Windows 10: how to pin the microphone icon to my toolbar for dictation to write in an email

Pamela Howell1 · Aug 17, 2023

how to pin the microphone icon to my toolbar for dictation to write in an email

:)

Brink · Aug 17, 2023

Redesigned Dictation toolbar for Office apps

Hey, Officer Insiders! My name is Hadley Griffin, and I’m a Product Manager on the Natural User Experiences team. I’m excited to share with you the launch of the newly redesigned Dictation toolbar, featuring updated visuals, a more responsive user interface, and a sleeker look that won’t get in the way of what really matters—your content!

Redesigned Dictation toolbar

Many of you gave us feedback that the Dictation toolbar would often get in the way of your typing. We heard you! We’ve now made the toolbar smaller and moved it to the side of your screen, instead of the center. (Don’t worry, you can still move it to your favorite location on the screen!)

We’ve also know that you sometimes found it hard to tell if your voice was being heard, or if the dictation experience was functioning properly. To address this issue, we’ve added responsive animations to the redesigned Dictation toolbar, providing visual feedback that the feature is detecting your voice.

How it works

1. Click the Dictate button on the Home tab to launch the new Dictation toolbar in Word, Outlook, and OneNote.

2. Start speaking and watch your speech get transformed into text. Also note that the toolbar provides visual feedback indicating that the feature is hearing your voice.

Tips and tricks

Use voice commands for a more “hands-free” experience. Click the Help button on the Dictation toolbar to view a list of supported punctuation and editing commands.

If you do not want to speak the punctuation marks, click the Dictation Settings button on the Dictation toolbar and toggle on Enable auto-punctuation in the Dictation Settings dialog box.

By default, dictation masks some words that could be considered profane with “****”. This ensures that any errors in speech recognition don’t incorrectly attribute potentially offensive phrases to the speaker. To disable this feature, click the Dictation Settings button on the Dictation toolbar and toggle off Filter sensitive phrases in the Dictation Settings dialog box.

Read more about the punctuation and voice commands that this feature supports.

Scenarios to try

Here are just a few great uses for the Dictation toolbar:

To brainstorm a list. (Tip: Use the voice commands “start list” and “next line” to execute this task completely hands-free.)

When you know exactly what you want to say, but just can’t type fast enough.

To transfer text from a book or other printed matter into a document or an email.

When you need to quickly draft content as a starting point, with the intention of editing or sharing it with others later.

Requirements

To use the Dictation feature, you must have:

A reliable internet connection

A working microphone (enable microphone permissions if prompted)

Privacy

This feature analyzes your data with intelligent services. You can access the Microsoft Privacy Statement for additional details on data security.

Supported Languages

The redesigned Dictation toolbar is available in the following languages:

Chinese (China)

English (Australia)

English (Canada)

English (India)

English (United Kingdom)

English (United States)

French (Canada)

French (France)

German (Germany)

Hindi

Italian (Italy)

Japanese

Portuguese (Brazil)

Spanish (Spain)

Spanish (Mexico)

Preview languages*

Arabic (Bahrain)

Arabic (Egypt)

Arabic (Saudi Arabia)

Bulgarian

Chinese (Traditional, Hong Kong)

Chinese (Taiwan)

Croatian (Croatia)

Czech

Danish

Dutch (Netherlands)

English (New Zealand)

Estonian

Finnish

Greek

Gujarati (India)

Hebrew

Hungarian

Irish

Korean

Latvian

Lithuanian

Maltese

Marathi (India)

Norwegian (Bokmål)

Polish

Portuguese (Portugal)

Romanian

Russian

Slovak

Slovenian

Swedish (Sweden)

Tamil (India)

Telugu (India)

Thai

Turkish (Turkey)

Vietnamese

*Preview languages may have lower accuracy or limited punctuation support.

Availability

The redesigned Dictation toolbar is currently available in the following Office apps: Word for Windows, Mac, and the web; Outlook for Windows and Mac; and OneNote for Windows and the web.

We’ve started rolling out the new Dictation toolbar to Office Insiders running the following builds:

Windows Beta Channel Version 2206 (Build 15321.20000) or later

Mac Beta Channel Version 16.62 (Build 22052300) or later

Don’t have it yet? It’s probably us, not you.

Features are released over some time to ensure things are working smoothly. We highlight features that you may not have because they’re slowly releasing to larger numbers of Insiders. Sometimes we remove elements to further improve them based on your feedback. Though this is rare, we also reserve the option to pull a feature entirely out of the product, even if you, as an Insider, have had the opportunity to try it.

Feedback

We want to hear from you! Please click Help > Feedback to submit your thoughts about this feature.

Learn what other information you should include in your feedback to ensure it’s actionable and reaches the right people. We’re excited to hear from you!

Sign up for the Office Insider newsletter and get the latest information about Insider features in your inbox once a month!
Click to expand...

Source: Office Insiders

Harish_kum · Aug 17, 2023

Dictation not working.

Hello Lina,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

Please provide some additional information, so that we can assist you better.

Are you using dictation in Windows or Office application?

Since when are you facing this issue?

Did you make any changes to the computer before this issue started?

I suggest you to follow the below mentioned steps:

Step 1: To dictate text:

1. Open Speech Recognition by clicking the Start button, clicking All Programs, clicking Accessories, clicking Ease of Access, and then clicking Windows Speech Recognition.

2. Say "start listening" or click the Microphone button to start the listening mode.

3. Open the program you want to use or select the text box you want to dictate text into.

4. Say the text that you want dictate.

Step 2: You may refer Microsoft article related to Dictating text:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4042244/windows-10-use-dictation

Dictate text using Speech Recognition - Microsoft Support

Hope it helps.

Let us know if you got the help you needed by clicking "Yes or No.

Harish

Microsoft Community – Moderator

MarkAldrich1 · Aug 17, 2023

No dictation / microphone option availalbe

Help. I've got a new surface pro (5) running windows 10 with the latest updates installed. I want to be able to dictate so I don't have to type everything. I don't have the microphone symbol on my touch (onscreen) keyboard, and windows +H buttons aren't
opening the dictation toolbar. My microphone is working though as I can talk to Cortana - but can't see how to activate voice typing. I've tried settings / time and language / speech and 'set up your mic for speech recognition'. This hasn't made any difference.

Can anyone suggest what to do to fix this?

Thanks

Mark

***Moved from Surface / Surface Pro (newest) / Sound and camera***

Windows 10: how to pin the microphone icon to my toolbar for dictation to write in an email

how to pin the microphone icon to my toolbar for dictation to write in an email

how to pin the microphone icon to my toolbar for dictation to write in an email

how to pin the microphone icon to my toolbar for dictation to write in an email

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