Voice Dictation

2026-09-22

Press start, speak, and your words appear in an editable box. Pick one of 12 languages, say punctuation aloud, then copy, download or listen to the text. Recognition is done by your browser's speech service, which in most browsers receives the audio.

How to use the voice dictation tool

1. Choose the language you are going to speak. The tool remembers the choice. The list cannot be changed while dictation is running.
2. Press Start dictation and allow the microphone when the browser asks.
3. Speak at a steady pace. The grey line under the box shows what the browser is still recognising.
4. Stay silent for the pause set under Pause that ends a phrase (2 seconds by default). The red bar fills up and the phrase is written into the box at the text cursor.
5. Say punctuation aloud, for example “comma” or “new paragraph”, or edit the text by hand at any moment, even during dictation.
6. Use Copy, Download .txt or Read aloud. Press Esc to stop dictation or reading at once.

How it works

The page does not recognise speech itself. It asks the browser's built-in speech recognition (the Web Speech API) to listen to the microphone and hands back text. Recognition runs continuously and reports two kinds of results: interim ones, which may still change and appear in the grey line, and final ones.

Many engines keep a phrase open until they are told to stop, so the tool watches the interim text. When it has not changed for the chosen pause, the tool asks the engine to finish the phrase and listens again straight away. Only final results are written into the box.

Before a final result is inserted, the tool replaces spoken command words with punctuation, removes the space before the mark, adds one space after it, and capitalises the first letter of the text and of each sentence after a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or line break. A point or comma between two digits is left alone, so a figure such as 3.14 stays whole.

Voice commands for every language

With Voice punctuation commands switched on, the words below are turned into punctuation. Matching ignores capitals, needs a whole word or phrase and works anywhere in what you say. A dash means the language has no such command.

Hungarian, Ukrainian, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Russian have no command words yet; the switch is replaced by a note. The cheat sheet in the tool always lists the commands of the language you selected. The dash is written with a space on each side.

Examples

English: saying “hello comma how are you question mark” gives Hello, how are you?

Paragraphs: “dear team comma new paragraph thank you for the update period” gives the line Dear team, followed by an empty line and Thank you for the update. The capital after the break is added for you.

Slovak: “dobrý deň čiarka ako sa máte otáznik” gives Dobrý deň, ako sa máte?

A word that is also a command: “the ice age was a long period of cold” gives The ice age was a long. Of cold, because “period” is a command. Switch the commands off when you need such words, or fix the text by hand.

Getting accurate results

• Microphone: a headset or a microphone close to your mouth in a quiet room helps more than anything else. If nothing is heard, check which input device the browser or the system uses.
• Pace: speak steadily and finish a phrase before you pause. A short pause setting cuts a phrase when you stop to think; a long one makes the text appear later. You can change it during dictation.
• Punctuation: say the command inside the flow of the sentence, without hesitating before it.
• Correcting: click in the text where the next phrase should go, and edit freely. Clear can be undone for ten seconds with Undo.
• Language: pick the language you really speak. One session handles one language, and names, numbers and unusual words may be written differently from what you meant. Read the result before you use it; accuracy depends on the speech service, not on this page.

Browser support

Dictation uses the Web Speech API, which is available in Chrome and Edge on the desktop, in Chrome on Android and, with some limitations, in Safari. Firefox keeps the feature disabled, and apps that embed a WebView usually cannot use it at all. Chromium browsers without a speech service (Brave, Opera, Vivaldi) show the start button but the connection fails immediately; use Chrome, Edge or Safari instead. The page also has to be served over HTTPS or from localhost, otherwise the microphone stays blocked.

If recognition is missing, the tool says so and disables the start button. Editing, copying and downloading still work.

Frequently asked questions

Why does the tool say the microphone is blocked?

The browser has denied access to the microphone. Click the icon on the left of the address bar, choose Microphone, select Allow, and start again.

Why does nothing appear while I speak?

Words first show in the grey line and move into the box after your pause. If nothing shows at all, the tool tells you that nothing was heard; move closer to the microphone and check the selected input device.

Which languages can I dictate in?

English (United States and United Kingdom), Slovak, Czech, German, Polish, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil) and Russian. Whether the speech service handles a language is up to the browser. If it does not, the tool shows a message and stops.

Can I dictate into the middle of a text?

Yes. Click where the phrase should go before you speak. New phrases are inserted at the text cursor.

Does it work offline?

The page makes no requests of its own, so editing, copying and downloading work once it has loaded. Recognition is done by the browser's service, and in the browsers named above it needs an internet connection. This page cannot add offline recognition.

Is my voice private?

This page sends nothing to cleverquestlab.com. But in most browsers the built-in speech recognition streams your audio to a speech service run by the browser's maker: Google for Chrome, Microsoft for Edge. For other browsers, read the privacy information of that browser. The transcript, the language and the switch settings are saved in this browser's local storage so they are here when you come back. Clear removes the transcript; clearing the site data of your browser removes the settings too. On a shared computer press Clear when you are done.

Related tools

• Word Counter — count the words, characters and sentences of the finished text.
• List Compare — compare two lists of lines and find what they share or lack.
• Typing Practice — train your touch typing when you would rather write than speak.
• Typing Speed Test — measure your typing speed in words per minute.