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If you find it hard to use your hands, or you just want to give your fingers a rest, then dictation tools are a lifesaver. Microsoft has added a new dictation tool for Outlook that lets you draft your emails with just a microphone. But is it worth your time and effort to use?
What Is the Dictate Tool on Microsoft Outlook?
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Microsoft Outlook’s Dictate tool lets you use your microphone to write your emails. Once turned on, anything you say into the microphone will be written within the body of the email. It’s a good option for people who find it hard to type or people who prefer to dictate their thoughts over typing them.
The Outlook Dictate tool is a little different from using adictation app on Windowsto write your email.
First, you can use the Outlook Dictate tool to perform email-related actions, such as sending an email, adding more people to the recipient list, or writing the subject line.
Secondly, the feature announcement onMicrosoft 365 Insiderstates that the Outlook dictate feature uses “AI-backed voice commands,” which hints that there’s a little more processing happening under the hood versus other speech-to-text apps.
Before you get started, it’s worth double-checking that Outlook supports your language. You can see a full list of languages onMicrosoft Support.
How to Access Voice Dictation on Microsoft Outlook
To get started with Dictate, open a new draft or reply in either Microsoft 365 Outlook or Outlook for the web. Click theMessagebutton along the top bar.
Now, click theDictatebutton on the bar that appears. It looks like a small blue microphone and appears on the right side of the bar. you’re able to also click the small arrow to the right of the microphone to set the input language
Outlook will give you an audio cue when Dictate starts listening to your microphone. Now, anything you say will be written within the email. If you’d like to stop dictating, click the microphone button again.
How to Use Voice Dictation on Microsoft Outlook
Once the microphone is on, you have control over the email. If you’re using the Microsoft 365 version of Outlook, you may say “Add [name] to the email” to add someone to the recipient list, or “Add [name] to the CC/BCC” to add people to theCC or BCC fieldsrespectively. Once your recipients are set up, you can say “Set the subject field to [subject]” to give your email a proper subject.
On other versions of Outlook, the above commands may not work. However, you’re able to still use the Dictate tool to write your emails. As long as the microphone icon shows you’re active, anything you say will be written into the body of the email.
You do need to give the dictation a little guidance. If you want to end a sentence with an exclamation mark, you need to state “exclamation mark” at the end. For example, saying “I found the perfect gift for you exclamation mark” will add one to the end of your sentence. You can also add currency and mathematical symbols in the same way.
Once you’re done, if you’re on Microsoft 365, you can send the email with your voice. Just say “send email,” then say “yes” when Outlook asks if you’re sure.
Should You Use Voice Dictation on Microsoft Outlook?
Voice dictation tools are great on paper, but if they don’t do what you want them to, they can frustrate you very quickly. As such, I gave this feature a spin to see how well it performed.
I found the feature a little limiting when using it outside Outlook in Microsoft 365. None of the interesting features had been added there, and the voice dictation accuracy wasn’t very good. It also sometimes skipped words I said, got the words wrong, or shut off the microphone while I was talking.
My opinion changed completely when I downloaded Microsoft 365 and used Outlook there. Now that all the useful features were ready to use, I could set up the recipients, the subject line, and get started on writing the email with the voice commands, and Outlook didn’t misunderstand me. It’s definitely one of mytop features in the Microsoft 365 app.
When you use Dictate on Microsoft 365, a small bar appears when you turn on the microphone. I highly recommend clicking the cog on this bar and selectingEnable auto-punctuation, as it did an excellent job guessing where I wanted to add commas once it processed what I said.
Overall, I do think that Outlook’s Dictate feature is worth using on Microsoft 365. If you plan to write emails using this tool, I recommend going to yourMicrosoft account, downloading Microsoft 365, and then using Outlook through the Microsoft 365 hub. However, the other versions of Outlook have pretty hit-and-miss results with their own Dictate tools.
