You can use your voice to type and edit your document in Google Docs and your speaker notes and captions in Google Slides. This feature works with the latest versions of:
- 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.
Tip: If this feature is not enabled in your organization, it may have been turned off by your administrator.
Type with your voice
Step 1: Turn on your microphone
To use voice typing or voice commands, your computer 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: Start voice typing in a document
- Open a document in Google Docs in a supported browser.
- Click Tools
Voice typing. A microphone box appears.
- When you're ready to speak, click the microphone.
- Speak clearly and at a normal volume and pace. Learn how to add punctuation.
- When you're done, click the microphone again.
Start voice typing in Slides speaker notes
- On your computer, in a browser, open a presentation in Google Slides.
- At the top left, in the menu bar, click Tools
Dictate speaker notes
.
- The speaker notes open and a microphone box displays.
- When you're ready to speak, click Microphone
- Speak clearly and at a normal volume and pace. Learn how to add punctuation.
- When you're done, click 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.
- You might get suggestions on some words. To find the list of suggested alternatives, from the voice-typed text, right-click on words underlined in gray.
Voice typing works in these languages and accents:
- Afrikaans
- Amharic
- Arabic
- Arabic (Algeria)
- Arabic (Bahrain)
- Arabic (Egypt)
- Arabic (Israel)
- Arabic (Jordan)
- Arabic (Kuwait)
- Arabic (Lebanon)
- Arabic (Morocco)
- Arabic (Oman)
- Arabic (Palestine)
- Arabic (Qatar)
- Arabic (Saudi Arabia)
- Arabic (Tunisia)
- Arabic (United Arab Emirates)
- Armenian
- Azerbaijani
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Basque
- Bengali (Bangladesh)
- Bengali (India)
- Bulgarian
- Catalan
- Chinese (Simplified)
- Chinese (Traditional)
- Chinese (Hong Kong)
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch English (Australia)
- English (Canada)
- English (Ghana)
- English (India)
- English (Ireland)
- English (Kenya)
- English (New Zealand)
- English (Nigeria)
- English (Philippines)
- English (South Africa)
- English (Tanzania)
- English (UK)
- English (US)
- Farsi
- Filipino
- Finnish
- French
- Galician
- Georgian
- German
- Greek
- Gujarati
- Hebrew
- Hindi
- Hungarian
- Icelandic
- Italian
- Italian (Italy)
- Italian (Switzerland)
- Japanese
- Javanese
- Kannada
- Khmer
- Korean
- Laotian
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- Malayalam
- Malaysian
- Marathi
- Nepali
- Norwegian
- Polish
- Portuguese (Brazil)
- Portuguese (Portugal)
- Romanian
- Russian
- Slovak
- Slovenian
- Serbian
- Sinhala
- Spanish
- Spanish (Argentina)
- Spanish (Bolivia)
- Spanish (Chile)
- Spanish (Colombia)
- Spanish (Costa Rica)
- Spanish (Ecuador)
- Spanish (El Salvador)
- Spanish (Spain)
- Spanish (US)
- Spanish (Guatemala)
- Spanish (Honduras)
- Spanish (Latin America)
- Spanish (Mexico)
- Spanish (Nicaragua)
- Spanish (Panama)
- Spanish (Paraguay)
- Spanish (Peru)
- Spanish (Puerto Rico)
- Spanish (Uruguay)
- Spanish (Venezuela)
- Sundanese
- Swahili (Kenya)
- Swahili (Tanzania)
- Swedish
- Tamil (India)
- Tamil (Malaysia)
- Tamil (Singapore)
- Tamil (Sri Lanka)
- Thai
- Turkish
- Ukrainian
- Urdu (India)
- Urdu (Pakistan)
- Vietnamese
- Zulu
- Voice commands are available only in English. The account language and document language must both be English.
- Voice commands aren’t available in Slides speaker notes.
To add punctuation to your text, you can use these commands:
- Period
- Comma
- Exclamation point
- Question mark
- New line
- New paragraph
Step 3: Use voice commands
To select text, you can use 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
Text formatting
- Apply heading [1–6]
- Apply normal text
- Apply subtitle
- Apply title
- Bold
- Italicize
- Italics
- Strikethrough
- Subscript
- Superscript
- Underline
- Uppercase
- Title case
- Lowercase
Text color & highlighting
- Text color [color]
- Highlight
- Highlight [color]
- Background color [color]
- Remove highlight
- Remove background color
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
- Center 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
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.
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
To move around your document, say these commands:
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |
|---|---|---|
|
Example: Go to |
end of | paragraph |
|
Go to Move to |
end of start of |
paragraph column line row table document |
|
Go to Move to |
next previous |
character column footnote formatting change heading heading [1-6] image line link list list item misspelling paragraph row table word page |
|
Go Move |
forward backward |
[number] characters [number] words |
|
Go Move |
up down |
[number] lines [number] paragraphs |
Scroll
- Scroll down
- Scroll up
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]
To open a list of voice commands in your document, say these commands:
- Voice typing help
- Voice commands list
- Find all voice commands
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.
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.
- Tip: Typically, microphone settings on a:
- Mac: Are in the System Preferences.
- PC: Are in the Control Panel.
- Tip: Typically, microphone settings on a:
- Check that your microphone is plugged in and is not being used by another application.
- Move to a quiet room.
- Restart your computer.
If voice commands aren’t working, try the following:
- Speak 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."
