Dictating into Slack works with any push-to-talk tool that types into the focused window. The one thing to get right is Slack's Enter key preference, because it decides whether PipeVoice's Enter sends your message or just starts a new line.
What Slack's Enter preference does
From Slack's help centre:
- Under Send the message, pressing Enter sends the message and Shift+Enter starts a new line.
- Under Start a new line, pressing Enter makes a new line and Ctrl+Enter sends on Windows.
- Slack also says it is not currently possible to set custom keyboard shortcuts.
What that means for PipeVoice
Ending a dictation with "send it", "press enter", "hit enter", "enter key" or "send message" makes PipeVoice type your text and then press Enter once. The same Enter is pressed after every dictation if you turn on auto-Enter. In Slack that Enter sends the message only if your preference is Send the message. If yours is Start a new line, it adds a line break instead. Check the preference before you rely on hands-free sending.
A profile for Slack
Slack is slack.exe in PipeVoice's app picker, so a profile for it applies only while Slack is focused. The profile points at a Voice, which can set the engine, cleanup style, auto-Enter and output mode. The built-in Social Voice rewrites speech as a friendly, casual, concise post and has auto-Enter switched off, so PipeVoice does not press Enter at the end of a dictation.
Careful with "new line". PipeVoice turns "new line" into a line break and "new paragraph" into two, and it types each one as an Enter key press. Under Slack's Send the message preference, that Enter sends everything you have dictated so far. If you dictate multi-line messages, switch Slack to Start a new line and send with Ctrl+Enter.
Set it up in three steps
- Download PipeVoice for Windows and choose an engine.
- Open the app profiles window, click into Slack, and add
slack.exewith a Voice. - Click into a message box, hold Ctrl+\, speak, release.
Related: dictating into Word and Outlook and dictating into Claude Code.