Dictate Into Word and Outlook on Windows: Built-In Dictate vs PipeVoice

Word and Outlook both have a built-in Dictate button, so try that first if you have a Microsoft 365 subscription. PipeVoice is the alternative when you do not, when you want to work offline, or when you want one hotkey that also works outside Office.

What Microsoft's Dictate requires

From Microsoft's support pages:

• It is only available to Microsoft 365 subscribers, on Windows 10 or later, with a microphone and a reliable internet connection.
• You start it from Home > Dictate and stop by saying "stop dictation", "exit dictation" or "close dictation".
• It works in Word and Outlook (plus PowerPoint and OneNote) on the desktop apps; web and mobile features may differ.
• Spoken commands include punctuation ("period", "comma", "new line") and formatting ("bold", "create bullet list").
• Microsoft states that the service does not store your audio data or transcribed text.

What PipeVoice adds

PipeVoice is free and open source and needs no Microsoft subscription. Hold Ctrl+\, speak, release, and it types into the focused window. With local Whisper as the engine, transcription runs on your PC with no internet. Cloud engines send audio to the provider you choose, using your own key.

A profile for Word and Outlook

Microsoft Word is winword.exe and classic Outlook is outlook.exe in PipeVoice's app picker. New Outlook runs as olk.exe, and it shows up in the picker under that name while it is open. A profile for each applies only while that program is focused, and it points at a Voice that can override the engine, cleanup style and auto-Enter.

The built-in Professional Voice rewrites dictation as clear, professional writing such as an email, in a neutral-to-formal tone with British spelling, and is told to preserve your meaning and every specific without adding content. That is a sensible default for both apps.

Voice commands that work in both

PipeVoice understands "new line" and "next line" (one line break) and "new paragraph" (two line breaks) inside your speech, and "tab key" for a tab. These are separate from Microsoft's commands and work in any app. To discard a slip, say "scratch that", "cancel that", "delete that", "forget that" or "never mind" as the whole utterance.

A caution on auto-Enter

PipeVoice's auto-Enter and the "send it" phrase both press the Enter key. That is a keystroke, not an Outlook send command, so leave auto-Enter off for these profiles unless you want an Enter after every dictation.

Set it up in three steps

1. Download PipeVoice for Windows and pick an engine (local Whisper for offline).
2. Open the app profiles window, click into Word, and add winword.exe with the Professional Voice. Repeat for outlook.exe (classic Outlook) or olk.exe (new Outlook).
3. Click into a document or an email, hold the hotkey, speak, release.

Related: dictating into VS Code and dictating into Slack.