Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Mountain Lion Edition

Dictation

Dictation is built into the Mac. You can speak to type.

In fact, Mountain Lion’s dictation feature is identical to the iPhone/iPad’s. It lets you speak to enter text anywhere, into any program—email, novels, anything. (Behind the scenes, it’s using the same Nuance technology that powers Dragon Dictate.)

Now, before you get all excited, here are the necessary footnotes:

• Voice typing works only when you have an Internet connection. (The audio of each utterance is transferred to servers online, which convert it into text and send it back to your screen.)

• Voice typing works best if there’s not a lot of background noise. It works even better on Macs that have dual microphones, like the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display; those two mikes create a “beam array”—a directional alignment that helps them differentiate your voice from the background noise.

• Voice typing isn’t always practical; everybody nearby can hear what you’re doing.

• Very often, you’ll have to correct an error or two.

All right—expectations set? Then here’s how to type by speaking.

Dictation Step by Step

First, fire up some program where you can type. TextEdit, Mail, Word, whatever. Dictation works in any program.

Now tap the Fn key twice. (You can also choose the Start Dictation command, which magically appears in almost every program’s Edit menu. Or you can choose a different keystroke, as described below.)

Note

The first time you trigger dictation, you’re warned that the Mac will send the names in your Contacts app ...