The short answer
The way your words are written for the app you are in: Email, Chat, AI prompt, Code, Notes, Clean and Translate. It picks one automatically from the app, and you can change it for any app.
Why one tidy-up does not fit every app
The same spoken thought should read differently in an email to a client, a Slack reply to a colleague and a prompt for an AI tool. Typing, you adjust without thinking. Styles do that adjusting for you, so dictated text already fits the place it lands.
The built-in styles
| Style | What it writes | Picked for |
|---|---|---|
| Full sentences and paragraphs, greetings and sign-offs kept when you say them | Outlook, Gmail, Thunderbird | |
| Chat | Short, natural, casual messages | Slack, Teams, WhatsApp, LINE, Telegram, Discord |
| AI prompt | A clear, well-ordered instruction from a spoken ramble | Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot |
| Code | Names, file names and symbols kept exactly as said | VS Code, Cursor, JetBrains, Terminal |
| Notes | Tidy points and short lines | Notion, OneNote, Obsidian |
| Clean | As close to what you said as possible, just tidied | Anywhere you want few changes |
| Translate | Your words written in another language | Any app you choose |
How it picks
Perfect Dictation sees the name of the app you are dictating into, such as Outlook or Slack, and uses the style set for it. It never reads what is on your screen. In a web browser it goes by the site you are on where it can tell, so Gmail in Chrome is treated like an email app.
Changing the style for an app
- Open Settings from the tray icon.
- Find the app in the list of styles per app.
- Pick a different style for it, or one of your own.
The change applies from your next dictation in that app.
Examples from one sentence
You say: "um can you send me the figures for Q3 by Friday, the ones we talked about, thanks"
- Email: "Could you send me the Q3 figures we talked about by Friday? Thanks."
- Chat: "Can you send me the Q3 figures we talked about by Friday? Thanks"
- Clean: "Can you send me the figures for Q3 by Friday, the ones we talked about? Thanks."
Whatever the style, the facts stay yours: it never adds names, dates or details you did not say. See Will it change what I meant?
Related questions
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