For a long time if you wanted or needed to use a speech-to-text dictation program on your Mac, your only choices were MacSpeech Dictate (now defunct) and Nuance’s DragonDictateStop Typing: Better Learn To Dictate Text with Dragon Dictate for Mobile Devices [iOS]Stop Typing: Better Learn To Dictate Text with Dragon Dictate for Mobile Devices [iOS]Nuance's iPhone apps, Dragon and Dragon Search have been available for free download for over a year now. Since then, the company has added a few other similar voice to text apps to its line...Read More. But with the release of Mountain Lion, Apple has for the first time built text dictation into the operating system.
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VoxForge was set up to collect transcribed speech for use with Free and Open Source Speech Recognition Engines (on Linux, Windows and Mac). We will make available all submitted audio files under the GPL license, and then 'compile' them into acoustic models for use with Open Source speech recognition engines such as CMU Sphinx, ISIP, Julius and HTK (note: HTK has distribution restrictions). Without Enhanced Dictation, your spoken words and certain other data are sent to Apple to be converted into text and help your Mac understand what you mean. As a result, your Mac must be connected to the Internet, your words might not convert to text as quickly, and you can speak for no more than 40 seconds at a time (30 seconds in OS X.
This feature allows you to actually speak sentences into your Mac’s microphone and see them typed out for you, a lot faster than you could type what you say. Apple’s Dictation feature works similarly to how it does in the iPhone 4S.
However, while the Mountain Lion Dictation feature is a welcome addition to the upgraded OS, it does have limitations you should know about, especially if you’re curious about using text dictation for longer pieces of writing. This article explains how to use Dictation and what its limitations are.
How Dictation Works
In OS X 10.8, you can call up the Dictation feature in any text application on the Mac by pressing the Fn (Function) button on your keyboard. When prompted to do so, clearly speak a sentence or two of text (say the word, “period” at the end of your sentence) and then hit the Fn or Return key after you’re finished. In a second or two your words will be typed, Star Trek style, faster than you could type them manually.
To add more text, just press the Fn key again. Each of your sentences will automatically begin with a capital letter. And if you speak clearly and directly, the Dictation feature can be pretty accurate most of the time. Also, you can pause and think about what you’re going to say before you say it, and Dictation will wait. So don’t feel intimidated into speaking quickly.
If you open System Preferences > Dictation & Speech, you can change the shortcut for activating Dictation, as well as turn it on and off. You can also choose the mic (if you have more than one connected to your Mac) for listening to your dictation.
However, make note of what it says in the About Dictation and Privacy. In order to use Dictation, your Mac must be connected to the Internet. If it does not work, it’s probably because your Mac is experiencing problems with the router connection.
One of the drawbacks with using Dictation is that you must be connected to the Internet, and what you say will be recorded and sent to Apple, including other information in your computer, including the contact names (first names and nicknames) in your Address Book (renamed Contacts in Mountain Lion). Apple says that:
“All of this data is used to help the dictation feature understand you better and recognize what you say. Your User Data is not linked to other data that Apple may have from your use of other Apple services.”
You can disable Dictation, but when you do so, all your user data on Apple’s side will be deleted, as well as your recent voice input data. You can read the rest of the privacy policy for yourself, but apparently collecting this data makes the feature over time more accurate. Nevertheless, there should be a way to use the feature without an Internet connection.
When To Use It
Apple’s Dictation feature is highly welcomed, especially for those of us with poor typing, spelling, or hand disabilities. However, because you can’t see what you dictate until after you click the shortcut key, the Dictation feature is most useful for writing short emails, comments, tweets and notes. It’s not useful for long pieces of writing.
The most widely used dictation program for the Mac has been Nuances DragonDictate and Dragon Express. With these programs, your dictations get typed immediately after you pause or come to full stop in a sentence. You can also verbally edit your dictated text as you “write.” This cannot be done with Apple’s Dictation feature.
Dragon Express does not seem to be updated yet for Mountain Lion. DragonDictate does appear to be stable on the new operating system, however.
How Accurate Is It?
Compared to DragonDictate, the OS X Dictation program is just as accurate, and even more so because it’s built into the operating system. Below is a screenshot of a few test sentences. The feature will recognize proper nouns and names, but it will have trouble with words that sound the same but have different spellings. I dictated “Micheal Wood,” and it kept typing “would.”
If you speak too fast, the feature misunderstands what you say, as when I dictated “I write for.” However, notice that in terms of accuracy, the Dictation feature will always correctly spell words. It can misinterpret what you say, but it uses the dictionary to correctly spell words based on what it thinks you said. Even “Rhineforte” in the screenshot above is actually a street name.
Dictation Commands
Another limitation with Dictation is that you can’t train it to use the words you want. Unlike with DragonDictate, I can’t for example train it to recognize and type “MakeUseOf.com“, as you can see in the screenshot above. Notice, also, as with the Dictation program in the iPhone 4S, when a blue dotted line appears under one or more words, the program may give a suggestion for what it thought you meant. When you put your cursor at the end of those dots, alternative suggestions will appear, and if one is correct just click on it, and the correction will be made.
You can also use some limited quotation commands with this Dictation feature. The most common command you will use of course is “period,” or “full stop” at the end of your sentences. You can also dictate other punctuation, including “question mark,” ”explanation point,” “open parenthesis,” “close parenthesis,” “quote,” “new paragraph,” and “new line.”
Even when you use these commands correctly, the program still may misinterpret what you meant (as in the example below.)
Also, if you dictate, “I owe her ten dollars and forty-six cents,” the Dictation feature will type “$10.46.” Since Dictation is based on Nuance technology, part of which Siri diction is based, you can use this list of Dragon Dictation commands found in iSource.com. However, Dictation is not as advanced as DragonDictate – at least not yet – so don’t expect it to accurately do all your typing for you.
Learning Dictation
If you’ve never used a speech to text dictation program, doing so can almost feel like learning how to write again, because the difference between typing and dictating is that you have to think about what you say before you say it. So one way to develop diction skills is simply to use the program everyday. You might use Dictation for daily journal writing, or posting tweets. Use it regularly, and carefully re-read and edit what it types out for you.
Let us know what you think about the new Dictation feature in Mountain Lion. Also, if you want to boss your Mac around in other ways, check out this article on other Mac speech commandsHow To Use Speech Commands on Your MacHow To Use Speech Commands on Your MacRead More.
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- On my 2012 Mac, pressing fn once did not activate Dictation. Under the Edit menu (desktop as well as Apple Pages), the keyboard shortcut indicates fn fn (twice).
- Thank you for the information, but why is my mouse deactivated on my word document?
- Does anyone know whether I can use native Mac dictation in Word for Mac?
- On long documents (books) Siri works and Dragon doesn't. My huge objection to Siri is that it capitalizes words in the middle of sentences and when the word might be a proper name, It capitalizes it. If I write 'hi will come' tt types 'IWill come.' And often if any word is even close to a proper name it types the proper name.
I have had Dragon for years but seldom use it now.
I would think that it should be easy to stop the mid-sentence capitalization. It drives me crazy! - What is time limit for DD? Only 30 sec for Mountain Lion...
- There's no time limit on DD. When you pause during dictation, it will immediately type what you say.
- Question: should I also purchase Dragon?I have been using Dragon for many years... And they finally nailed in version 11.5. I use Dragon for responding to emails to employees -- but not to clients, since Dragon is still prone to errors that could confuse the reader, but which I may not notice before I hit send.Dragon is also great for dumping hand written notes into the Word to be sorted out later.I turn off the Command feature to improve accuracy.So... I'm just now (Nov 2012) buying a new Mac Air - moving from a ThinkPad PC. Should I install Dragon on the Air?
- I really like your mustache.
- I like your mustache.
- i can't use dictatiOn.it says it's nOt available in sOuth africa and tO chOOse anOther language, but even when i chOOse US english, it still dOesn't wOrk...
- Thank you for this information, I am using mountain lion
dictate my text here. I am not much of a touch typist, so it is a pretty good new feature from me. Although I have found that with my MacBook air is the microphone on the chassis does not seem to be very accurate. So I'm using an external microphone. But it seems now my voice data needs to be retrained in order to get accuracy again. So do voice database seems to become somewhat garbled by using different microphones.
A great new feature but it certainly takes some patience. - Ability to dictate quickly is quite useful for situations where we enter text in short increments - such as when placing markers in a video editing app, or text annotations in PDFs. In these situations, your hands are probably busy with the mouse or trackpad, and using BetterTouchTool to assign a gesture to start dictation makes the process even more enjoyable. Personally, Dragon Dictate works better for my accent and lags less.
- I'm actually quite impressed by Apple's dictation software, despite not using it frequently. I'm quite certain I'll find reasons to use it in the future.
- '[...] the OS X Dictation program is just as accurate, and even more so because it’s built into the operating system.'Accuracy has nothing to do with where the code resides, it has to do with the voice recognition code, the training method and corpus, etc.
- Interesting article. I prefer DragonDictation.
Looking for the best free Windows software for speech to text? The most-repeated paid recommendation is Dragon Naturally Speaking (DNS). But some might scoff at paying money for software. Fortunately, there are several great free programs out there like Google Docs Voice Typing (GDVT) and Windows Speech Recognition (WSR).
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You might wonder how these two products compare against DNS — and whether or not DNS meets your needs. For this article, I’ve identified three kinds of users: those who need speech to text transcription for writing novels, those who need academic transcription, and those who write business documents, like memos. To this end, I tested three speech transcription programs (DNS, GDVT, and WSR).
Speech Transcription Setup
Before we head into the test, let’s first look at the recommended hardware and software setup.
Hardware and Software Requirements
Google Docs Voice Typing requires the Chrome Browser and a microphone. And it also needs a persistent internet connection (which isn’t mentioned in the requirements). Otherwise, this is probably the easiest method to get started with speech transcription.
DNS requires a processor made in 2001 or later, Windows 7 or later, and around 4GB of free storage. Its strictest requirement is 2GB of RAM. Here’s a complete list of DNS’s hardware requirements.
Windows Speech RecognitionEnable Speech-to-Text and Voice Control by Setting Up Speech Recognition in WindowsEnable Speech-to-Text and Voice Control by Setting Up Speech Recognition in WindowsSpeech Recognition remains more powerful than Cortana. It drives speech to text and voice control. This article will show you what Speech Recognition can do, how to set it up, train it, and use it.Read More, also known as Speech Platform Runtime (download WSR), costs nothing and requires only a Windows 7 or later operating system.
Microphone Considerations
I use a dynamic microphone (best microphone for podcastingThe Best Podcast Microphone for Your Money in 2017The Best Podcast Microphone for Your Money in 2017Microphones matter a lot when making a podcast. The initial costs are fairly low: recording software, a desktop or laptop, and of course, a microphone. So what's the best podcast microphone?Read More) and a relatively fast Intel Core i7 processor. While a high-quality microphone is desired, it isn’t required. Even so, your results will improve with better sound quality and reduced background noise.
The lowest-priced microphone that I would recommend for high-quality recording is the Audio-Technica ATR-2100. However, the accuracy difference between $5 microphone and a $200 device is pretty minimal.
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On the other hand, the minimum requirements for Microsoft Speech are pretty much any remotely modern computer (most computers made in the last ten years) and a microphone. If you own a laptop or tablet made in the last five years, it should have what you need by default.
Configuring Speech Transcription Programs
Here’s how to use Google Voice Typing:
Here’s how to get started with Windows Speech Recognition:
And, finally, here’s how to get started with Dragon Naturally Speaking:
Test Methodology
I want to find the best free Windows-based speech to text application. Because different consumers may need a different product, I’ve devised a simple test. I read three different passages from texts without copyright: one from Charles Darwin’s On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties. One from H.P. Lovecraft’s Call of Cthulu. The last hails from Jerry Brown’s 2017 State of the Union speech. My methodology is by no means perfect, but it does give an impression of each voice recognition suite’s accuracies.
Fiction Writing Sample (From H.P. Lovecraft’s Call of Cthulu)
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”
Business Writing Sample (Jerry Brown’s 2017 State of the Union speech)
“It is customary on an occasion like this to lay out a specific agenda for the year ahead. Six times before from this rostrum, I have done that, and in some detail. And, as I reread those proposals set forth in previous State of the State speeches, I was amazed to see how much we have accomplished together.”
Academic Writing Sample (Charles Darwin’s On the Tendency of the Species to Form Varieties)
“Now when a variety of such an animal occurs, having increased power or capacity in any organ or sense, such increase is totally useless, is never called into action, and may even exist without the animal ever becoming aware of it. In the wild animal, on the contrary, all its faculties and power being brought into full action for the necessities of existence, any increase becomes immediately available, is strengthened by exercise, and must even slightly modify the food, the habits, and the whole economy of the race.”
3 Voice Transcription Suites Tested
![Free Speech To Text For Mac Free Speech To Text For Mac](/uploads/1/2/6/3/126388164/902558660.jpg)
It’s surprising how free voice recognitionThe Best List-Making Apps for Voice CommandsThe Best List-Making Apps for Voice CommandsMany free productivity tools support voice to text for lists. We'll show you the best list-making apps with voice recognition and commands you must try.Read More tests performed against paid software. But at the end of the day, the most accurate app is Dragon Naturally Speaking. However, both Google Voice Typing and Windows Speech Recognition cost nothing and deliver over 90 percent accuracy. But each has its own strengths and weaknesses and you might prefer one over the other.
H.P. Lovecraft (Fiction Writing Test)
Lovecraft loved writing in long, unbroken, parenthetically dense prose. While all three suites do a great job of accurately transcribing Lovecraft’s vocalized text, DNS comes out ahead of its competitors. It includes both capitalization and punctuation (which is completely insane).
DNS: DNS only dropped a single word from the text. Overall, it scored 107 correct out of 108 words. It nailed several long, non-stop sentences as well.
WSR: Windows did a very good job — but not amazing — of transcribing Lovecraft. It got around 97 of around 108 words correct. While that falls short of both GDVT and DNS, it’s still good for a free speech to text program that doesn’t require online access.
GDVT: I’m not sure what happened because Google nailed the transcription for the other excerpts. GDVT only achieved 103 right out of 108, dropping two words and mistranscribing three. It even once spelled out “semicolon” instead of inserting the correct punctuation. It also capitalized certain words, turning them into proper nouns (but I won’t penalize them since it’s accuracy and not capitalization that matters).
I’m pretty sure that if I reread the document a second time, it wouldn’t have any errors.
Charles Darwin (Scientific or Academic Writing Test)
Darwin writes in, like Lovecraft, long sentences loaded with parenthetical information. However, his use of language is very clear and he uses almost no jargon, which differs from nearly incomprehensible science writing today.
DNS: Darwin’s text comes out near perfect in Dragon Naturally Speaking. DNS misspelled only one word (“into”) and otherwise completely nailed the test with 87 words right out of 88.
WSR: Microsoft did a great job, matching 82 out of 88 words. It made some relatively bizarre errors, though, like spelling “sense” as “cents”.
GDVT: Google did great on Darwin’s excerpt. GDVT only fouled up two words, out of 88. Overall, for a free application, you can’t find a more accurate alternative.
Jerry Brown State of the State Address 2016 (Business Writing Test)
Brown’s speech doesn’t use a lot of complicated sentences or vocabulary (aside from the word “rostrum”). Overall, most of the transcription services performed amazingly. More or less, if you need a service that handles simple sentences and limited vocabulary, any one of these works great.
DNS: DNS nailed Brown’s State of the State Address. While it dropped a period, otherwise, it got every word perfectly. Note, though, that political speeches oftentimes lack the sort of complex language that you might see in fiction or academia. A memo or speech is direct and to the point. That’s something a speech recognition client shouldn’t have any problems handling.
WSR: Windows Speech Recognition did a great job — although not as great as DNS or Google — at transcribing Brown’s speech. It scored 55 out of 58 words. It even recognized the word “rostrum,” which I didn’t even know was a word, nor did I know how to pronounce it. Apparently, either I got it right or speech recognition technology can even catch mispronunciations.
Free Speech To Text App For Mac
GDVT: Google’s transcription software absolutely nailed the transcription, with 100 percent accuracy. It even managed to correctly capitalize “State of the State”, without needing user input. It did oddly use the number, rather than the spelling, for the word “six”. Which resulted in a stylistic error.
Are Free Transcription Services Worth Using?
There is a difference between Dragon Naturally Speaking, Google Voice Typing, and Microsoft’s Windows Speech Recognition. Dragon is more accurate than its competitors. However, the best free program in terms of accuracy is — by a narrow margin — Google’s Voice Typing. While both Microsoft’s and Google’s transcription services compare less-than-favorably against DNS, they do not cost $30.
Best Text To Speech Free For Mac
![Free Free](/uploads/1/2/6/3/126388164/317226221.jpg)
Contrasting the two free services against each other, Google offers better voice recognition accuracy, punctuation, and case, it requires an internet connection. Google also captures a lot that you don’t intend, like punctuation and capitalization.
However, if you want a free transcription program that you don’t need an internet connection to use, Windows Speech Recognition fits the bill. It’s by no means bad and offers 90 percent of what Dragon Naturally Speaking offers. Give it a shot if you haven’t already.
For more, take a look at ways to make your computer read documents to you5 Ways to Make Your Computer Read Documents to You5 Ways to Make Your Computer Read Documents to YouCan you make your computer read aloud to you? Of course! Try these text-to-speech methods and tools on your PC.Read More. And for help with your Android phone, check out the best speech-to-text Android apps7 Best Android Dictation Apps for Easy Speech-to-Text7 Best Android Dictation Apps for Easy Speech-to-TextLooking for the best speech-to-text apps for Android? These Android dictation apps let you take notes and more.Read More.
Free Speech To Text For Mac
What’s your favorite transcription service? Please let us know in the comments!
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Free Speech To Text Translator
- Do you need to be online to the SW work?
- Thank you for this article! You did the research for me and made my choice easier. I appreciate it.
- Nice article. You did miss one error by GDVT in the Jerry Brown speech. The word 'from' is missing in the 2nd sentence (or maybe it was inadvertently not spoken?)
- Try the free office dictate add in for word and outlook. Better than windows default one and free. Also msft. Check garage site.Finally, Translator live feature, though not initially built for this does the best job. Hyyp://translate. It
- office (365) Dictate is a free add in, but you must have Microsoft Office 365 which is NOT free. It's only free if you're a student. You can do a free 30 day trial with a credit card, but you'll get charged unless you remember to cancel it in time. I contacted Microsoft asking if any discounts or free versions to the disabled. I was told no. I told them to voice my request that it should be.