On Windows 10, Speech Recognition is an easy-to-use experience that allows you to control your computer entirely with voice commands.
Instead of offering separated dictation or speech-to-text capabilities, Windows 10 groups its voice commands under Speech Recognition, which interprets the spoken word across the operating system. Windows Speech Recognition lets you control your PC by voice alone, without needing a keyboard or mouse. The following tables list commands that you can use with Speech Recognition. If a word or phrase is bolded, it's an example. The Windows Speech Recognition Macros tool – or WSR Macros for short – extends the usefulness of the speech recognition capabilities in Windows Vista. Users can create powerful macros that are triggered by spoken commands.
May 03, 2013 Make Windows 10/8 better understand your voice using Speech Recognition Voice Training. Improve upon the diction accuracy - you will not need to repeat a command. Speech recognition is using your voice to control the computer and to insert text. For speech recognition within Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint, buy an Office 365 subscription, which includes Dictation.If you're already an Office 365 subscriber, make sure you have the latest version of Office.
Anyone can set up and use this feature to navigate, launch applications, dictate text, and perform a slew of other tasks. However, Speech Recognition was primarily designed to help people with disabilities who can't use a mouse or keyboard.
In this Windows 10 guide, we walk you through the steps to configure and start using Speech Recognition to control your computer only with voice.
To set up Speech Recognition on your device, use these steps:
Click on Speech Recognition.
Click the Start Speech Recognition link.
Select the type of microphone you'll be using.
Note: Desktop microphones are not ideal, and Microsoft recommends headset microphones or microphone arrays.
Click Next again.
Read the text aloud to ensure the feature can hear you.
Speech Recognition can access your documents and emails to improve its accuracy based on the words you use. Select the Enable document review option, or select Disable document review if you have privacy concerns.
Pick an activation mode:
If you're not familiar with the commands, click the View Reference Sheet button to learn more about the voice commands you can use.
Select whether you want this feature to start automatically at startup.
Click the Start tutorial button to access the Microsoft video tutorial about this feature, or click the Skip tutorial button to complete the setup.
Once you complete these steps, you can start using the feature with voice commands, and the controls will appear at the top of the screen.
Quick Tip: You can drag and dock the Speech Recognition interface anywhere on the screen.
After the initial setup, we recommend training Speech Recognition to improve its accuracy and to prevent the 'What was that?' message as much as possible.
Click on Speech Recognition.
Click the Train your computer to better understand you link.
Click Next to continue with the training as directed by the application.
After completing the training, Speech Recognition should have a better understanding of your voice to provide an improved experience.
If you need to change the Speech Recognition settings, use these steps:
Click on Speech Recognition.
Click the Advanced speech options link in the left pane.
Inside 'Speech Properties,' in the Speech Recognition tab, you can customize various aspects of the experience, including:
In the Text to Speech tab, you can control voice settings, including:
Additionally, you can always right-click the experience interface to open a context menu to access all the different features and settings you can use with Speech Recognition.
While there is a small learning curve, Speech Recognition uses clear and easy-to-remember commands. For example, using the 'Start' command opens the Start menu, while saying 'Show Desktop' will minimize everything on the screen.
If Speech Recognition is having difficulties understanding your voice, you can always use the Show numbers command as everything on the screen has a number. Then say the number and speak OK to execute the command.
Here are some common tasks that will get you started with Speech Recognition:
To launch the experience, just open the Start menu, search for Windows Speech Recognition, and select the top result.
To start using the feature, click the microphone button or say Start listening depending on your configuration.
In the same way, you can turn it off by saying Stop listening or clicking the microphone button.
Through it's open architecture, Blender provides cross-platform interoperability, extensibility, an incredibly small footprint, and a tightly integrated workflow. Blender provides a broad spectrum of modeling, texturing, lighting, animation and video post-processing functionality in one package. Blender is an integrated application that enables the creation of a broad range of 2D and 3D content. Download free blender human models.
Some of the most frequent commands you'll use include:
Speech Recognition also includes the ability to convert voice into text using the dictation functionality, and it works automatically.
If you need to dictate text, open the application (making sure the feature is in listening mode) and start dictating. However, remember that you'll have to say each punctuation mark and special character.
For example, if you want to insert the 'Good morning, where do you like to go today?' sentence, you'll need to speak, 'Open quote good morning comma where do you like to go today question mark close quote.'
In the case that you need to correct some text that wasn't recognized accurately, use the 'Correct' command followed by the text you want to change. For example, if you meant to write 'suite' and the feature recognized it as 'suit,' you can say 'Correct suit,' select the suggestion using the correction panel or say 'Spell it' to speak the correct text, and then say 'OK'.
Although Speech Recognition doesn't offer a conversational experience like a personal assistant, it's still a powerful tool for anyone who needs to control their device entirely using only voice.
Cortana also provides the ability to control a device with voice, but it's limited to a specific set of input commands, and it's not possible to control everything that appears on the screen.
However, that doesn't mean that you can't get the best of both worlds. Speech Recognition runs independently of Cortana, which means that you can use the Microsoft's digital assistant for certain tasks and Speech Recognition to navigate and execute other commands.
It's worth noting that this speech recognition isn't available in every language. Supported languages include English (U.S. and UK), French, German, Japanese, Mandarin (Chinese Simplified and Chinese Traditional), and Spanish.
While this guide is focused on Windows 10, Speech Recognition has been around for a long time, so you can refer to it even if you're using Windows 8.1 or Windows 7.
For more helpful articles, coverage, and answers to common questions about Windows 10, visit the following resources:
Windows Speech Recognition was introduced in Windows Vista Operating System and allows a user to control a computer through voice commands, without the need of a keyboard or a mouse. With the help of speech recognition, users can dictate text within documents and e-mails, control the operating system user interface, move the mouse cursor, and perform keyboard shortcuts.The accuracy of speech recognition increases through use, and the feature adapts itself to a user’s grammar, word usage, speech patterns, and vocabulary.
1. Type Speech on the Cortana Search Bar. Click on Windows Speech Recognition on the suggestions shown.
2. A window titled Welcome to Speech Recognition will pop up. Click on Next to proceed.
3. In the next window, you will be asked to select your audio input source. Using a headset microphone will give you more accuracy during speech recognition. If you are on a laptop, you can choose ‘Other‘ to use the inbuilt microphone.
4. Read about proper microphone placement in the next window and click Next.
5. Speak distinctly the contents on-screen to calibrate your microphone and proceed to the next screen by clicking on Next.
6. If it is shown that the microphone is ready to use, proceed to the next screen. If not, go back to the previous screen and speak loud and clearly until calibration is complete.
7. You can choose to enable better accuracy by allowing your computer to review your documents and e-mails.
8. Choose an activation mode in the next window. If you select manual activation mode, speech recognition can be turned by clicking on the microphone icon or pressing the Ctrl+Windows key. In voice activation mode, speech recognition can be started just by saying “Start Listening.”
9. You can print the speech reference sheet to view helpful voice commands quickly.
10. If you don’t want to enable speech recognition after every startup manually, mark Run Speech Recognition at startup and click Next. This option is already selected by default.
11. The next window will show you an option to take a tutorial on speech recognition. Follow through this tutorial instead of skipping it and you will learn a lot of useful commands.
You can find a list of helpful commands to control your computer here. Did you find this tutorial on how to enable speech recognition on Windows 10 to be beneficial? Share your reviews in the comments below.
Also read: 12 Easy Ways To Maximize Battery Life On Windows 10