Too lazy to type something or maybe don’t want to type? Windows 11 got your back. It offers a Voice Typing or dictation tool to help you type with your speech. It allows you to write any speech into text in a few steps without downloading additional apps or software.
For example, if you are in a class or official meeting, you can’t take notes as you go. You can turn on the dictation, and windows will help you type everything for you. Everything will automatically be transferred into a notepad or any app of your own choice.
What Is Windows 11 Voice Typing Feature?
Window speech recognition/voice typing was first released on November 30, 2006, on the operating system Windows Vista. But now, it has changed in many degrees and updated many features inside as it listens to what you’re saying and converts into text in real-time. You can use it on any application, including mail, comments on YouTube videos, Google documents, or word documents.
Voice typing before Windows 10 and also Windows 10 was only throwing up a few words on the screen into continuous claptrap, but Windows 11 has improved the dictation even further. When you speak anything on Windows, the feature will automatically punctuate every sentence according to your needs.
How To Start Voice Typing On Windows 11?
Voice typing is helpful to people and us with special needs, so we should all know how to use it and all the settings surrounding it. Here are the steps to start using voice typing on Windows 11.
- First of all, makes sure you are connected to the internet.
- It would be best if you had a working microphone to start voice typing on Windows 11, and your cursor should be blinking in a text box.
- Press Windows logo key + H on a hardware keyboard or press the microphone key next to the Spacebar on the touch keyboard to open the feature menu and click on the mic icon.
- Once you turn on voice typing, it will start listening automatically.
- Wait for the Listening… alert before you start speaking.
How To Stop Voice Typing On Windows 11?
After your job/work is finished, you can turn it off by two methods. These are:
- Click on the Cross sign.
Or
- Say a voice typing command like Stop listening.
- Press the microphone button on the voice typing menu.
Enabling Auto-Punctuation In Voice Typing On Windows
When you speak, you don’t talk with punctuation marks, and Windows 11 has a tool to fix that problem. Auto punctuation will help the PC or laptop punctuate the sentence you just expressed.
- Click on the setting button on the left side of the mic icon in the voice typing menu.
- Toggle the bar to turn blue.
Typing Symbols With Voice Typing On Windows 11
When you are speaking something, you will not talk about any symbols. You will have to go to the keyboard and type in the word/symbol you want to use. But, Windows 11 has come up with a solution; they gave every symbol a short name that you can easily remember and speak in while converting speech to text. Here’s the table that you can refer to:
| SYMBOLS | COMMAND |
| @ | At sign |
| # | Pound sign; number sign |
| $ | Dollar sign |
| % | Percent sign |
| ^ | Caret |
| & | And sign; ampersand |
| * | Asterisk |
| ( | Open parenthesis; left parenthesis. |
| ) | Close parenthesis; right parenthesis |
| _ | Underscore |
| – | Hyphen; minus sign |
| ~ | Tilde |
| \ | Backslash |
| / | Forward slash |
| , | Comma |
| . | Period; full stop |
| ; | Semicolon |
| ‘ | Open single quote; begin single quote; close single quote; close single quote; end single quote. |
| = | Equal sign |
| : | Colon |
| ? | Question mark |
| [ | Open bracket; open square bracket; left bracket; left square bracket |
| ] | Close bracket; close square bracket; right bracket; right square bracket |
| { | Open curly brace; open curly bracket; left curly brace; left curly bracket. |
| } | Close curly brace; close curly bracket; right curly brace; right curly bracket |
| + | Plus sign |
| < | Open angle bracket; left angle bracket; less than sign |
| > | Close angle bracket; right angle bracket; greater than sign |
| “ | Open quotes; close quotes |
Commands In Voice Typing On Windows 11
When you are speaking any text or even from your mind, you will sometimes make mistakes or want to go back to the previous sentence and many more things. So, how is all of this possible without even touching the keyboard? When we said Windows 11 voice typing feature had been updated we didn’t lie. They gave us some small commands that we can keep handy while converting anything.
| ACTION | COMMAND |
| Delete the most recent dictation result or currently selected text | Delete that; strike that |
| Delete a unit of text, such as the current word | Delete word |
| Select a specific word or phrase | Select word |
| Select the most recent dictation result | Select that |
| Select a unit of text | Select the <next three words>; select the <previous two paragraphs> |
| Clear a selection | Clear selection; unselect that |
| Move the cursor to the first character after a specified word or phrase | Go after that; move after word; go to the end of paragraph; move to the end of that |
| Move the cursor to the end of a unit of text | Go after word; move after word; go to the end of that; move to the end of paragraph |
| Move the cursor backward by a unit of text | Move back to the previous word; go up to the previous paragraph |
| Move the cursor to the first character before a specified word or phrase | Go to the start of the word |
| Move the cursor to the start of a text unit | Go before that; move to the start of that |
| Move the cursor forward to the next unit of text | Move forward to the <next word>; go down to the <next paragraph> |
| Moves the cursor to the end of a text unit | Move to the end of the word; go to the end of the paragraph |
How to install Voice Typing Language?
Here are the steps to install a voice typing language:
- Select Start > Settings > Time & language > Language & region.
- Find Preferred languages in the list and select Add a language.
- Search for the language you’d like to install, then select Next.
- Select Next or install any optional language features you’d like to use. These features, including speech recognition, aren’t required for voice typing to work.
Languages Compatible With Windows 11 Voice Typing
Making a feature and finding a compatible language is very difficult because everyone has different pronunciations and may go wrong. So, some limited languages are compatible with the voice typing feature in windows 11. These languages supported fort voice typing in Windows:
- Bulgarian
- Chinese (Simplified, China)
- Chinese (Traditional, Hong Kong SAR)
- Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan)
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch (Netherlands)
- English (Australia)
- English (Canada)
- English (India)
- English (New Zealand)
- English (United Kingdom)
- English (United States)
- Estonian
- Finnish
- French (Canada)
- French (France)
- German
- Gujarati
- Hindi
- Hungarian
- Irish
- Italian (Italy)
- Japanese
- Korean
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- Maltese
- Marathi
- Norwegian (Bokmål)
- Polish
- Portuguese (Brazil)
- Portuguese (Portugal)
- Romanian (Romania)
- Russian
- Slovak
- Slovenian
- Spanish (Mexico)
- Spanish (Spain)
- Swedish (Sweden)
- Tamil (India)
- Telugu
- Thai
- Turkish
- Vietnamese
Conclusion
Windows has so many features that are just precious stones like this one. Voice typing can be helpful not only to normal human beings like us but also to people with special needs who might be missing out on technology. And the fact that you don’t need any extra/additional apps for it adds more beauty to the feature.
