Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week – Speech to Text in Word, Docs, and Email

A couple of weeks ago Microsoft released a new speech-to-text tool called Dictate. Dictate is a free add-in for Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook. The add-in makes it easy to speak and have text appear in your document, slides, or email. Simple voice commands let you insert punctuation, delete words and phrases, and format your text placement. Dictate represents a leg-up on G Suite in terms of speech-to-text capabilities because Dictate works well across documents, slides, and emails without the need for adding additional tools.

G Suite has a speech-to-text capability for Google Docs. My video here will show you how to use speech-to-text in Docs. There is an option for adding speaker notes to your Google Slides through speech-to-text. Open the “Tools” menu in Google Slides and select “voice type speaker notes” to add your speaker notes via voice. Unfortunately, Gmail doesn’t have a native speech-to-text option. The best solution I’ve found is this Email Dictation Chrome extension. The trouble with that extension is that formatting of your text will leave something to be desired.

Learn more about Microsoft’s Dictate add-in by watching the following video.

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