Office for Windows now supports dictation in seven new languages

Microsoft has announced an update to the built-in dictation mechanism in Office for Windows. With the upcoming update to Office, users will have the ability to enter text using voice in seven new languages. These include Hindi, Russian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), Korean, Thai, and Chinese (Taiwan). In the future, Microsoft promises to add more languages to this list.

By the time of writing this article, new language support is available only in Office for Windows version 2102 (13616.10000) or newer. You need to have an active Microsoft 365 subscription, a stable Internet connection, and a working microphone. For the best results, Microsoft recommends using an external microphone or headset.

Dictation in Microsoft Office

You can access the updated dictation in Word and Outlook. Locate the dictation button on the Home tab or hit the Alt + ` keys on your keyboard. A small toolbar will appear on the screen with a settings button you can use to change the dictation language, automatic punctuation, etc. Also, there is a help button that opens a support article where you can read more about how dictation in Office works.

Microsoft has also noted that dictation supports automatic punctuation, so there is no need to say which punctuation marks to insert (“comma,” “period,” “exclamation mark,” etc.) All you need to do is speak naturally. Just make proper pauses so that the app can determine where to place punctuation marks. Also, if you are not satisfied with how this feature works, you can disable it in the dictation settings. Also, settings allow you to disable the profanity filter, which is enabled by default and replaces profane words with ***.

Seven new languages for dictation in Office for Windows join Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. In the stable channel, new languages are available in the Preview section of the dictation settings.

Source: Office Insiders