iPhone Voice Dictation Commands and Punctuation
Last updated on January 16th, 2017 at 02:03 am
Posted in How To by Vlad on February 28, 2014
iOS 7 Voice Dictation Preview.
Whenever you wish to write text using your iPhone’s keyboard input, you can opt for the iPhone dictation feature, use your voice and let your Apple device spell the words for you.
Once you get accustomed with this type of verbal input you’ll find Voice Dictation very efficient and handy to use. The only possible downside is that you need to be in a somewhat quiet environment as too much background noise could alter Siri’s accuracy.
How To Enable Voice Dictation
This feature can be used only when Siri is enabled on your iOS device. You need to visit Settings -> General -> Siri and enable it by tapping the nearby on/off switch. After activating Siri on your iPhone, a small microphone button will appear on the left side of your keyboard. Voice dictation is available to input:
– text for messaging like iMessage, SMS or others.
– post on Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites
– whenever keyboard input is required.
Voice Dictation Microphone.
How To Use
Simply tap the above mentioned microphone and speak out the desired input.
iOS 7 will convert your voice to text!
The great thing about voice command is that you can also dictate punctuation and additional commands. This way your text will be ready to use as soon as you finish dictating.
In most cases, no additional edits are needed.
Tap “Done” after you finish dictating and your spoken text will be written.
Voice Dictation Tricks and Tips
For optimal speech recognition please:
– Speak loud and clear.
– Don’t rush. If you speak rare errors are very rare.
– Avoid background noise.
– Use punctuation like: Period, Comma, Exclamation point and others (see below).
– Use text fitting commands like: New line, New paragraph, Caps on and many more (see below).
Punctuation and Commands
Below you can find an extended list of punctuation and commands that iPhone’s voice recognition software can detect and apply.
| Command | Result |
| Period (Full stop) | . |
| Comma | , |
| Exclamation point | ! |
| Question mark | ? |
| Colon | : |
| Semi-colon | ; |
| Dash (Hyphen) | – |
| Forward slash | / |
| Equal sign | = |
| Dollar sign | $ |
| Euro sign | € |
| Percent sign | % |
| Registered sign | ® |
| Copyright sign | © |
| Trademark sign | ™ |
| Ampersand | & |
| Smiley | :-) |
| Command | Result |
| Open quote | “ |
| Close quote | “ |
| Open / Close paranthesis | ( / ) |
| Open / Close brackets | [ / ] |
| Open / Close curly bracket | { / } |
| New line | new line is created |
| New paragraph | new paragraph is created |
| Space bar | space |
| No space | no space between input |
| No space on | no space between all input |
| No space off | no space deactivated |
| Caps on | upcoming letter with caps |
| Caps off | upcoming letter without caps |
| All caps on | all new letters with caps |
| All caps off | caps lock deactivated |
| No caps on | no caps in entire text |
| No caps off | no caps deactivated |
iPhone Voice Dictation Demo
Watch this video and you will get the best example on how to use the iOS voice dictation tool.
The text in the video was spelled as follows:
Hi Mii(long “i”)ka [Exclamation point] [New line] Are you still testing that new game [question mark] [New line] Phone me please [Comma] when you are [All caps on] ready [Exclamation point] [Smiley]
How do i delete a word that the dictation misunderstood?
Have you gotten an answer yet? I want to know how to back space too
What commands do I use to delete, undo or correct dictation?
I’ve been dictating through Siri on iPhone since iPhone one. The only way I have found to correct a dictated statement is to stop dictating, use the back arrow to delete what I need to then use dictation again to correct it (or type the correction on your keyboard.) Look carefully after any correction or redictation or paused dictation for an additional space that you might want to delete before continuing or sending.
Siri apparently also accepts “left paren” and “right paren” to dictate parentheses as well as the one in the table above. (This appears to be a hangover from standard dictation protocols like Dragon, which I used until I had an iPhone.)
I think you are supposed to review the entire text as soon as the dictation is finished. In this way, you can manually locate the typo and correct by the keyboard.
Articles like this seem to be very informative except that they never answer the one question I have. My question is simple, “after I have dictated a message And the mic is still on, how can I send The message by voice rather then having to tap the send Arrow? Is there a “send” voice command?
Try saying “hey siri send”
I read that works for iwatch
My iphone always writes ‘period’ when I say period. I went to the Apple Store for help and they said to say ‘dot’ instead and that gets me a period but it doesn’t recognise the dot as punctuation and does not capitalise the first word in the next sentence.
It works if you say “Full stop”.
Maybe that’s the difference between English English and American English?
Me too!!!! On my iPhone 11 Pro!!! All of a sudden. It was working great, and then it started raining period period. Ugh!!!!!
My I Phone worked great with the dictation until recently. When I want to insert comma, Comma is spelled out. How do I get just the punctuation mark( comma)? All other punctuation works appropriately.
Change the inflection of your voice when punctuating works for me.. lower your voice volume
The recent versions of Dictation seem to work best when a natural tone/inflection and speed are used. It is less accurate when i speak in a slow and supposedly distinct (from the spelling point of view) manner. Also its recognition of non-english names has had a quantum leap over the last 2 versions
Question: is there a feature by which words can be spelt using individual letters, ie spell the word letter by letter.
Can I create bulleted lists using voice dictation? I have tried speaking, “first bullet”, “second bullet”, etc. but that definitely does not work!
Is there a way to insert a “carriage return” using voice dictation?
Say “new line”
How do you enter the word “period” instead of the punctuation?
You use my phone, since I have the opposite problem. Oh wait, yes!!!!! If you have your keyboard said to American English and say period, it will insert Punctuation. If you have your phone set to UK English, it will insert the word period, it seems.
Also, Does anyone know how to make the first letter of dictation not be capitalized? Thank you!
You say “caps on” or “caps off”. For example, if the voice dictation turns off and you set it to dictation, the first word is automatically capitalized. That is one instance where you would use “caps off.”
How do I verbally end the dictation? I find that I dictate mostly in the car. But then I have to look at my phone and find the ‘done’ button to end the dictation. Kind of defeats the whole purpose of hands off texting.