• Chrome
• Edge
• Safari

When you turn on voice typing or captions, your web browser controls the speech-to-text service. It determines how your speech is processed and then sends the text to Google Docs or Google Slides.

Step 1: Turn on your microphone

To use voice typing or voice commands, your computer's microphone needs to be on and working.

Devices and microphones vary, so check your computer manual for instructions. Typically, microphone settings are in the system settings on a Mac or the control panel on a PC.

Step 2: Use voice typing

Type with your voice

Start voice typing in a document

1. Check that your microphone works.
2. Open a document in Google Docs in a supported browser.
3. Click Tools>Voice typing. A microphone box appears.
4. When you're ready to speak, click the microphone.
5. Speak clearly, at a normal volume and pace (check below for more information on using punctuation).
6. When you've finished, click the microphone again.

Start voice typing in Slides speaker notes

1. Check that your microphone works.
2. In a Chrome Browser, open a presentation in Google Slides.
3. Click Tools  Dictate speaker notes.
• The speaker notes will open and a microphone box will show.
4. When you're ready to speak, click the microphone.
5. Speak clearly, at a normal volume and pace.
• For more information on how to use punctuation, check below.
6. When you've finished, click the microphone.

Correct mistakes while voice typing

• If you make a mistake while you're typing with your voice, you can move your cursor to the mistake and fix it without turning off the microphone.
• After you correct the mistake, move the cursor back to where you want to continue.
• To find a list of suggestions, right-click words underlined in grey.

You can use different phrases to add punctuation to your text. Punctuation might not be available in every language:

Step 3: Use voice commands

After you start voice typing, you can use commands to edit and format your document. For example, 'Select paragraph', 'Italics', or 'Go to the end of the line'.

Tips:

• Voice commands are available only in English. The account language and document language must both be English.
• Voice commands are not available in Slides speaker notes.

Select text

To select text, say these commands:

• Select [word or phrase]
• Select all
• Select all matching text
• Select list item
• Select list items at current level
• Select next character
• Select next [number] characters
• Select last character
• Select last [number] characters
• Select line
• Select next line
• Select next [number] lines
• Select last line
• Select last [number] lines
• Select paragraph
• Select next paragraph
• Select next [number] paragraphs
• Select last paragraph
• Select last [number] paragraphs
• Select word
• Select next word
• Select next [number] words
• Select last word
• Select last [number] words
• Deselect
• Unselect
• Select none

Format your document

To format your document, say these commands:

Text formatting

• Apply heading [1–6]
• Apply normal text
• Apply subtitle
• Apply title
• Bold
• Italicize
• Italics
• Strikethrough
• Subscript
• Superscript
• Underline
• Upper case
• Title case
• Lower case

Text color and highlighting

• Text color [color]
• Highlight
• Highlight [color]
• Background color [color]
• Remove highlight
• Remove background color

Tip: The colors available are: red, red berry, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, cornflower blue, purple, magenta, black, white and grey. For all colors except black and white, you can add 'light' or 'dark' along with numbers 1-3 (for grey, 1-4), such as 'dark purple 3'. If you say 'highlight' by itself, the highlighting color is yellow.

Font size

• Decrease font size
• Increase font size
• Font size [6-400]
• Make bigger
• Make smaller

Paragraph formatting

• Decrease indent
• Increase indent
• Line spacing [1-100]
• Line spacing double
• Line spacing single

Alignment

• Align center
• Align justified
• Align left
• Align right
• Centre align
• Left align
• Right align

Columns

• Apply 1 column
• Apply 2 columns
• Apply 3 columns
• Column options
• Insert column break

Lists

• Create bulleted list
• Create numbered list
• Insert bullet
• Insert number

Remove formatting

• Clear formatting
• Remove formatting
• Remove bold
• Remove italics
• Remove strikethrough
• Remove underline

Edit your document

To edit your document, say these commands:

• Copy
• Cut
• Paste
• Delete
• Delete last word
• Delete [word or phrase]
• Insert link [then say the URL you want to use]
• Copy link
• Delete link
• Insert table of contents
• Delete table of contents
• Update table of contents
• Insert comment [then say your comment]
• Insert bookmark
• Insert equation
• Insert footer
• Insert footnote
• Insert header
• Insert horizontal line
• Insert page break

Tips:

• If you say 'Delete' by itself, you delete the word before the cursor.
• If you select the text of a URL and say 'Insert link', the selected text becomes a hyperlink.

Add and edit tables

To add and edit tables, say these commands:

• Insert table
• Insert table [1-20] rows by [1-20] columns
• Insert row
• Insert column
• Insert new column
• Insert new column on the left
• Insert new row
• Insert new row above
• Insert new row below
• Delete column
• Delete row
• Delete table
• Remove column
• Remove row
• Remove table
• Exit table

Move around your document

To move around your document, say these commands:

Scroll

• Scroll down
• Scroll up

Stop voice typing

To stop voice typing, say 'Stop listening'.

Resume voice typing

To move the cursor to the end of the paragraph and start voice typing again, say 'Resume'.

To move the cursor to the end of a particular word or phrase, say 'Resume with [word or phrase]'.

Here are all the commands you can say to resume voice typing:

• Resume
• Resume with [word or phrase]
• Go to the end of the paragraph
• Move to the end of the paragraph
• Go to the end of the line
• Move to the end of the line
• Go to [word]

Commands to open help

To open a list of voice commands in your document, say these commands:

• Voice-typing help
• Voice commands list
• Find all voice commands

Speak (for accessibility)

To use these commands, turn on screen reader support. It's best to wear headphones so the screen reader feedback isn't typed into your document.

• Speak cursor location
• Speak from cursor location
• Speak selection
• Speak selection formatting
• Speak table row and column headers
• Speak table cell location
• Speak table column header
• Speak table row header

Troubleshoot

If voice typing isn't working, try these steps.

'We're having trouble hearing you'

If you find an error message that says 'We're having trouble hearing you', try the following:

• Move to a quiet room.
• Plug in an external microphone.
• Adjust the input volume on your microphone.

The microphone isn't working

If you can't get the microphone to work on your computer, try the following:

• Make sure that the microphone isn't broken.
• Check your microphone settings in your computer system preferences.
• Check that your microphone is plugged in and is not being used by another application.
• Move to a quiet room.
• Restart your computer.

Voice commands aren't working

If voice commands aren’t working, try the following:

• Speak more slowly and clearly
• Pause before and after each command. The text of your command might show in the document for a moment. For example, if you say 'select all', the words 'select all' show up before your text is selected.
• The microphone shows a bubble containing the most recent command. Verify that Docs or Slides heard the right command. If not, you can simply say 'Undo'.