Capture notes quickly with Dictate in OneNote

By Sofia Thomas adapted by Emile Greyling

Dictate in OneNote

Leverage the power of your voice to conquer the blank page and capture notes at the speed of thought with dictation in OneNote. The Dictate feature is supported in more than 50 languages!

Now it’s easy to break away from the keyboard and stay in the flow by using Dictate with AI-backed voice commands to add, format, edit, and organize your text. Over the next few months, we’ll be adding new voice commands as well as some that are already available in other Office apps to OneNote.

How it works

1. To launch the dictation experience in OneNote, click the Dictate button on the Home tab.
2. Click the Dictation Settings button to adjust your preferences.
3. Start speaking to create your notes.
4. When you’re done dictating, say “stop dictation” or click the Stop Dictation button on the Dictation tab.

Known issues

• Not all voice commands currently available in OneNote for the web or in Word across platforms are available in OneNote for Windows (such as formatting and lists). Click the Help button on the Dictation toolbar to see which commands are supported on that platform.
• Some supported languages are considered Preview Languages, and may have lower accuracy and/or limited punctuation support. For a complete list, please check the More Information > Spoken languages supported section in this help topic.

Scenarios to try

• Take a break from typing up your notes from a lecture or meeting.
• Have a great new idea and want to instantly capture it while you multitask.
• Insert a long section of handwritten notes quickly into your OneNote notebook.

Here are a few scenarios to try:

• Delete a mistake by saying “delete that” or “undo.”
• Say “Show help” to view additional commands to try out.
• Take a break and stop dictating by saying “pause dictation.”

Tips and tricks

• Click the Help button on the Dictation toolbar to view a list of supported commands for your language.
• If you would prefer not to speak the punctuation marks, click the Dictation Settings button on the Dictation toolbar, and then click the Enable auto-punctuation toggle.
• If you notice accuracy issues, make sure that you are speaking clearly and ensure that there is no background noise.

Requirements

To use Dictate in OneNote, you must have:

• A stable internet connection.
• A working microphone (enable microphone permissions if prompted).

Privacy

The Dictate feature analyzes your data with intelligent services. You can access the Microsoft Privacy Statement for additional details on data security.

Availability

We will be rolling this feature out to all users of OneNote for the web & Windows.

IT Experts are specialists in this field. Contact us for any assistance that you need.

In a matter of minutes we can remotely log into your computer – safely and securely – to assist you with any issues you might experience.

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