresses to it).
In our example today, I opened a blank TextEdit document. When you’re ready to say something, press the keyboard shortcut to open the Dictation window and start speaking.
When you speak, there is a delay of several seconds before words start to appear in the document.
I said, “This is a test of the Mac’s dictation function,” and it turned out like this.
As you can see, he got one word wrong, but that’s a problem because of my deep, compelling Scottish accent. But generally, dictation on macOS is very successful, whatever language you use it in.
When you’re done dictation, click Done on the small box to close it.
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