Typing isn't easy or even possible for everyone, which is why many prefer to simply talk. Speech-to-text software, also sometimes called dictation software, can help with that; it turns what you say into typed text. You likely don't need to install software to dictate text to your computer or phone either since every major operating system has a speech-to-text feature that works just about as well as anything else on the market. Here, we point out where to find these features on your devices and discuss a powerful commercial product with more features. Below are the best apps and tools we evaluated.

Best Speech-to-Text Tool for Windows

Microsoft's Voice Access feature is freely available for devices running at least Windows 11 22H2. Simply search for it from the Start menu and go through a quick setup process. The Voice Access feature then appears as a bar at the top of the screen. Tap the microphone icon in the upper left corner or say "Voice Access Wake Up" to start using it. In testing, the feature did a laudable job of capturing what I dictated to a test notepad file, and it recognized punctuation once I turned on the automatic punctuation setting. It's worth noting that Voice Access does much more than speech-to-text; you can use it to control pretty much every aspect of your computer. I didn't have any trouble getting Voice Access to open specific apps or browse through File Explorer, for example. A full list of commands is available online or via the help icon in the Voice Access feature bar. Note that if you use an older version of Windows, the Speech Recognition tool remains as accurate as ever. You can try it out via the Windows Key + H shortcut anywhere you can type. You can add punctuation and otherwise navigate using commands.