Word Dictate - keeps typing 'what'

Anonymous
2020-01-23T08:42:55+00:00

Hi, I just started using the dictate function in Word and its great. However when I pause for too long it types 'What' and if i'm not careful i miss it and it stays in my text. I have tried several times and there is no background noise and I am not breathing heavy or saying anything? It will often type 'what' also before the dictate function times out and turns off. 

edit - it is now also typing 'hello' and 'heehee'. I think its possessed!! 

The function commands such as hyphen, open parenthesis etc do not work either. comma, full stop do. Also is there a way to lengthen the time out function as I find it too short?

Any suggestions or anyone else having this problem?

Thankyou

H

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2020-06-04T17:16:46+00:00

Thanks @Rohn007 for pointing this out - I have just e-mailed Emily Tran to let her know. She is the person from Microsoft working to fix this.

When we were last in contact she hadn't been able to see the 'hello' problem in action. This might be why.

I think most of us would like to continue using the dictate function - it just needs a bit of perseverance to get there, and collaboration with Microsoft to help them.

Onwards and upwards!

A fix has been deployed to 100% of Dictation users - please let us know if you still see the issue.

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-06-04T18:00:50+00:00

    Actually, my comment was in regard to Dictation as it functions in Windows 10 using desktop applications. I was unaware Windows 10 Dictation is cloud-based. I live in a rural area with an occasionally interrupted internet connection (briefly, several times per day), so Dictation will never be a good choice for me.  By "stalled," my best guess is Dictation functionality is a back-burner project, with primary strategic focus being on other cloud-based offerings.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-06-04T17:38:06+00:00

    I just wanted to circle back to mention we were able to get the repro on the company side and a fix is being deployed in progress, I anticipate by next week we should see the issue go away and can use this thread to confirm if that is true. 

    Thank you very much for this update

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-06-04T17:19:02+00:00

    Your observations about differences between English dialects is interesting. I'm an American and a high-functioning autistic. As an autistic, I lack many of the intonations other have, regardless of language and dialect. For me, the latest and greatest Dragon is worthless, due to bugs in the command parser and flaws in the fundamental speech-to-text conversion. However, Microsoft's Dictation is very accurate in the are of speech-to-text, but functionally worthless for me, due to the short sleep timer. So, I suspect Microsoft's Dictation is looking at the fundamentals of word formation, while Dragon is highly dependent broader individual characteristics, such as accent. For the foreseeable future, I'm guessing Dictation is stalled and will go nowhere beyond what it is, especially under Windows as a stand-alone platform. Windows is really contradictory to the new software-as-a-service cloud-based paradigm.

    Can you elaborate what you mean by Dictation in Office being stalled? Azure speech services are cloud-based and we are not under Windows as a standalone platform. You can use the same Dictate functionally on Mac Word and Outlook, IPhone, and Android Phone today.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-06-04T17:11:52+00:00

    Your observations about differences between English dialects is interesting. I'm an American and a high-functioning autistic. As an autistic, I lack many of the intonations other have, regardless of language and dialect. For me, the latest and greatest Dragon is worthless, due to bugs in the command parser and flaws in the fundamental speech-to-text conversion. However, Microsoft's Dictation is very accurate in the are of speech-to-text, but functionally worthless for me, due to the short sleep timer. So, I suspect Microsoft's Dictation is looking at the fundamentals of word formation, while Dragon is highly dependent broader individual characteristics, such as accent. For the foreseeable future, I'm guessing Dictation is stalled and will go nowhere beyond what it is, especially under Windows as a stand-alone platform. Windows is really contradictory to the new software-as-a-service cloud-based paradigm.

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