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. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.2K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2020-04-02T12:23:20+00:00

    I have escalated this through the Word distribution list, which is read by members of the Word product group, but this isn't really a Word feature, I think, or even an Office feature, but a feature perhaps designed for Windows that has been adopted by Office, so I'm not sure who "owns" it, and of course response and action are complicated by the fact that many Microsoft employees are working from home at the moment.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-04-02T06:22:07+00:00

    Thank you Suzanne. I have followed your advice and raised it through the feedback feature in Outlook (Office 365)

    Hopefully if a few others do the same, it might get some attention. Best wishes, James

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-04-01T23:33:12+00:00

    Good luck, I have never fixed the issue and after all the 'very' random comments that keep coming up when my nine year old daughter was using it (with supervision!) I decided it was too creepy and stopped using it altogether. Most frustrating as I then spent nearly a week reformatting my computer to get the Speech Recognition working on Windows (I wouldn't allow it to run and kept getting language issues as it was sent to Australian). I am Australian and it would only work when rebooted as American (which I also found infuriating!). However it at least doesn't type random words. I need this for my work as I am transposing many many documents which is much easier to talk than type. So much for technology being quick! This exercise has taken months.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-04-01T18:16:52+00:00

    Thanks for that. I found the feedback and posted my original post there.

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