How do I Activate Voice to Text on Android

If you prefer to do lots of text chat from your Android phone or do any such work, you must type long text. Then you must be well aware that sometimes the phone's keyboard does not work properly and becomes hard then work. Also, sometimes typing text on the phone can be painful, especially if you are typing a long passage of text and your figures might be too large for the small keyboard alphabets.

In any of the above cases, enabling voice to text (or speech to text) on your Android phone can help and save lots of effort of typing everything manually. Voice to text is a feature that allows you to speak, and the smart phone converts your words into text. Also, the voice-to-text feature works faster than typing text manually, saving you precious time.

Features of voice input

• Voice input is turned on by default on Android OS 10 and Android 11.
• Voice input enables a hands-free keyboard to type text using a microphone located on the on-screen keyboard.
• On some Android devices, you cannot turn it off.

How to activate voice to text on Android?

Generally, the speech-to-text feature is already enabled in most Android phones. If it is not, you can easily activate it on your device. Following are the steps to activate voice to text feature on Android phones:

1. Open the Google app on your Android smartphone.
2. Click on the "More" option available at the bottom-right of the screen.
   
3. Now tap on the Settings
   
4. Once you are at the Settings screen, tap on the Voice and then Offline speech recognition.
   

Also, make sure that you have downloaded the language that you speak. The languages set on your device will be recognized for voice-to-text conversion when you speak.

The voice-to-text feature may be powered by Samsung voice input itself in a Samsung smartphone. To activate voice input in your Samsung phone, follow the steps below:

1. Go to the device's Settings and then General management.
2. Tap on the "Language and input."
3. Now, tap on "On-screen keyboard."
4. Finally, tap on the Samsung voice input; once you are here, you can change the default language for your keyboard and voice input.

The voice-to-text feature works with several languages, including English, German, etc. But keep in mind, the language you are speaking is properly installed or set up on your device. Voice to text conversion is quite easier to use than the keyboard.

Using Device Keyboard

There is also an alternate option to manage voice input using your Android device's keyboard. Following are the steps to set up voice input in your Android phone using its keyboard:

1. On your device, tap on the Settings and tap on "Language & input" or "Language & keyboard". A different version of an OS device has different settings, but they are mostly the same.
   • For Oreo OS, visit to Settings > System> Languages & keyboard, input & gestures.
   • Samsung devices having Oreo OS, go to Settings> General management > Languages and input.
   • For Pie OS, visit to device: Settings> System > Languages & keyboard, input & gestures.
   • For Android 10 (Q), navigate to Settings > Language & region (Additional settings) > Keyboard & input method.
     
2. Tap on the "Virtual keyboard" or "On-screen keyboard."
3. In some devices, it has "Manage keyboards" and then taps on any of the suitable options:
   
   
   • Enable Google voice typingto turn on or off.
   • Click on <device name> keyboard and tap on the Google voice typing toggle button to enable it.
     

Using Google Keyboard/Gboard

If your Android device doesn't facilitate the feature mentioned above (device keyboard), you can also use Google Keyboard (Gboard) to manage your voice input. The steps are mentioned below:

1. On your device, tap on the Settings and tap on "Language & input" or "Language & keyboard". The different OS version of devices has different settings, but they are mostly the same.
   • For Oreo OS, visit to Settings > System> Languages & keyboard, input & gestures.
   • Samsung devices having Oreo OS, go to Settings> General management > Languages and input.
   • For Pie OS, visit to device: Settings> System > Languages & keyboard, input & gestures.
   • For Android 10 (Q), navigate to Settings > Language & region (Additional settings) > Keyboard & input method.
2. From Keyboards options, tap "Current keyboard" and choose Google keyboard/Gboard.
   
   On most Android devices, Google's Gboard comes preinstalled. If you don't have it, download and install it from Google Play Store.
3. Tap on Preferences.
4. Turn on the Voice input key.

How to use voice to text on an Android phone

The modern text dictation works extremely well, and you can use and convert voice to text with any app that allows text input. To use voice to text feature in your Android phone, open any app that supports text input (such as message app), and follow the steps below:

1. Open the messaging app and tap on the text area to enable the device's keyboard.
2. Once the keyboard brings up, you will see a microphone icon. Tap on the microphone icon to start a voice-to-text feature and input text via voice.
3. If you want to take a little bit of rest in between your voice input, tap on the microphone icon. Tapping again on it will restart the voice-to-text feature to input text.

While using voice to text feature in your device, you should have proper control over your dictation. You have to care about speed and punctuation whenever required. Some of the most common speech commands relevant to Google software are:

• Period
• Comma
• Question mark
• Exclamation point
• Newline
• New paragraph

If you are done speaking your word, tap on the microphone icon to stop voice recognition. If voice to text feature hears wrong words, you can change it by manually going back. You have to give a voice command to replace one word with another.

How to improve voice to text on Android device

Although the voice-to-text feature works better in itself, you can do it even more reliable by keeping some points in mind.

• Speak slowly: If you speak your words very quickly, there may be chances that your device won't catch everything you speak, so it is advised to speak slowly.
• Speak clearly: Make your words clearer than you usually say so that no mistake is done in what you are trying to say. You don't have to speak like a robot as the engine is designed to understand natural speech.
• Careful about background noise: If you are in a crowded and noisy area and try to speak, there may be chances that the engine might not work well as it can't distinguish your voice from the surrounding noise.
• Take advantage of the user dictionary: Visit your device Settings and then Language & input > Advanced > Personal dictionary where you can add some words you want in your voice to text.

The voice-to-text feature on Android is great for searching keywords, typing a few amounts of text, sending messages, and writing a quick memo.

Combining Google Assistant with Voice to Text for Hands-free Voice Typing

To provide text input, you must press the button to enable the voice-to-text feature. But Google is working on hands-free voice input where Google Assistant will handle this task. The feature is currently being tested on select Google Pixel devices, but it may be available to everyone in the Gboard app by the time you're reading this article.

Currently, you are doing this task using Google Assistant, such as sending a message to someone in your contact list using Google Assistant.