How to use Talkativ

Dictation and Genius Mode work in any app where you can type: email, chat, documents, a browser, an AI chat box. You don’t switch to Talkativ to use them; your words go where your cursor is.

1. Your first dictation

1. Click into any text box, so the cursor blinks where you want the words.
2. Press Ctrl + Space on Windows, ⌥ Option + Space on a Mac once. The mic dot turns red: it’s listening.
3. Talk as you would to a person, in full sentences. You don’t need to say “comma” or “full stop”.
4. Press the same keys again. The mic dot turns blue while it works on your words.
5. A moment later your words appear at the cursor, with capitals and punctuation, and the mic dot turns green.

Want somewhere safe to practise first? On the Home screen of the app, choose Open a practice note.

2. Start and stop with a click: the mic dot

The mic dot is the small round button that sits at the bottom of your screen, just above the taskbar on Windows, whenever Talkativ is running. Clicking it does exactly what the shortcut does: click once to start, and click again to stop. If you’d rather not use the keyboard, you don’t have to.

Its colour tells you what Talkativ is doing:

• Black waiting for you
• Red listening
• Blue working on your words
• Green your words have landed

3. Lists, amounts, times and addresses

Turn on Advanced transcription formatting and Talkativ also writes spoken lists as numbered lists, amounts as “£4,000” or “$500”, times like “half past three” as 3:30, and email addresses and links the way they’re written. It keeps your words; it only tidies how they look.

1. Open Talkativ and go to Settings, then Preferences.
2. In the Audio & voice card, switch on Advanced transcription formatting.

It’s off until you switch it on, it’s on every plan, and in our tests it added a second or two after you stop talking.

4. Names and jargon: Vocabulary

If a name, a product or a piece of jargon keeps coming out wrong, add it to your Vocabulary once.

1. In the app, open Vocabulary in the sidebar.
2. Add the word exactly as it should be spelt: your name, your company, product names, the terms you use at work.
3. Dictate as normal. Talkativ now listens out for it.

Vocabulary is on every plan, and you can add as many words as you like. Talkativ listens out for up to 20 of them as you speak. With Advanced transcription formatting switched on, it also checks the finished text against every word on your list and fixes near misses.

5. Change highlighted text by voice: Genius Mode

Genius Mode rewrites text you’ve already written, right where it is, from a spoken instruction. It’s on the Max plan and the 7-day Max trial, and it’s switched on by default there.

1. Highlight the text you want to change, in any app.
2. Press Ctrl + D on Windows, ⌥ Option + D on a Mac, or click the Genius Mode dot that slides out beside the mic dot.
3. Say what you want, for example “make this more professional”, “make this friendlier but keep it firm” or “turn this into a bullet list”.
4. Press the same keys again, or click the Genius Mode dot again.
5. Your highlighted text is replaced with the new version.

The one thing that trips people up: highlight first. With nothing highlighted, Talkativ asks you to select some text.

6. Reshape a note: Smart Edits

Smart Edits turns a rough note or dictation into a finished piece: an email, a meeting summary, a to-do list, a LinkedIn post and more. It’s on the Max plan.

1. On the Home screen, find the dictation in your history (or a note on the Notes page) and choose Smart Edit.
2. Pick one of 31 writing styles, such as Email, Meeting Summary or To-Do List.
3. If you like, set the Tone, the Length and the Edit level (how much it changes).
4. Choose Transform. The rewrite appears beside your original.
5. Choose Copy, or Save draft to keep it on the Smart Edits page.

7. Dictate in another language

Talkativ works in 100 languages, highly accurate in 56. Auto-detect, the default, works out which language you are speaking, and you can also tell it which one you speak.

1. Go to Settings, then Preferences.
2. In the Language card, choose your language under Spoken language. Auto-detect is the default.

If results in your language are poor, the app’s own help suggests choosing it instead of Auto-detect. The languages page lists all 100 and how well each one did in our tests.

8. Find anything you’ve said

Every dictation is saved on the Home screen. You can search it, copy anything back out, send it to Smart Edit (on Max) or delete it. The Notes page is a scratchpad: click the mic dot, talk, and your words are saved as a note.

9. If nothing appeared

• Click into a text box first. Talkativ types where the cursor is, so there has to be one.
• Check the mic dot went red when you started. If Talkativ says it didn’t hear anything, check your microphone is on and not muted. Bluetooth earbuds can drop into a quiet “music mode”; switching to your computer’s built-in microphone usually fixes that.
• Check which microphone your computer is using. Talkativ uses your computer’s default microphone, which you choose in its sound settings.
• On Windows, some programs that run as administrator can block pasting. The app’s own help suggests running Talkativ as administrator.
• Check you’re online. Talkativ needs an internet connection.

Still stuck? The voice to text not working guide goes further, or email [email protected] and I’ll help.