Step-by-Step Guide: Turn on iPhone Dictation
- Open Settings: Locate and tap the grey Settings gear icon on your iPhone home screen.
- Open General Settings: Tap General > Keyboard.
- Enable Dictation: Scroll down to the Dictation section and toggle Enable Dictation to ON.
- Select Dictation Languages (Optional): Tap Dictation Languages to select additional spoken languages such as Spanish, French, or German.
- Start Voice Typing: Open Notes or iMessage, tap the text cursor, and tap the Microphone icon at the bottom right.
How to Insert Punctuation with iPhone Voice to Text
Apple Dictation supports hands-free punctuation. Simply speak the following commands while talking:
- Say "comma" to insert a comma (,)
- Say "period" or "full stop" to end a sentence (.)
- Say "question mark" or "exclamation point" (? !)
- Say "new line" or "new paragraph" to start a new block
- Say "quote" and "unquote" for quotation marks (" ")
Want to Listen to PDFs and Articles Out Loud on iPhone?
While iOS Dictation handles typing by voice, listening to documents out loud is the fastest way to read on iPhone. You can use our free AI text reader on iPhone Safari to upload PDFs, Word files, and EPUBs and listen with real-time word highlighting without installing any App Store apps.