Voice commands work reliably in Sprecho, but they depend on two things: a short pause before them and the exact wording. Miss either and the command ends up in your text as words.
If you are currently seeing "new line" or "comma" sitting in the middle of a sentence, it is almost always one of those two.
The short pause before the command
This is the single most important point on this page.
Finish your sentence, pause for about half a second, then say the command. The pause does not need to be long. It is the natural beat you already take when you finish a thought.
| This works | This ends up as words |
|---|---|
| "I would like to say" · short pause · "new paragraph" · short pause · "Life is good" | "I would like to say new paragraph life is good" |
The reason: Sprecho decides from context whether "new line" is a command or part of your sentence. That is deliberate, because in "the new line in the table" you want the words, not a break. The pause is the signal that tells the two apart.
The same pause helps afterwards: a brief moment after the command, before you carry on, makes recognition even clearer.
The exact wording
The second common cause is a short form that does not exist.
| Correct | Not recognised |
|---|---|
| "new paragraph" | "paragraph" |
| "new line" | "line" or "line break" |
| "open quote" / "close quote" | "quotation marks" |
| "open bracket" / "close bracket" | "in brackets" |
"Paragraph" on its own is an ordinary noun, as in "the third paragraph of the contract". That is why it is deliberately not a command. Say "new paragraph" and you get a blank line.
The full command list
This works in German, English and Portuguese.
| You say | You get |
|---|---|
| period · full stop | . |
| comma | , |
| colon | : |
| semicolon | ; |
| question mark | ? |
| exclamation mark | ! |
| open quote / close quote | typographic quotation marks |
| open bracket / close bracket | ( ) |
| section sign | § |
| slash | / |
| hyphen | - |
| underscore | _ |
| new line | line break |
| new paragraph | blank line |
A command word used as an ordinary noun stays a word. "Under point three" does not become punctuation, and the words around a command are all kept.
You do not need to dictate punctuation
The most common reason commands cause trouble at all: they get dictated out of habit when they are not needed.
Sprecho adds commas, full stops, question marks and capitalisation on its own, from the meaning of the sentence. You can speak three paragraphs without saying "comma" once. Only dictate a mark when you want it exactly there, such as in a legal citation or a parenthetical aside.
If you are coming from an older dictation program, you are often fighting a model that would have placed the comma anyway. Speak a complete thought normally, release the key, and look at what comes out. Usually it is already right.
If it still does not work
If the command still lands in your text despite the pause and the correct wording, check this:
- Are you saying the command clearly? Swallowed endings turn "new line" into something that is not a recognised phrase.
- Is the right language selected? A German command inside an English-configured dictation is treated as text. See Choose and switch your dictation language.
- Is the command at the very start or end? It is executed there too, but a pause still helps recognition.
If you are generally getting more paragraphs than you dictated, that is a question of the formatting model rather than of commands. See Set a writing style per app and Automatic punctuation and filler word removal.