Until some time ago, to write by dictating a document by voice it was necessary to buy a professional program called Dragon Naturally Speaking, still today the best in the category of speech-to-text software . Today, however, there is a high-level alternative, completely free, that everyone can use to write a Word document on the computer without touching the keyboard, speaking into the microphone with their voice.
This type of solution, offered by Google Docs (Google Drive), works very well with any type of computer where you can install Google Chrome as a browser, i.e. practically all Windows PCs, Macs, Chromebooks and also on Android smartphones and tablets .
The only requirement is that there is an internet connection and obviously a working microphone that is not too old.
On Google Chrome, open the Google Docs site, open a new or already written document, go to the Tools menu and activate Voice typing .
You can immediately start to speak by clicking on the large microphone button.
Better yet, always in Google Drive, you can activate one of the Google Docs extensions.
Then go to the menu of add-ons at the top, press on Install and in the list select the one called Speech Recognition .
At this point, after installation, open the add-ons menu again and click on Speech recognition to open the configuration and dictation box.
Then choose the Italian language and start dictating what you want to write.
The operation is good, you just need to spell the words well and speak slowly.
Even if errors are inevitable, you can still intervene with the keyboard to correct them after completing.
Punctuation must be pronounced in a natural way, saying the words dot, comma or colon .
Speech dictation also works very well on Android smartphones and tablets, on iPhones and iPads in the Google Docs application or any app.
We explained, in another article, how to dictate verbally on Android and iPhone .
On Mac, dictation is included in the operating system thanks to the Dictation function, which can be enabled in the system preferences.
In each writing program the dictation can be called by voice using the function key (fn) to be pressed twice.
In the end, Google Docs is an excellent solution for writing dictating transcriptions and notes by voice, for those who have problems using the keyboard, perhaps for a broken arm or a hand that is out of order.
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