Talk To Me!

Continuing The MacDoctor's series of tips and tricks, why not talk to your computer a little more! We're serious. As time and RSI saving as our iOS text snippet shortcuts tip, taking advantage of Mountain Lion's Dictation to Text feature could be the way forward for many of your text input needs.

So this one is Mountain Lion (10.8) only, so make sure you are running the latest and greatest on your Mac first. Go to 'System Preferences' and select 'Dictation & Speech'. The first tab is 'Dictation' and simply make sure it is switched on. The default shortcut to engage the feature is by tapping the 'Fn' (function) key on your keyboard twice. Tapping it once again stops input. 

So try it out. Place your cursor in the body of a text document or field, double tap the 'Fn' key and start talking. Hit 'Fn' again to stop and see how the Mac does turning your dulcet tones into text. For every day email, search engines, blog posts, twitter replies and the like, it saves our delicate fingers a whole heap of stress and strain. And think how clean your keyboard will stay!

Its good to talk. Let us know how you get on.