Writers know how important a good keyboard can be when it comes to productivity. But even is a typist, you won’t be able to put in as many words as you can using the speech recognition technology.
Apart from using your voice to Trigger voice assistants on your smartphone or computer, you can do much more with your voice, if you know the best-suited dictation app.
So in this article, we are going to list out some of the best dictation as you can use to be more productive and get more dance.
Dictation apps are not only useful in writing memos, or emails with few lines, it can also be used for writing long articles as well.
Native Dictation Apps for PC
Apple Dictation (for iOS & Macs)
If you have bought a Mac or an IOS device, you already have one of the best dictation app available natively.
It comes right out of the box since it is built into the Apple devices like a MacBook or an iMac or an iPhone or an iPad.
The dictation app of Apple is powered by Siri, on your iPhone or other iOS devices you can use it by pressing the mic button on the stock keyboard.
On the desktop, you can turn it on by going to the System Preferences, searching for dictation and speech, clicking on dictation, and then turning it on.
On the same page, you can select the language you want to use for Dictation and Keyboard shortcut to activate it directly.
Apple Dictation App also supports simple commands such as ‘ New paragraph’ for going to the, or, ‘Period’, to ‘Add a full stop’, etc.
It works wonderfully for the people who are native English speakers from the US or UK. I am from India had a bit of struggle to make it work in my normal accent so I have to put a fake US accent to make it more efficient.
Dragon by Nuance (Android, iOS, macOS, & Windows)
This is probably one of the first speech recognition available out there.
And the fact it is one of the best dictation apps available if because it has got a lot of commands apart from converting your voice into text.
You can control your computer using the app and not just simply Dictating.
Also, the app has been made available for other platforms as well such as Android, iOS, apart from being made available for the Mac OS and Windows.
Being the best dictation app, it is also the most complex dictation apps available and comes with a bit of learning curve. Although, enough material is provided to make the best use of it.
And it is not free, the desktop is available for $300. If you want to use the mobile app as well you will have to pay $14.99/month.
It is again mainly for the people who have got the US or UK accent for English, there are other language-support as well such as Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish.
I use it for English, and it worked great, all the commands required a bit of getting used to.
Dictation Apps for Mobile
Gboard (Android, iOS)
The keyboard is a keyboard from Google, so if you are using Android smartphone with stock Android on it, Gboard would be the default keyboard on your smartphone.
You can also install it from the Play Store If you are using Android smartphones such as Samsung or from other brands who use their skins for Android, which have their keyboards.
Similarly, it is also available for iOS as well and can be installed from the app store.
In the iOS, the keyboard has a mic icon on the space bar which you can long-press to activate and then start using it.
On Android, however, the implementation is quite amazing. There is a mic button on the top right-hand side of the keyboard, tapping on which activates the voice typing feature, without actually making the entire keyboard go away.
This means that you can quickly make a correction or Format your text by adding a comma or a period or a bracket are going to the next line.
To use Gboard for dictation you need to have an active internet connection on your mobile phone, and to use it offline you need to download the particular language from the language area in the settings of the keyboard.
Unlike the above apps we mentioned above, which supports more languages, even the English language from different regions like India so that you do not have to put the fake accent to make the software understand what you trying to say.
And yes it’s available for free.
Dictation Apps for Web
Google Docs Voice Typing
I was amazed at the accuracy of voice typing from Google docs. If you have been using Google Docs you will be amazed to know that it is an inbuilt feature to use voice typing to write.
The feature can be found under the Tools menu, it also has got a shortcut.
After you activate the voice typing feature you get a mic button, along with an option to select the language. You can click on it and start using your microphone to dictate.
You can go completely hands-free with Google Docs voice typing feature since it also supports simple commands for formatting, editing comma and navigating the pages that you have written.
Supports multiple languages, and even the English language from different regions so that you don’t have to put fake us or British accent.
Amazingly it also corrects a few your grammatical errors as well. You need to have a good speed internet connection for this to work properly.
And yes this one is also available free of cost.
Chudidar some of the best dictation apps available that can help you be more productive and get more done in less time. You can also check out these voice typing Chrome extensions if you are a Google Chrome user.
6 Speech to Text (Voice Typing) Chrome Extensions for Writing 3x Faster
These Google Chrome extensions can be extremely useful since they can be used anywhere on the web, and by assigning a keyboard shortcut you can activate them using your keyboard that is going to boost your priority even more.
I hope you find this article useful you can read more amazing articles on the blog.
