Speech Recognition in the Browser

With Dictation, you can use the magic of speech recognition to write emails, narrate essays and long documents in the browser without touching the keyboard.

To get started, just connect the microphone to your computer and click the Start Dictation button.

Dictation uses your browser's local Storage to save all the transcribed text automatically as you speak. That means you can close the browser and it will resume from where you left off.

The app internally uses the built-in speech recognition engine of Google Chrome to transform your voice into digital text.

Speak in your Native Language

You don't have to speak in English as Chrome's engine can recognize quite a few languages including Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Malay, Indonesian and more. Dictation will automatically determine your browser's default launguage and uses it for subsequent transcriptions.

Hindi is the only Indian language that is supported at this time.

Written by Amit Agarwal for Digital Inspiration.

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Dictation Commands and Tips

You can narrate long sentences in one go and Chrome's built-in speech recognition will transcribe them simultaneously. See video demo.

1. Say "New Paragraph" to begin a new paragraph

2. Say "Comma", "Full Stop", "Question Mark" for punctuation

3. Click the "Stop Listening" button to end the speech recognition session. You can click the "Start" button again to resume transcription.

Web Speech API in Google Chrome

Dictation uses the x-webkit-speech attribute of HTML5 that is only implemented in Google Chrome. This attribute is only implemented for <input> (single-line) form fields so Dictation uses a workaround. It hides the speech-enabled input behind the microphone icon and appends the transcribed text to a regular DIV.

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