Dictation software for Microsoft Word

Word is fussy about how text arrives, which makes it the place where the difference between dictation tools actually shows.

What Word already has

With a Microsoft 365 subscription there is a Dictate button on the Home ribbon, and it works well. Two catches: it needs the subscription, so Word 2019 and 2021 do not have it, and like everything built in it listens through the system microphone, which is usually far from your mouth.

Windows voice typing on Win + H works in Word too, whatever your Word licence.

Typing versus pasting

Plenty of dictation tools insert text through the clipboard: copy, then Ctrl+V. It is easy to build and it costs you two things. Your clipboard is gone, so whatever you had copied earlier is lost. And Word sometimes pastes with the source formatting rather than the paragraph you are standing in.

Vox Manager types. It goes through the Windows SendInput API with literal Unicode code points, the same path a keyboard takes. In Word that means your clipboard survives untouched, the text picks up the formatting of where it lands, autocorrect behaves as it always does, and dictating Ukrainian with an English layout active produces Ukrainian rather than transliterated noise.

Punctuation

Say it and it appears: "comma", "period", "new line", "new paragraph". This comes from the phone's recognition service, not from us, so it behaves exactly as it does everywhere else on your phone.

Headings, lists and styles stay Word's job. Dictation gives you the words; applying structure afterwards is faster anyway.

Setting up

Nothing to install into Word. No plugin, no add-in, no settings. The server runs in the tray, the app runs on the phone, they pair once with a six-digit code. Two minutes, described on how it works.

Questions

Word 2019 or 2021? Yes. It does not care about your Word licence, because it is not integrated with Word at all.

Word Online? Yes, and any other editor in a browser. The text goes to the focused window.

Will it overwrite my clipboard? Not on Windows. The macOS and Linux builds still paste, which is one reason they are not finished.

Dictating one language while writing in another? Set the recognition language in the app. The layout on the PC is irrelevant.