“You can use your voice to enter text with macOS Sierra with its Dictation feature (which is different from Siri),” Dennis Sellers writes for Apple World Today.
After you enable it, “to use Dictation, go to a document or other text field and place the insertion point where you want your dictated text to appear,” Sellers writes. “Press the keyboard shortcut for starting dictation, or choose Edit > Start Dictation.”
“Dictation learns the characteristics of your voice and adapts to your accent, so the more you use it, the better it understands you,” Sellers writes. “macOS Sierra also supports Enhanced Dictation. You can dictate continuously. You can dictate without being connected to the Internet. With Enhanced Dictation, your words might convert to text more quickly. You can use dictation commands to tell your Mac what to do.”
MacDailyNews Note: As per Apple, the first time you turn on Enhanced Dictation, and when you add languages to use with it, macOS downloads additional software that allows dictation to work offline. The amount of free disk space required to download this software varies depending on the language. If you don’t want to download the software required to use Enhanced Dictation, you can deselect Enhanced Dictation and use server-based dictation. With server-based dictation, your words are quickly sent to Apple servers to be analyzed using the latest language data. The final converted text appears after you end dictation.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Mac Dictation works, is this take attests. This take was written using Mac OS Sierra’s dictation feature.
“Mac Dictation works, is this take attests.”
But gets every 7th word wrong?
As in training Siri on iOS, I wouldn’t recommend using it for long dictations initially, because it can be “buggy”. But given time to learn to listen to you, it becomes very accurate. My southern accent still throws it off sometimes, but it has gotten very good, and even now knows the difference between Siri and Syree, my wife’s name. 🙂
Let’s try enhanced dictation.
Seems to work for me even with the TV on in the background making noise.
I never figured out how to use the editing commands, or even if there are any.
It seems like a toy to me. Not something you might write a book with…
You hit one of the BIG problems with Apple’s dictation: Editing commands.
1) Apple’s documentation of Dictation commands is CRAP.
2) Attempting to figure out ALL the dictation commands via third party articles on the subject is IMPOSSIBLE. I know of no single, complete list of Apple Dictation commands anywhere. A N Y W H E R E. That’s outrageous.
I’m slowly (because I find this task so annoying) attempting to gather together all the Dictation commands that exist. I have a friend who runs into stupid Dictation editing tricks constantly and he wants solutions. Thanks to me messing up one shoulder due to lousy ergonomics (my fault) I’m making myself learn to use Dictation for some extemporaneous purposes.
In any case, even if one has extensively trained Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking… the best anyone gets with speech recognition is somewhere between 90-95%. Errors are GOING to happen constantly. Whether you want to fix them on the fly (NOT recommended if you like to keep your mind on your work) or repair later is up to you. But you’re going to have to repair no matter who you are or what microphone setup you’re using. If you happen to have an accent that’s somehow out of the software’s recognition database, expect worse results. There are some hilarious videos on the net of such problems. (Example: Heavy Scottish accent).
Speech recognition very slowly improves. This isn’t Star Trek by a long shot. And like it or not, there continues to be No Such Thing as actual ‘artificial intelligence’. It’s all still based on scanning through databases and guestimating the best response to a question, if the question is even understood. What we have are ‘Expert Systems’. They’ve been progressing since the 1970s. That’s all IBM’s Watson is! We call such things ‘AI’ out of wishful thinking.
[As usual: Sorry Dr. Ray Kurzweil! You continue to be wrong.]
Interesting
As I posted earlier today in a response to a comment by DavGreg in the article titled, “J.D. Power: Microsoft ranks highest in tablet satisfaction,” i.e., :“The difference is the Windows Tablet is a real computer and the iPad Pro is a big iPad that is great for browsing and checking email, watching video and reading ebooks, but not much else”
I replied, ““Unfortunately your statement does not ring [totally] true to me. Right now I’m dictating on my iPad and my Mac at the same time. And as you can see the quality of the dictation is similar if not perfect. I won’t know until I stop dictating. Which is right now.”
Dictated on iPad and pasted below:
Unfortunately your statement does not ring totally true to me. Right now I’m dictating on my iPad and my Mac at the same time. And as you can see the quality of the dictation is similar if not perfect. I won’t know until I stop dictating. Which is right now.
Back to dictation my Mac:
Now the majority of my work is programming, copy/editing writing and research in the health sciences. I am seldom without my MacBook or my iPad. On the road I carry both. However, on a recent trip to China, I discovered that there were ways to actually put symbols into my formulas.
For instance I didn’t know how to add an open bracket and a closed bracket, and others until I found the following website: http://osxdaily.com/2013/01/24/dictation-commands-for-os-x-ios/
Now I do find that it is faster to dictate than it is to type. Particularly, now that I’ve gotten into using more special symbols. However it does require proofreading. I’m not going to do any proofreading on this. At the same time I [try to] do a lot of proofreading on what I type, as well.”
And I added after that, “Neither when I am driving. Dictation on my iPhone using Notes or Pages works beautifully works beautifully!” Obviously without proofreading it.
The article you linked, “Dictation Commands for Mac OS X & iOS” is one of the very few I found useful on the net. But it’s not complete. I get the distinct idea that Apple’s Dictation isn’t taken seriously enough in the world for anyone to bother creating a complete command list. Apple certainly didn’t bother!
I’m going to have to check if there’s a decent book on the subject…
Instead, my sense is that the pros (hello David Pogue) who use dictation all day go directly to Nuance Dragon products for serious quality dictation software. It allows training the software, thereby improving quality. The software is also highly documented, unlike Apple’s Dictation software.
It doesn’t have to be perfect to be useful. I find it really handy to dictate responses in Messages. Dictating a long document is not so easy.
When I shattered my clavicle, I did all my writing by dictation for a while. It was great. Prefer typing though.
For what they’re worth, here are the two Apple articles about their Dictation software:
Current macOS:
Use Dictation Commands to tell your Mac what to do
Older macOS:
Use your voice to enter text on your Mac
Apple’s built-in macOS Help has three [lame] articles about Apple’s Dictation software:
“If your Mac can’t recognize dictated text”
“Commands for dictation”
“Use Dictation to create messages and documents”
Put them all together and you’ll realize their practically WORTHLESS for serious use of Dictation. 😛 Very naughty Apple!
Another article with a Dictation commands list. Compare & contrast with the article OSXDaily article md8mac linked above:
https://www.howtogeek.com/178636/use-voice-dictation-to-speak-to-your-mac/
AHA! I found a useful book. Bless Adam Engst et al.
Talk to Your Mac—and Let It Talk to You
by Scholle McFarland
Price: $10
… Create a Command
To tell your Mac to do something that’s not in the commands list, such as paste in your contact information, you can create the command yourself:
Go to System Preferences > Accessibility. Scroll down to the Dictation item and select it….
√ Buying it!
Oh and it’s Spring Sale time @TakeControlBooks. 50% off:
SAVE 50% DURING OUR SPRING SALE!
As I stated previously, “For instance I didn’t know how to add an open bracket and a closed bracket, and others until I found the following website: http://osxdaily.com/2013/01/24/dictation-commands-for-os-x-ios/.”
Now I have a dozen sites bookmarked with virtually all the ones you’ve posted and more. In addition, I use GeekTools to instantly post the commands on a separate monitor when needed and I am in my studio. A little difficult when I am travelling, however, a few Applescripts, KeyboardMaestro commands, etc., even over my earbuds works extremely well.
I don’t know if it is just me, but I don’t find a lack of an internet connection an issue or do I have any further need to use my copy of Dragon.
I personally began using Dictation when I started text messaging on my iPhone while driving. Now, I can even dictate notes and compose document handsfree behind the wheel.
Don’t get me wrong. It didn’t happen overnight. And I know it took me to slow down and improve my speech patterns. Incidentally, one other feature that I highly recommend, particularly for materials that others are going to read or listen to, use Mac’s ‘Text to Speak’. A great tool, typos aside, particularly if you don’t have another person to proofread with you or the other tips* available.
* http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/proofreading-tips
Lots of stuff on not knowing the dictation commands … just say “Show Commands” when using dictation…
I keep hoping with each new version of MacOS that voice dictation will get better. It doesn’t. It takes forever to activate and then misses half of what I say. I speak slowly and clearly in standard American English. Way to slow and frustrating to use for anything but novelty use.
Lots of my typing is done while I’m on the phone to other people.
because it never understand me