macOS Catalina introduces Voice Control, a new way to fully control your Mac entirely with your voice. Voice Control uses the Siri speech-recognition engine to improve on the Enhanced Dictation feature available in earlier versions of macOS.1
How to turn on Voice Control
Total download sizes for all your chosen languages is listed at the bottom of the window. Apple cautions that in addition to your voice, other data is sent to the servers when Enhanced Dictation is disabled. Thought of a great idea for a future how-to? Some people rely on this the same way audio assistants, like Siri, help us find things. Because voice recognition.
- The Enhanced Dictation feature in OS X allows you to dictate text anywhere you find a text cursor, like TextEdit, Pages or Mail.
- Apostrophe ‘ open bracket close bracket open parenthesis ( close parenthesis ).
- 3 Select the Use Enhanced Dictation check box. Enhanced Dictation lets you dictate even when you don’t have an Internet connection, as shown. The dictation dictionary for the default language, U.S. English, must be downloaded. The first time you turn on Enhanced Dictation, a dialog asks you to confirm the download of this dictation dictionary.
- Check the Use Enhanced Dictation box. Enhanced dictation allows you to use the feature even when your Mac is offline. Select your preferred Language and Shortcut to turn on the feature whenever you need it. The shortcuts are a sequence of keys that you’ll need to type on your keyboard to turn on dictation.
After upgrading to macOS Catalina, follow these steps to turn on Voice Control:
- Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Accessibility.
- Click Voice Control in the sidebar.
- Select Enable Voice Control. When you turn on Voice Control for the first time, your Mac completes a one-time download from Apple.2
Voice Control preferences
When Voice Control is enabled, you see an onscreen microphone representing the mic selected in Voice Control preferences.
To pause Voice Control and stop it from from listening, say ”Go to sleep” or click Sleep. To resume Voice Control, say or click ”Wake up.”
How to use Voice Control
Get to know Voice Control by reviewing the list of voice commands available to you: Say “Show commands” or ”Show me what I can say.” The list varies based on context, and you may discover variations not listed. To make it easier to know whether Voice Control heard your phrase as a command, you can select ”Play sound when command is recognized” in Voice Control preferences.
Basic navigation
Voice Control recognizes the names of many apps, labels, controls, and other onscreen items, so you can navigate by combining those names with certain commands. Here are some examples:
- Open Pages: ”Open Pages.” Then create a new document: ”Click New Document.” Then choose one of the letter templates: 'Click Letter. Click Classic Letter.” Then save your document: ”Save document.”
- Start a new message in Mail: ”Click New Message.” Then address it: ”John Appleseed.”
- Turn on Dark Mode: ”Open System Preferences. Click General. Click Dark.” Then quit System Preferences: ”Quit System Preferences” or ”Close window.”
- Restart your Mac: ”Click Apple menu. Click Restart” (or use the number overlay and say ”Click 8”).
You can also create your own voice commands.
Number overlays
Use number overlays to quickly interact with parts of the screen that Voice Control recognizes as clickable, such as menus, checkboxes, and buttons. To turn on number overlays, say ”Show numbers.” Then just say a number to click it.
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Number overlays make it easy to interact with complex interfaces, such as web pages. For example, in your web browser you could say ”Search for Apple stores near me.” Then use the number overlay to choose one of the results: ”Show numbers. Click 64.” (If the name of the link is unique, you might also be able to click it without overlays by saying ”Click” and the name of the link.)
Voice Control automatically shows numbers in menus and wherever you need to distinguish between items that have the same name.
Grid overlays
Use grid overlays to interact with parts of the screen that don't have a control, or that Voice Control doesn't recognize as clickable.
Say “Show grid” to show a numbered grid on your screen, or ”Show window grid” to limit the grid to the active window. Say a grid number to subdivide that area of the grid, and repeat as needed to continue refining your selection.
To click the item behind a grid number, say ”Click” and the number. Or say ”Zoom” and the number to zoom in on that area of the grid, then automatically hide the grid. You can also use grid numbers to drag a selected item from one area of the grid to another: ”Drag 3 to 14.”
![How Do I Download Enhanced Dictation Mac How Do I Download Enhanced Dictation Mac](/uploads/1/3/3/2/133297648/966189456.png)
To hide grid numbers, say ”Hide numbers.” To hide both numbers and grid, say ”Hide grid.”
Dictation
When the cursor is in a document, email message, text message, or other text field, you can dictate continuously. Dictation converts your spoken words into text.
- To enter a punctuation mark, symbol, or emoji, just speak its name, such as ”question mark” or ”percent sign” or ”happy emoji.” These may vary by language or dialect.
- To move around and select text, you can use commands like ”Move up two sentences” or ”Move forward one paragraph” or ”Select previous word” or ”Select next paragraph.”
- To format text, try ”Bold that” or ”Capitalize that,” for example. Say ”numeral” to format your next phrase as a number.
- To delete text, you can choose from many delete commands. For example, say “delete that” and Voice Control knows to delete what you just typed. Or say ”Delete all” to delete everything and start over.
Voice Control understands contextual cues, so you can seamlessly transition between text dictation and commands. For example, to dictate and then send a birthday greeting in Messages, you could say ”Happy Birthday. Click Send.” Or to replace a phrase, say ”Replace I’m almost there with I just arrived.”
You can also create your own vocabulary for use with dictation.
Create your own voice commands and vocabulary
Create your own voice commands
- Open Voice Control preferences, such as by saying ”Open Voice Control preferences.”
- Click Commands or say ”Click Commands.” The complete list of all commands opens.
- To add a new command, click the add button (+) or say ”Click add.” Then configure these options to define the command:
- When I say: Enter the word or phrase that you want to be able to speak to perform the action.
- While using: Choose whether your Mac performs the action only when you're using a particular app.
- Perform: Choose the action to perform. You can open a Finder item, open a URL, paste text, paste data from the clipboard, press a keyboard shortcut, select a menu item, or run an Automator workflow.
- Use the checkboxes to turn commands on or off. You can also select a command to find out whether other phrases work with that command. For example, “Undo that” works with several phrases, including “Undo this” and “Scratch that.”
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To quickly add a new command, you can say ”Make this speakable.” Voice Control will help you configure the new command based on the context. For example, if you speak this command while a menu item is selected, Voice Control helps you make a command for choosing that menu item.
Create your own dictation vocabulary How to download anaconda python on mac.
- Open Voice Control preferences, such as by saying ”Open Voice Control preferences.”
- Click Vocabulary, or say ”Click Vocabulary.”
- Click the add button (+) or say ”Click add.”
- Type a new word or phrase as you want it to be entered when spoken.
Learn more
- For the best performance when using Voice Control with a Mac notebook computer and an external display, keep your notebook lid open or use an external microphone.
- All audio processing for Voice Control happens on your device, so your personal data is always kept private.
- Use Voice Control on your iPhone or iPod touch.
- Learn more about accessibility features in Apple products.
1. Voice Control uses the Siri speech-recognition engine for U.S. English only. Other languages and dialects use the speech-recognition engine previously available with Enhanced Dictation.
2. If you're on a business or school network that uses a proxy server, Voice Control might not be able to download. Have your network administrator refer to the network ports used by Apple software products.
Dictation is one of the best features of macOS. With Enhanced Dictation, you can speak into the built-in Mic, or another connected audio input, then the spoken word is converted to text. Some people rely on this the same way audio assistants, like Siri, help us find things.
But what happens when enhanced dictation is not working?
In this article, we look at what you can do when Mac dictation is not working and how to fix it.
How to fix Enhanced Dictation on a Mac?
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To switch this feature on, you can either use Siri, simply ask it to “turn on Dictation”.
Or you can find Dictation or Enhanced Dictation in several applications, such as macOS Pages and TextEdit.
Remember, although Siri can compose short sections of text, such as a message to a friend or an email, Dictation is a more advanced feature and should be used for note taking or writing more detailed documents.
If Dictation stops working, or has problems — which have been reported from time to time — it can be a real pain. Especially if you've come to rely on it to take notes or start writing something. At times, problems with native macOS features — such as Dictation — can happen after an OS update, so you might find that after a subsequent update the problem has been solved.
Enhanced Dictation troubleshooting steps
- Firstly, try switching Enhanced Dictation off and back on again. It’s an easy fix and can be done in System Preferences, or using Siri;
- Now if that doesn't work: Switch Dictation off, then shut your Mac down.
- Start it up again and switch Dictation back on. Hopefully, that should have worked.
- Another way to fix this is to go to the audio input settings in System Preferences. Change from the internal Mic to a third-party, then back again, to see if this will get Dictation to start working again.
- Another fix is to delete your speech recognition cache in the Library. Here is how you find and delete this:
- From Finder, navigate to Go to Folder and search for Library
- Once in the Library, input the following:
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.SpeechRecognitionCore
- Now delete this cache folder and restart your Mac and/or Enhanced Dictation
If this manual method looks unsafe, there is an easy alternative — remove library caches with dedicated software. In my case, CleanMyMac X has been pretty effective. Get a free version of CleanMyMac here.
To delete caches with CleanMyMac:
- Launch the app.
- Click on the system junk tab.
- Scan and delete the selected elements.
Using one or more of the above methods should ensure Dictation is working again on your Mac. If for any reason this isn't the case, there is an app that can provide further assistance with this and other Mac performance challenges: CleanMyMac X — which will be covered in more detail shortly. Webex productivity tools mac outlook 2016 download.
Other ways you can speed up your Mac
Dictation not working is usually a symptom of a Mac that isn't working at its best. Normally, when native features such as this struggle to function, it is merely a sign that your Mac needs some care and attention to get it working as good as new again.
One way to do that, and a solution that avoids you having to struggle through trying to work out what is wrong and how to fix everything manually, is to analyze your Mac with one of those Mac maintenance apps. You can use a free version of CleanMyMac X — because this tool is notarized by Apple. Here is how you do that:
- Download CleanMyMac X (get it here, for free).
- For those who've got a slow Mac, use the Speed module.
- Now, use the Heavy Memory Consumers and other tools to fix Mac slowdown.
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CleanMyMac X comes with dozens of other features and modules that can improve Mac performance. Hopefully the above troubleshooting tips will have fixed Enhanced Dictation, but if not, use CleanMyMac X to get your Mac working as good as new again.
CleanMyMac X comes with dozens of other features and modules that can improve Mac performance. Hopefully the above troubleshooting tips will have fixed Enhanced Dictation, but if not, use CleanMyMac X to get your Mac working as good as new again.