With technology advancing at such a rapid pace, there are more and more ways that we have to make our lives easier and more efficient by taking advantage of all the devices and software that are available to us. Plus, we can’t forget about all the new AI tools that are popping up faster than we can keep track of them!
If you use a smartphone, you have most likely composed a text message or performed a search using your voice and your phone translated it to text for you automatically. If you want to use this voice to text technology on your computer to assist you with things such as writing documents, composing emails or just having some fun then you should check out the VoiceHotKey software that can do all of this and much more. In this article, we will be showing you how to translate your voice to text and more with VoiceHotKey.
The first step in the process is to download and install the VoiceHoteKey software which can be found here. The installation process is very simple, and it installs just like any other application you may have installed before.
The first time you run VoiceHotKey, you will be asked to grant it permission to track your keyboard events, meaning it needs access to use your keyboard to trigger the voice recording process.
The program is broken down into several tabs with the Main tab being the one you will be using the most. If you want to use your mouse as a recording trigger, you will need to click on the box labeled Mouse tracking is declined, click to change. You can enable or disable this as needed.
As you can see in the image above, the main voice to text is configured to use the right Ctrl key which can be changed by clicking in the box and then pressing a new key or key combination. The Hold checkbox is used to require you to hold the key to record and then release it to stop recording. If you uncheck the Hold box, then you will need to press the key once to start recording and then press it again to stop recording.
You will know when your voice is being recorded by the animated bars on the lower right corner of your screen.
Then when you stop recording, you will see the animation change meaning that it is converting your voice to text.
The key to using the program is to have the app that you want to have the translated text added to open and in the foreground when doing the recording process. If you don’t have it active, then the text will be placed in the VoiceHotKey app under the Files tab. Then you can simply copy it from there and paste it into your other application.
Going back to the Main tab, when you click on the dropdown arrow, you will see the other options available to you with the main voice to text feature. For example, you can have your voice translated to text with all capital letters or all lowercase letters. Then there is the Voice to text and use AI options which we will now go over.
When using the AI feature, you can choose from several actions or have your voice translated to a different language. When you choose the Translate to option, you will then be able to select the language of your choice from a different dropdown menu. Then when you speak into your microphone, it will be automatically translated into that language and pasted into your application.
When you change the dropdown to Action, you can see that you have several options that you can use to manipulate your recorded text.
The Show actions dialog is used to take a specific action on your converted text by clicking on one of the available options as seen in the image below.
Here is what the other choices will do to your text.
- Ask AI – You can use this to ask a question, and the app will use AI to generate an answer.
- Add Emoji – This will add emojis within your text based on its contents.
- Fix Grammar – You can use this to correct grammar mistakes found in your spoken text.
- Improve writing – This can be used to fine tune your text and will make changes to improve it.
- Uppercase – Converts your text to all uppercase.
- Lowercase – Converts your text to all lowercase.
- Tone – Here you can choose one of the many tone options which will reword your text to match that particular tone.
- Custom – Here you can create your own custom AI prompt that will then be applied to your text as seen in the image below.
The Files tab is used to extract text from audio or video files so you can then copy it and paste it into your other applications. Once you upload a file, it will be translated and then the text from that file will be shown in the app.
The Substitutions tab is used to have VoiceHotKey automatically substitute one word for another word or phrase. As you can see in the image below, when you say the word employee, the app will automatically substitute the name Bob Smith Sr. in its place.
As you can see, VoiceHotKey is a very powerful voice to text application with many features that can help you with your day to day tasks.
For additional training resources, check out our online training courses.
