Need an alternative way to work in Windows 10 beyond your keyboard and mouse? Try your voice. You can dictate text to create emails, documents, and more. Using your voice to control Windows can be a helpful option if you physically can't or don't want to use your mouse and keyboard.
In order to invoke the dictation panel, make sure to place the mouse cursor on any text field, and then use the Windows key + H shortcut.
When the voice dictation panel appears, and you see the microphone icon in blue, you can immediately start dictating. However, bear in mind that using this experience, you'll also need to speak the punctuation and to dictate a symbol or letter, you'll need to use the "start spelling" command and then speak the symbol or letter.
For example, if you want to say "Microsoft sells software, hardware, and accessories." with the quotation marks, you'll need to say open quote Microsoft sells software comma hardware comma and accessories period close quote.
In the same way, to input a letter using uppercase, you must use the "uppercase" command, followed by the letter. For example, uppercase m will give you an M.
Once you're done, say "stop dictating," or after five seconds of inactivity, dictation will turn off automatically.
Windows 10 dictation commands
Here's a list of the most common dictation commands that you can use. The words using "quotation marks" are just examples. You'll need to replace them with different words to perform your task.
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Voice commands |
Actions |
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Select "word"
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Selects specific word or phrase |
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Select that |
Selects recent dictation result |
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Select the "next three words" Select the "previous two paragraphs" |
Selects multiple blocks of text |
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Start spelling Stop spelling |
Enables and disables spelling mode |
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Clear selection Unselect that |
Clear current selection |
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Delete that Strike that |
Deletes recent dication result or selected text |
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Delete "word" |
Deletes current word |
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Go after that Move after "word" Go to the end of "paragraph" Move to the end of that |
Moves cursor to the first character after specified word or phrase |
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Go after "word" Move after "word" Go to the end of that Move to the end of "paragraph" |
Moves cursor to the end of the text |
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Go up to the previous "paragraph" Move back to the previous "word" |
Moves cursor backwards to the beginning of the previous block of text |
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Go to the start of the "word" |
Moves cursor to the first character before a specified word or phrase |
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Go before that Move to the start of that |
Moves cursor to the start of a text block |
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Go down to the next "paragraph" Move forward to the next "word" |
Moves cursor forward to the beginning of the next block of text |
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Go to the end of the "paragraph" Move to the end of the "word" |
Moves cursor to the end of a text block |
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Press "key" Tap "key" |
Supported keys: Tab, Enter, End, Home, Page up, Page down, Backspace, Delete
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If it’s not working, make sure you turn on “online speech recognition”. To do this, open the Settings app on the start menu, select “privacy” then click “speech”. Turn on “online speech recognition”.