How to use online dictation
Read the note above the tool first, because it tells you where your voice goes. Then speak in a normal voice, in short stretches, close to the microphone.
- 1
Choose your language
The language of this page is already selected. Pick the language you will actually speak: the browser only listens for that one. - 2
Press Start dictating
Allow the microphone if your browser asks. - 3
Speak
Words still being worked out appear in italics in their own box. When the browser settles on them, they move into your text. - 4
Stop and correct the text
The text box can be edited at any time, even while you dictate. Copy the text or download it as a .txt file before you close the tab.
Where your voice goes
That service's own terms apply, so do not dictate anything confidential, and do not use this tool for interview data or anything else you have promised to protect. The text itself stays in your tab. Nothing is saved, so it is gone when you close the tab.
Pauses, punctuation and mistakes
Browsers stop listening after a silence. While you are still dictating, the tool starts listening again by itself, so you can stop to think. A word spoken in that short gap can be missed. After five minutes with no speech, it stops listening so the microphone is not left on.
Punctuation, capital letters and how well names and technical terms come out all depend on your browser's speech service and your microphone. This tool does not handle spoken commands such as “new paragraph”. Always read the text through before you use it.
Which browsers work
Speech recognition is not in every browser. Chrome, Edge and Safari have it. Firefox does not offer it by default, and some browsers built on Chrome, such as Brave, have the feature but no speech service behind it. The tool tells you when dictation cannot work in your browser.
Dictation is for your own voice, live. For a recording of a lecture or interview, interview transcription in Spirelight makes a text draft with speakers and timestamps that you check against the audio.