Custom Voice Commands
Custom voice commands let you map a phrase to another phrase or command. This powerful feature can be used to correct common grammatical errors, avoid repetitive data entry, trigger commands, insert uncommon words, and more.
In this document, we will go over how to create custom voice commands, create voice commands that match within words, action commands, and conclude with some popular use cases for custom voice commands.
If you want to use voice commands to perform an action like changing the dictation language, pressing a keyboard shortcut, opening a webpage, closing the current tab, or simply inserting a line break, go to the Action Commands section.
1. Creating a Custom Voice Command
Step 1: Ensure you have the Voice In Voice-To-Text extension installed and have upgraded to Voice In Plus.
Step 2: Open the Voice In Options Page.
Step 3: Go to the Custom Commands section and click Add Command.
A pop-up on the page asks for the custom voice command details.
Say This - phrase that will activate this voice command To Insert This - phrase you want to insert
For example, say you want to add a voice command for your phone number. You can do something like below:
Fill out the form and click the Add new command button. In the example above, saying "insert phone" will insert "217-652-8632".
Bulk Add Commands
You can add multiple commands at once using Bulk Add.
This will open up a pop-up. You can enter a list of voice commands in CSV format and bulk-add them.
Export Commands & Sync
Use the Export button to export a copy of your voice commands in CSV format. A backup of your custom voice commands can also be found here. Currently, voice commands don't sync across your machines. If you are on a new machine or if you reinstall the Chrome extension, you may have to initialize the voice commands manually. We are working on automating this process.
2. Matching within a Word
By default, voice commands do whole-word matching. If you have a command for the word "magic", it will only match "magic" but not "magical". To match both "magic" and "magical" using the phrase "magic", you need to check the match within the word option when creating the voice command.
3. Action Commands
Action commands are commands that accomplish a specific task. They generally do not insert any text. Voice In supports the following action commands:
Command | Action |
<newline> | Insert a line break |
<newparagraph> | Insert a paragraph break |
<paste> | Paste text from the clipboard |
<undo> | Undo the last text insertion |
<capson> | Insert text in upper case going forward (behaves as caps lock on) |
<capsoff> | Turns off <capson> |
<capitalize> | Capitalize the next word |
<enter> | Press enter key |
<tab> | Press tab key |
<delete> | Delete a built-in voice command |
<open:*> | Open a webpage. Example <open:https://google.com> |
<press:*> | Press a keyboard shortcut. Example <press:shift+enter> |
<scrollup>, <scrolldown>, <scrolltop>, <scrollbottom> | Scroll on the current page up, down, to the top, and to the bottom respectively |
<closetab> | Close the current tab |
<lang:*> | Change language. Example <lang:es-ES> to change to Spanish (Spain) |
<case:*> | Change dictation case. Example <case:upper> to use uppercase |
<unset> | Use this to remove a built-in voice command. Example: period => <unset> will remove the period built-in voice command. |
You can add a voice command mapping any phrase to the action commands listed above.
For example, a common dictation error when you say "new line" is "uline". To trigger a new line even when it is incorrectly dictated as uline, you can add the voice command: uline => <newline>
Some of the action commands are configurable. For example, you can add a voice command use spanish => <lang:es-ES> to quickly change the dictation language to Spanish.
There are 4 configurable action commands <open:*>, <press:*>, <lang*> and <case:*>
a. <open:*>: open a new webpage
Use this action command to open a webpage. Example: open google => <open:https://google.com>
b. <press:*>: press keyboard shortcut
Use this action command to trigger a key press. For example, in Gmail, the shortcut to send the email is ctrl + enter (cmd + enter on Mac). You can trigger this action using voice commands by adding a voice command "send mail" => <press:ctrl+enter> (or <press:cmd+enter> on Mac). For more details, check the Using Action Commands for Keyboard Shortcuts article.
c. <lang:*>: change dictation language
Use this action command to change the dictation language. Example: use spanish => <lang:es-ES> use english => <lang:en-US> The command requires the language code of the language. In the example above, en-US in the language code for English (United States). You can look up the language code for your language in the list of languages supported by Voice In.
d. <case:*>: change dictation case
Voice In supports transforming dictated text to a specific case. The five supported cases are default, lowercase, UPPERCASE, Sentence case, and Capitalize Each Word. Use this <case:*> action command to switch between them. Example: uppercase => <case:upper> Possible values are <case:default>, <case:lower>, <case:upper>, <case:sentence>, <case:capitalize> for default, lowercase, UPPERCASE, Sentence case, and Capitalize Each Word, respectively.
4. Common Use Cases
Here are some common use cases for custom voice commands:
a. Correct common dictation errors
Voice In might misinterpret spoken words due to accents, inability to disambiguate, an uncommon word, or other factors.
For example, a user who works for a company named iPacket reported that when she dictated her company's name, it typed it as "eye packet". To fix this, she can add a custom voice command eye packet => iPacket This command instructs the software to replace "eye packet" with "iPacket" whenever it encounters the word.
Another example: a user said his child's name "Sathyam" always gets dictated as "Satyam". To fix this, he can add a custom voice command "Satyam" => "Sathyam". This command instructs the software to replace "satyam" with "Sathyam" whenever it encounters the word.
Two more examples:
1. The user wants the word god always capitalized. To solve this, they can add a voice command "god" => "God". Now the word will be always be capitalized.
2. A user wanted "colon" to be inserted as ":". To fix this, they can add a voice command "colon" => ":".
b. Remove censorship/profanity filter.
By default, the browser's speech-to-text engine will censor curse words. You can use voice commands to reverse this. For example, you can add a custom voice command
s*** => suck
to remove censorship of that word.
See the Creating a Voice Command section above for instructions on creating a voice command.
[NEW] Voice In now has a built-in feature to disable the profanity filter for six languages. To enable this, go to the Voice In Options page, scroll down to the Dictation Text Transforms section, and enable the "Disable profanity/adult words filter" feature.
c. Avoid repetitive text entry using templates
For example, a salesperson would add a voice command
thank you message | Thank you for purchasing from XYZ Store. Thanks, ABC |
A doctor who is doing a general checkup of a patient would add
checkup text | General/Constitutional: overall health: unchanged Chills: denies Fever: denies Night sweats: denies Respiratory: Cough: denies Hemoptysis: denies Shortness of breath: denies Wheezing: denies |
This saves time with having to copy-paste this text block before every consultation.
d. Replace ß with ss
Many German users (mainly users who use Swiss German) would want to use ß instead of ss in all dictated text. To achieve this, add a custom voice command mapping ß to ss. Set the match within a word flag to true.
If you have questions about custom voice commands, post on the Voice In forum.
Last updated
