Sprecho does not integrate with individual programs. It puts finished text at your cursor the same way a paste would, which is why it works in software nobody wrote a plugin for — including in-house tools and industry systems like DATEV or RA-MICRO.
If you can type into it, you can dictate into it.
How text insertion actually works
When you release the dictation key, three things happen in order:
- Your audio is recognised and formatted on Sprecho's servers in Germany.
- Sprecho looks at which application is in front and whether a text field has focus.
- The finished text is written into that field at the cursor.
On macOS this needs the Accessibility permission — that is the permission that lets one app deliver text to another. On Windows nothing extra is required. See Grant microphone and Accessibility permissions.
If no text field has focus, the text is put on the clipboard instead of being
thrown away, so you can paste it yourself. You can also re-insert the last
dictation at any time with Control+Cmd+V on macOS or Ctrl+Alt+V on
Windows and Linux.
The focus rule
Text lands wherever the keyboard focus is at the moment of insertion, not where it was when you started speaking.
This one rule explains almost every "it went to the wrong place" report. If you start a long dictation in Outlook and then click your browser while talking, the browser receives the text.
In practice:
- Click into the field first, then start the dictation.
- During a locked, hands-free recording, resist switching windows.
- Sprecho itself never steals focus. The recording bar is a non-activating overlay, which is why clicking its stop button does not move focus away from your document.
Where it works particularly well
- Email: Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Gmail in a browser.
- Documents: Word, Pages, Google Docs, LibreOffice.
- Chat: Teams, Slack, WhatsApp Desktop, Discord.
- Browsers: any input field, including web apps and AI chat interfaces.
- Code editors and terminals: VS Code, JetBrains IDEs, terminal emulators.
- Professional software: case-management, practice-management and ERP systems with normal Windows or macOS text fields.
Sprecho also notices what kind of app you are in, so an email is formatted more formally than a chat message. That behaviour is covered in How Sprecho formats what you say.
When an app misbehaves
Some applications draw their own text fields instead of using the system ones — common in remote sessions, virtualised apps, older Java software, and a few games and design tools.
Work through this in order:
| Symptom | Try this |
|---|---|
| Nothing arrives in a Remote Desktop, Citrix or terminal-server window | Settings → General → Paste keystroke → Shift+Insert or Automatic (Windows only) |
| Text arrives with characters missing or scrambled | The app is consuming keystrokes too fast. Use the paste shortcut to insert it in one go |
| Text arrives in the app but at the wrong position | The app moved the cursor after focus. Click precisely where you want it, then dictate |
| Nothing arrives anywhere, in every app | This is a permission problem, not an app problem — check Accessibility on macOS |
| Nothing arrives in one specific app only | Run that app and Sprecho at the same privilege level. An app running as administrator on Windows will not accept input from a normal-privilege app |
If the text is nowhere, it is still on the clipboard: paste it manually and you have lost nothing.