SMA News Forums Forums Assistive Technology Do you use (or know of any) voice recognition software for keyboards?

  • Do you use (or know of any) voice recognition software for keyboards?

    Posted by alyssa-silva on March 11, 2024 at 11:03 am

    Hey all. I’m looking for some type of voice recognition software for my laptop’s keyboard. Right now, I use the on-screen keyboard. I also use my phone, which connects to my laptop through an app called WiFi Mouse. But I’m looking for something to use when my arm gets tired. For reference, I have a MacBook. 

    Do you use (or know of any) voice recognition software for keyboards? What would you recommend?

    alyssa-silva replied 7 months, 3 weeks ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • tyler-dukes

    Member
    March 12, 2024 at 2:39 pm

    Hi Alyssa,<div>

    The built-in software is the best voice-to-text software I found for MacOS. This differs from the accessibility feature, Voice Control, which allows you to control your entire interaction with your computer via voice in addition to dictation. It is almost like using your MacBook’s Siri functionality to write for you. Assuming you’re on the latest Mac OS, here’s how you would get to it. Open up settings, then go to Keyboard. From there, you should see the section labeled dictation. By default, this selection is turned off. Enable this and choose your shortcut button. I use the F5 shortcut or the microphone button on my on-screen keyboard. That way, I can turn it on and off as needed, but I can still do everything else with my mouse. This whole blog post was written using this method. If you’ve ever used nuances of dragon, naturally speaking, using the same type of language in phasing in your speech show will work well.

    <div>


    Additionally, using tools like ChatGPT can be helpful. They have a voice feature and are very conversational in trying to get the main bullet points you need. Then, it can provide a much larger response that you can then tailor to your needs. It’s at least a little better than writing everything out. Another tool is Grammarly. I find this especially useful when using dictation. It allows me to write and speak with a bit more flow and not worry about all the little grammatical or syntactical errors that the dictation software doesn’t quite get. It’s an easy point-and-click to fix, and it has some intuitive capabilities within it. Definitely check it out!</div>

    I hope this helps!

    Tyler

    </div></div>

    • alyssa-silva

      Member
      March 21, 2024 at 12:39 pm

      Hey, Tyler! I somehow missed your response to this post. Sorry about that!

      Thank you so much for these tips. I’m excited to try the built-in system when my voice feels a little stronger. Right now, I love using ChatGPT for things that don’t require my unique style of writing. It saves me so much time and energy. I hadn’t thought of using Grammarly with my voice, though. That’s a really smart idea. I use it for typing, but I’m sure it would be even more useful if I used voice to text. Thanks again. 🙂

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