What do I need?
A PC with Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit), any microphone and an internet connection. The microphone built into your laptop is fine to start with; a headset or USB mic helps in a noisy room.
Install it free from the Microsoft Store, sign in with Google and hold the talk key. Most people have their first words typed within two minutes of installing.
Read the full guideHow do I start dictating?
Click where you want the text to go, hold Right Ctrl, talk, and let go. A small pill at the bottom of the screen shows it is listening, and a moment after you let go the finished text is typed at your cursor.
You do not need to say punctuation. Talk the way you would to a colleague, pauses and all, and it writes it up as clean, punctuated sentences.
Read the full guideWhich key do I hold?
Right Ctrl by default, because almost nothing else uses it on its own. You can change it in Settings to Right Alt, an F key or the Copilot key on newer laptops.
Right Ctrl together with another key still works as a normal shortcut, so Ctrl+C and the rest behave exactly as before.
Read the full guideHow do I dictate something long?
Double-tap the talk key for hands free. You can then talk for up to about ten minutes without holding anything: a report, meeting notes, a long email or a first draft. Tap the key once more to finish.
Long dictations are split into parts behind the scenes and joined back together, so you can stop and think mid-sentence without losing anything.
Read the full guideWhere did my text go?
It is typed where your cursor was when you let go of the key. If you clicked into a different window while you were talking, or the box you were in closed, the text is not lost.
Every dictation is kept in History on your PC, ready to copy and paste. Open it from the tray icon.
Read the full guideDoes it work without internet?
Writing needs a connection, because the speech engine and the clean-up run online. That is what lets it write so well on any PC, however old.
If your connection drops, your clip is kept safely on your PC and sends itself the moment you are back online, then the text appears in History.
Read the full guideIs there a Mac version?
Not yet. Windows came first because that is where most people who write for a living work, and the Mac app is next. The download page has a waitlist if you would like to hear the day it ships.
Annual plans include the Mac app at no extra cost when it arrives, on the same account and with the same dictionary, snippets and styles.
Read the full guideHow fast is it?
Most people talk at 130 to 170 words a minute and type at 40 to 80, so dictating is usually two to three times faster than typing. Text normally appears about a second after you let go.
Take the free speed test to measure your own typing speed. Your account page then shows how much time dictating has saved you each month.
Read the full guideStill stuck? Open a ticket and a person replies.