Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to use the new
Dictation Spelling Mode in iOS 16 and macOS Ventura.
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So there is a new mode in Dictation that allows you to spell out words and even use digits and
numbers and things like that. But it is not in the regular Dictation. Remember there is
two different Dictation Modes both on the iPhone and iOS and on the Mac. There's Regular Dictation
and there is Voice Control. Regular dictation is what you get on the iPhone when you're in
an app and you're just typing and you tap the little microphone button at the bottom right
hand corner. That goes into Dictation Mode and you can do basic quick dictation there.
You won't have Spelling Mode there. In the advanced Voice Control is where you have it.
So you want to go into Settings and there you want to go into Accessibility
and then look for Voice Control. Of course you need to turn it on. BUT we won't turn it on just
now. Let's just dig down in here and see where this is located. If you go to Customized Commands
and go to a list of all the Commands you could search for them, you could look at
them by category. There's a set here called Dictation. This gives you some
of the most powerful dictation commands including Dictation Mode, Command Mode, and Spelling Mode.
So Dictation Mode is what you normally use with Voice Control. It means you're
typing text you can dictate and when you're not typing text you can issue Voice Control
Commands. Some of these other things that were up here and in some of these other categories.
If you go to Command Mode it actually will ignore dictation and only allow you to do commands.
Spelling Mode is a temporary mode where you can now go in and spell out each letter and
it will type it rather than trying to interpret what you say as words.
So to Exit Spelling Mode you would then say Dictation Mode.
Now back here at the top level of Accessibility I've made it easy for myself to turn On and Off
Voice Control. At the bottom is Accessibility Shortcut and I've made sure that Voice Control
is one of the options there. So now if I triple click the side button I can easily turn On and Off
Voice Control and be able to try out this Spelling Mode. So in Notes here I'm going to triple click
the side button and then turn On Voice Control. Then I'm going to do regular dictation. It
should be in Dictation Mode by default when you start it. Then I'm going to initiate Spelling
Mode and spell something out. "this is regular dictation mode period Spelling Mode a b c 1 2 3
dictation mode". Notice that when I switched to Spelling Mode it actually showed that little abc
symbol to show that I was in it. Notice it also didn't bother with doing nice things like putting
extra spaces so I don't have a space after the period before I started my spelling. But you can
actually use other commands like space or delete while doing Spelling Mode. Let's try that. "this
is something I'm going to spell colon spelling mode tap space capital a capital b c x y capital z
delete that
1 2 3 period dictation mode.
So you can use a lot of those other commands while in Spelling Mode. If you are already
using Voice Control a lot for dictation you're probably familiar with those. If
not you really have to review that list in the Settings and practice using them.
Now iPad OS 16 isn't out yet but when it is out you'll have the same functionality there and of
course the same when macOS Ventura comes out. So on macOS Ventura you'll want to go to System
Settings and then Accessibility and then you want to go to Voice Control. Of course you can turn it
On and Off there. You can review the commands here as well and find the Spelling Mode command there.
Let's turn it On. You'll see it works the same way.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog with the number spelling mode
spacebar x y z 1 2 3 period. Dictation Mode.
Now some tips for using this. You definitely need to speak slowly. You can't just rattle off a bunch
of letters and numbers. You have to enunciate each letter. So using it isn't going to necessarily be
fast. If you do have special words like names or terms commonly used in your business or field of
study that you want to add to the Vocabulary you have the ability in Voice Control to add
vocabulary words both on the iPhone and on the Mac. So do that instead and try to be able to just
say the words and have it spelled out especially if it is something you're using all the time.
Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.