How to Talk to Windows — And Listen to Your Documents

How to Dictate Your Text and Commands in Windows

Why type when you can speak?

You can click on commands and type text in Microsoft Office, Microsoft Edge, and other Windows applications. Or you can speak what you want. Speech recognition can be especially helpful for people who can’t use the keyboard or mouse. But it’s available to anyone who’d like to try talking to Windows instead of typing and mousing.

Windows offers its own Speech Recognition tool through which you can dictate text and speak commands in different applications. The Windows 10 Fall Creators Update expands on the voice recognition by allowing you to more easily dictate text in your Office applications and other programs. And you can always ask Cortana to run a variety of commands and tasks.

But there’s more to voice dictation than just talking to Windows. You have to train your voice to ensure that the dictation is as accurate as possible. And you must know what you can say and what you can’t say. Let’s look at how to dictate your text and commands to Windows.

Whether you’re running Windows 10, Windows 8.1, or Windows 7, you can tap into the built-in Speech Recognition feature. To access this, open Control Panel in icon view and click on the icon for Speech Recognition.

The Speech Recognition window pops up with links to set up and use the feature. Click on the first link to Start Speech Recognition. The first time you run this, an initial screen explains how Speech Recognition works. Click Next.

This screen screen asks what type of microphone you’re using — a headset, desktop, or other. As an example, a microphone built into your laptop is considered a headset microphone. Choose the correct option and click Next.

At this screen, read the information on proper microphone placement and click Next. At the next screen, read the sentence aloud to make sure the speech-recognition feature picks up your voice. Click Next. If your voice is detected properly, the next screen tells you that the microphone is set up and ready to use. Click Next.

The next screen asks if you want the speech-recognition feature to examine the documents and email messages in your Windows search index. That helps the feature better understand the words you typically use. If you’re fine with this, select Enable document review. If you’re concerned about privacy issues, select Disable document review. Click Next.

At the next screen for activation mode, choose the first option to Use manual activation mode if you want to turn off speech recognition when you’re done with it and will click the onscreen microphone button to restart it. Otherwise, choose the second option to Use voice activation mode to put speech recognition to sleep when you’re done with it and wake it up by saying “Start listening.” Click Next.

At the next screen, you can view a Reference Sheet listing all the commands you can issue via your voice. Click the button to View Reference Sheet to open and read a webpage describing all the voice commands you can use.

Return to the speech recognition setup and click Next. At the next screen, choose whether you want Speech Recognition to automatically load each time you start Windows. Click Next.

At the next screen, you should run the tutorial to learn and practice the commands that you can issue by voice. Click the button to Start tutorial. An interactive webpage pops up with videos and instructions on how to use speech recognition in Windows. The Speech Recognition bar also appears at the top of the screen.

You can now turn on speech recognition by clicking on the microphone button on the Speech Recognition bar or saying “Start listening” if you chose to enable voice activation mode. Now, give it a whirl. Using the commands on the Reference Sheet web page, try to  open applications and run commands with your voice. Open a document in Notepad, WordPad, or Microsoft Word and try to dictate text.

Are you finding a fair number of mistakes in the dictation? Then it’s time for some training.

Here’s how: Right-click on the Speech Recognition bar, move to the entry for Configuration in the menu, and click on the command to Improve voice recognition.

You can also click on the link for Train your computer to better understand you in the Speech Recognition Control Panel window. You’re asked to speak a series of sentences to help Windows better understand your voice. The process takes awhile but is worth the time and effort if you’re going to use speech recognition. You can also exercise some control by clicking on the link for Advanced speech options in the Speech Recognition Control Panel window.

If you’ve installed the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, then you can easily dictate text with the press of a keyboard shortcut. To check this out, open a program such as Word, Outlook, Notepad, or WordPad. Press the Windows key+H. The dictation toolbar appears in your program.

Now start dictating your text. You can turn the microphone on the toolbar on and off. If you stop dictating after a certain amount of time, the microphone shuts off by itself.

I found the dictation very accurate — more accurate than the Windows speech recognition — so this option is worth trying if you want to dictate documents, emails, or other files.

Finally, there’s always Cortana. If you’re running Windows 10, the voice assistant is ready and waiting for you. You can tap Cortana on her virtual shoulder to ask questions, issue commands, search for information, open applications, and access Windows features.

To keep Cortana in listening mode, click in the Cortana search field on the Windows taskbar and then click on the Settings icon. In the Cortana settings window, turn on the “Hey Cortana” option if it’s not already enabled. Now just say: “Hey Cortana, what can I say?” In respond, Cortana displays a list of tips and tricks. Click on a particular item, and Cortana gives you examples of things you can say.

Hear Your Microsoft Word Documents Read Aloud

You can often best proofread your documents by hearing them spoken.

You try your best to proofread your Microsoft Word documents, even tapping into the Grammar and Spelling checker to look for typos or other mistakes. But mistakes invariably sneak through.

What is a good way to move beyond reading and re-reading? One handy trick is by hearing your document read aloud to you. Hearing a document often catches mistakes that the eye misses. And if you’re writing an article, a paper, a speech, or another document that needs to be just right, listening to that document can help you better refine and revise it.

To hear your documents read aloud, you can call on the built-in Windows Text-to-Speech (TTS) feature. This feature lets you change the voice, control the volume, and select what you want to hear.

Open a document in Microsoft Word that you want to hear read aloud. Click on the Review tab to display the Review Ribbon. Position your cursor at the top of your document or a specific spot where you want the speech to start. Click on the Read Aloud icon on the Ribbon. The Speech feature begins reading your document aloud, highlight each word as it’s spoken. You can listen for any mistakes or typos or watch and listen at the same time to better catch any items you need to correct or change.

To manage the user experience, use the set of controls in the upper right corner of your document. You can click on the Pause button to pause the reading; clicking on Play then resumes the reading. Click once on the Previous button to jump to the beginning of the current paragraph; click twice to jump to the previous paragraph. Click once on the Next button to jump to the start of the next paragraph.

Click on the Settings icon and you can now adjust the speed of the reading and switch to a different voice. Here you can switch among the two visible US voices — a male voice named David and a female voice named Zira. Click on the X icon to shut off Read Aloud.

Microsoft offers other voices in Windows, however, they’re hidden and not easily available except through Registry hacks. You can download voices of different dialects and languages by adding language packs. But even then, the additional voices may not appear in Read Aloud, definitely a limitation with this feature. For that reason and others, you may want to try a third-party program that can read aloud your documents. Let’s check out some of those.

WordTalk is a free TTS plug-in for Word. NaturalReader is another solid TTS program. But my personal favorite is TextAloud. Though this program isn’t free, you can better customize it than you can the freebies. And you can buy and add AT&T Natural Voices that sound more human than do the voices that come with Windows.

Let’s look at WordTalk first. You can download this program from the WordTalk website. After you install the program, open it from its shortcut. WordTalk asks if you want to add its toolbar to Word. Leave the option to add it and click Continue. Launch Word and open a document you want to hear. Click on the Add-ins tab. The icons for WordTalk should appear in the Custom Toolbars section.

Click on the first yellow icon to hear your document starting from the position of the cursor. Click on the P icon to hear your current paragraph, the S icon to hear the current sentence, or the W icon to hear the current word. Select text you want to hear and click on the fifth icon to hear the selected text. Click on the sixth icon to stop the reading. Click on the wrench icon to tweak WordTalk’s settings. You can change the voice.

Here, I was able to tap into one of the hidden Microsoft voices known as Hazel. You can alter the speed and volume. You can enable keyboard shortcuts to trigger and control WordTalk. You can even tell WordTalk speak a letter, word, or sentence after you type it. Check the option to Save Setting if you want to save your changes. Click OK when you’ve finished tweaking the program.

Among the remaining toolbar icons, the volume icon lets you save selected text as a WAV or MP3 audio file. The disk icon lets you load your saved settings. And here’s a cool feature. Select a specific word. Click on the ABC icon. You can now find synonyms for that word and even replace it with one of the synonyms.

Another TTS program you can check out is NaturalReader. The basic version is free. The Personal, Professional, and Ultimate editions each cost money but with a corresponding increase in features and voices. After installation, run the program from its Start menu shortcut. NaturalReader doesn’t set itself up as a Word plug-in but rather as a separate program from which you can open a Word document as well as other types of files. You can play, pause, go back, and go forward in the reading of your document. You can change the speaker and alter the speed. Other options are visible but work only in the paid variations.

The TTS program I like and use is TextAloud. This program costs $29.95 but offers several cool features. You can tap into TextAloud as its own plug-in in Word. From there you can tell it to read your whole document, the point from the cursor, or selected text. You can pause, resume, and stop the reading. You can change the voice and the speed. And you can customize the program through an array of options.

Finally, the voices that come with Windows sound robotic. Are other voices available that can read your documents in a more natural-sounding way? Yes, you can purchase natural-sounding TTS voices for a program such as TextAloud. Voices are available from Nuance, Acapela, Ivona, rSpeak, and AT&T. I use the AT&T Natural Voices of Crystal and Mike, which cost an additional $25 if you purchase TextAloud. The natural-sounding voices are more pleasing to the ear and do make a difference if you plan to listen to your documents on a regular basis.