Voice to text is nothing new and if you have a smartphone then you probably use the voice to text feature daily when composing text messages for example. You may or may not know that Microsoft Windows also has a dictation feature that can be used to type for you as you speak into your microphone.
If you plan on converting your voice to text on a regular basis, then you may want to try a third party application to accomplish this. In this article, we will be showing you how to convert your voice, audio and video files to text for free. The software we will be using is called VOVSOFT Speech to Text Converter and it can be downloaded from their website. This software will convert your voice to text via your microphone and you can also have it extract text from audio or video files. They have a free version as well as a pay for version that offers updates and support.
You will also have the option to install the software on your computer just like any other application or run the portable version that does not require anything to be installed. Once launch the app, you will see the options you have to save your voice as text.
If you plan on using your microphone to convert your voice to text, you have two ways of doing so. You can click on the Record icon and start speaking into your microphone. The app works best if you speak slowly and clearly. Since it won’t add punctuation, you should pause after each sentence and when you are finished, wait a few seconds before clicking the Stop button to allow it to finish up.
When you are done recording, the app will create an audio file of your voice recording and automatically load its location in the Audio File box. You can then click on the Convert button to have your recording converted to text as seen below. You can then select the text from the box and copy it so you can paste it into another application such as Microsoft Word for example.
If you want to be able to use punctuation such as saying “period” at the end of your sentence to have a period placed there for you, you can use the Continuous Dictation option.
If you do not have speech recognition configured on your computer, you will need to go through the set up speech recognition wizard before being able to use the Continuous Dictation feature.
You can choose which type of microphone you will be using.
You will also be asked to read the text from this step into your microphone to help get things adjusted correctly.
If you want the speech recognition feature to be able to access your documents and email, you can enable the option in this step.
You can even configure it to start and stop by using your voice if you choose the voice activation mode option.
You can then view the speech reference card for helpful commands that you can use while recording your voice.
If you want speech recognition to start with your computer, you can check the box in this step.
The last step offers you the option to view a tutorial on how speech recognition works.
The Speech to Text Converter app has its own built in microphone option that will appear on your screen when you click the Continuous Dictation tab. You can click the microphone option to start the recording process.
We have noticed that using this option does not always provide the best results and will also show a breakdown of what you are saying at the bottom as you are speaking.
A better option is to press the Windows key + H to open the Windows dictation microphone box.
When you click on the microphone button to record, you will then see your voice converted to text as you speak. You can also add punctuation to your text as you speak.
To convert audio from a video or audio file, you can go back to the Vosk (Offline) tab and then load your file into the app. You can then click the Convert button to have your file read and then converted to text within the text box.
The Speech to Text Converter app also support third party speech engines but in order to use them, you will need to provide the credentials for your specific account in the app so it can connect to that service.
