Windows Speech Recognition commands

Windows Speech Recognition lets you control your PC by voice alone, without needing a keyboard or mouse. The following tables list commands that you can use with Speech Recognition.

If a word or phrase is bolded, it’s an example. Replace it with similar words to get the result you want.

For info on how to set up Speech Recognition for the first time, see Use speech recognition.

Any time you need to find out what commands to use, say «what can I say?»

Speech Recognition is available only for the following languages: English (United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India, and Australia), French, German, Japanese, Mandarin (Chinese Simplified and Chinese Traditional), and Spanish.

Common Speech Recognition commands

Note: Cortana is available only in certain countries/regions, and some Cortana features might not be available everywhere. If Cortana isn’t available or is turned off, you can still use search.

Press Windows C

Press Windows S

Perform an action in an app

Right-click; Press Windows Z; press ctrl B

Select an item by its name

Select an item or icon

Click Recycle Bin; Click Computer; Click file name

Double-click an item

Double-click Recycle Bin; Double-click Computer; Double-click file name

Switch to an open app

Switch to Paint; Switch to WordPad; Switch to program name; Switch application

Scroll in one direction

Scroll up; Scroll down; Scroll left; Scroll right

Insert a new paragraph or new line in a document

New paragraph; New line

Select a word in a document

Select a word and start to correct it

Select and delete specific words

Show a list of applicable commands

Update the list of speech commands that are currently available

Refresh speech commands

Turn on listening mode

Turn off listening mode

Move the Speech Recognition microphone bar

Move speech recognition

Minimize the microphone bar

Minimize speech recognition

Commands for dictation

Insert a new line in the document

Insert a new paragraph in the document

Insert the literal word (for example, insert the word «comma» instead of the punctuation mark)

Insert the numeral form of a number (for examples, insert 3 instead of the word three)

Put the cursor before a specific word

Put the cursor after a specific word

Don’t insert a space before the next word

Go to the start of the current sentence

Go to start of sentence

Go to the start of the current paragraph

Go to start of paragraph

Go to the start of the current document

Go to start of document

Go to the end of the current sentence

Go to end of sentence

Go to the end of the current paragraph

Go to end of paragraph

Go to the end of the current document

Go to end of document

Select a word in the current document

Select a word range in the current document

Select word range; Select word through word

Select all text in the current document

Select a number of words before the location of the cursor

Select previous 20 words; Select previous 10 words

Select a number of words after the location of the cursor

Select next 20 words; Select next 10 words

Select the last text you dictated

Clear the selection on the screen

Capitalize the first letter of a word

Capitalize all the letters of a word

Make all the letters in a word lowercase

Change the next number of words to uppercase

Change next 10 words to uppercase

Change the next number of words to lowercase

Change next 10 words to lowercase

Delete the previous sentence

Delete previous sentence

Delete the next sentence

Delete next sentence

Delete the previous paragraph

Delete previous paragraph

Delete the next paragraph

Delete next paragraph

Delete the selected or last dictated text

Commands for the keyboard

Press a key or key combination

Press keyboard key; press A; press capital B; press Shift plus A; press Ctrl plus A

Press certain keyboard keys without saying «press» first

Delete; Backspace; Enter; Page Up; Page Down; Home; End; Tab

You can also use the ICAONATO phonetic alphabet. For example, say «press alpha» to press A or «press bravo» to press B.

Speech Recognition commands for the keyboard works only with languages that use Latin alphabets.

Commands for punctuation marks and special characters

Period; Dot; Decimal point

Open double quote; Open quote

Close double quote; Close quote; Close inverted commas

Open single quote

Close single quote

Greater than sign

Close angle bracket

Plus or minus sign

Open angle quote

Close angle quote

Registered sign; Registered trademark sign

Ellipsis; Dot dot dot

Commands for Windows and apps

Select an item by its name

Select an item or icon

Click Recycle Bin; click Computer; click file name

Double-click an item

Double-click Computer; double-click Recycle Bin; double-click folder name

Right-click an item

Right-click Computer; right-click Recycle Bin; right-click folder name

Minimize all windows to show your desktop

Select something if you don’t know what it’s called

Show numbers (Numbers will appear on the screen for every item in the active window. Say an item’s corresponding number to select it.)

Select a numbered item

Double-click a numbered item

Double-click 19; Double-click 5

Right-click a numbered item

Right-click 19; Right-click 5

Open Paint; Open WordPad; Open app name

Switch to an open app

Switch to Paint; Switch to WordPad; Switch to app name; Switch application

Close that; Close Paint; Close Documents

Minimize that; Minimize Paint; Minimize Documents

Maximize that; Maximize Paint; Maximize Documents

Restore that; Restore Paint; Restore Documents

Delete that; Delete

Undo that; Scratch that; Undo

Scroll in one direction

Scroll up; Scroll down; Scroll right; Scroll left

Scroll an exact distance in pages

Scroll down 2 pages; Scroll up 10 pages

Scroll an exact distance in other units

Scroll up 5; Scroll down 7

Go to a field in a form or app

Go to field name; Go to Subject; Go to Address; Go to cc

Commands for using the mouse

Show the mousegrid

Move the pointer to the center of a mousegrid square

Number of the square; 1; 7; 9

Select a mousegrid square

Click number of the square

Select an item to drag with the mouse

Number of the square where the item appears (followed by) mark; 3 mark; 7 mark; 9 mark

Select an area in the mousegrid where you want to drag the item

Number of the square where you want to drag the item (followed by) click; 4 click; 5 click; 6 click

You can print this topic for quick reference while you’re using Windows Speech Recognition.

How do I use Speech Recognition?

To use Speech Recognition, the first thing you need to do is set it up on your computer. When you’re ready to use Speech Recognition, you need to speak in simple, short commands. The tables below include some of the more commonly used commands.

To open Speech Recognition

Open Speech Recognition by clicking the Start button, clicking All Programs, clicking Accessories, clicking Ease of Access, and then clicking Windows Speech Recognition.

Say «start listening» or click the Microphone button to start the listening mode.

Note: Speech Recognition is available only in English, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.

Common Speech Recognition commands

Frequently used commands

The following table shows some of the most commonly used commands in Speech Recognition. Words in italic font indicate that you can say many different things in place of the example word or phrase and get useful results.

Click any item by its name

Click File; Start; View

Click Recycle Bin; Click Computer; Click file name

Double-click any item

Double-click Recycle Bin; Double-click Computer; Double-click file name

Switch to an open program

Switch to Paint; Switch to WordPad; Switch to program name; Switch application

Scroll in one direction

Scroll up; Scroll down; Scroll left; Scroll right

Insert a new paragraph or new line in a document

New paragraph; New line

Select a word in a document

Select a word and start to correct it

Select and delete specific words

Show a list of applicable commands

Update the list of speech commands that are currently available

Refresh speech commands

Make the computer listen to you

Make the computer stop listening

Move the Speech Recognition microphone bar

Move speech recognition

Minimize the microphone bar

Minimize speech recognition

View Windows Help and Support content about specific tasks

How do I do something?

For example, say «How do I install a printer?» and a list of help topics is returned.

Note that this command is only available if you’re using the U.S. English Speech Recognizer. For more information, see Setting speech options.

Dictation

Commands for working with text

The following table shows commands for using Speech Recognition to work with text. Words in italic font indicate that you can say many different things in place of the example word or phrase and get useful results.

Insert a new line in the document

Insert a new paragraph in the document

Insert the literal word for the next command (for example, you can insert the word «comma» instead of the punctuation mark)

Insert the numeral form of a number

Put the cursor before a specific word

Put the cursor after a specific word

Don’t insert a space before the next word

Go to the start of the sentence that the cursor is in

Go to start of sentence

Go to the start of the paragraph the cursor is in

Go to start of paragraph

Go to the start of the document

Go to start of document

Go to the end of the sentence that the cursor is in

Go to end of sentence

Go to the end of the paragraph that the cursor is in

Go to end of paragraph

Go to the end of the current document

Go to end of document

Select the word in the current document

Select the word range in the current document

Select word range; Select word through word

Select all text in the current document

Select a number of words before the location of the cursor

Select previous 20 words; Select previous 10 words

Select a number of words after the location of the cursor

Select next 20 words; Select next 10 words

Select the last text you dictated

Clear the selection on the screen

Capitalize the first letter of the word

Capitalize all the letters of the word

Make all the letters in the word lowercase

Change the next number of words to uppercase

Change next 10 words to uppercase

Change the next number of words to lowercase

Change next 10 words to lowercase

Delete the previous sentence

Delete previous sentence

Delete the next sentence

Delete next sentence

Delete the previous paragraph

Delete previous paragraph

Delete the next paragraph

Delete next paragraph

Delete the selected or last dictated text

Keyboard keys

Commands for keyboard keys

The following table shows commands for using Speech Recognition to press keyboard keys. Words in italic font indicate that you can say many different things in place of the example word or phrase and get useful results.

Press any key on the keyboard

Press keyboard key; Press a; Press capital b; Press Shift plus a; Press Ctrl plus a

Press certain keyboard keys without saying «press» first

Delete; Backspace; Enter; Page Up; Page down; Home; End; Tab

You can also use the ICAONATO phonetic alphabet to say the keyboard keys to press. For example, you can say «press alpha» to press «a» or «press bravo» to press «b.»

Using Speech Recognition to press keyboard keys will only work with Latin alphabets.

Punctuation marks and special characters

Commands for punctuation marks and special characters

The following table shows commands for using Speech Recognition to insert punctuation marks and special characters. Words in italic font indicate that you can say many different things in place of the example word or phrase and get useful results.

Speech recognition

Use speech recognition to provide input, specify an action or command, and accomplish tasks.

Speech recognition is made up of a speech runtime, recognition APIs for programming the runtime, ready-to-use grammars for dictation and web search, and a default system UI that helps users discover and use speech recognition features.

Configure speech recognition

To support speech recognition with your app, the user must connect and enable a microphone on their device, and accept the Microsoft Privacy Policy granting permission for your app to use it.

To automatically prompt the user with a system dialog requesting permission to access and use the microphone’s audio feed (example from the Speech recognition and speech synthesis sample shown below), just set the Microphone device capability in the App package manifest. For more detail, see App capability declarations.

If the user clicks Yes to grant access to the microphone, your app is added to the list of approved applications on the Settings -> Privacy -> Microphone page. However, as the user can choose to turn this setting off at any time, you should confirm that your app has access to the microphone before attempting to use it.

If you also want to support dictation, Cortana, or other speech recognition services (such as a predefined grammar defined in a topic constraint), you must also confirm that Online speech recognition (Settings -> Privacy -> Speech) is enabled.

This snippet shows how your app can check if a microphone is present and if it has permission to use it.

Recognize speech input

A constraint defines the words and phrases (vocabulary) that an app recognizes in speech input. Constraints are at the core of speech recognition and give your app greater control over the accuracy of speech recognition.

You can use the following types of constraints for recognizing speech input.

Predefined grammars

Predefined dictation and web-search grammars provide speech recognition for your app without requiring you to author a grammar. When using these grammars, speech recognition is performed by a remote web service and the results are returned to the device.

The default free-text dictation grammar can recognize most words and phrases that a user can say in a particular language, and is optimized to recognize short phrases. The predefined dictation grammar is used if you don’t specify any constraints for your SpeechRecognizer object. Free-text dictation is useful when you don’t want to limit the kinds of things a user can say. Typical uses include creating notes or dictating the content for a message.

The web-search grammar, like a dictation grammar, contains a large number of words and phrases that a user might say. However, it is optimized to recognize terms that people typically use when searching the web.

В Because predefined dictation and web-search grammars can be large, and because they are online (not on the device), performance might not be as fast as with a custom grammar installed on the device. В

These predefined grammars can be used to recognize up to 10 seconds of speech input and require no authoring effort on your part. However, they do require a connection to a network.

To use web-service constraints, speech input and dictation support must be enabled in Settings by turning on the «Get to know me» option in Settings -> Privacy -> Speech, inking, and typing.

Here, we show how to test whether speech input is enabled and open the Settings -> Privacy -> Speech, inking, and typing page, if not.

First, we initialize a global variable (HResultPrivacyStatementDeclined) to the HResult value of 0x80045509. See Exception handling for in C# or Visual Basic.

We then catch any standard exceptions during recogntion and test if the HResult value is equal to the value of the HResultPrivacyStatementDeclined variable. If so, we display a warning and call await Windows.System.Launcher.LaunchUriAsync(new Uri(«ms-settings:privacy-accounts»)); to open the Settings page.

Programmatic list constraints

Programmatic list constraints provide a lightweight approach to creating simple grammars using a list of words or phrases. A list constraint works well for recognizing short, distinct phrases. Explicitly specifying all words in a grammar also improves recognition accuracy, as the speech recognition engine must only process speech to confirm a match. The list can also be programmatically updated.

A list constraint consists of an array of strings that represents speech input that your app will accept for a recognition operation. You can create a list constraint in your app by creating a speech-recognition list-constraint object and passing an array of strings. Then, add that object to the constraints collection of the recognizer. Recognition is successful when the speech recognizer recognizes any one of the strings in the array.

SRGS grammars

An Speech Recognition Grammar Specification (SRGS) grammar is a static document that, unlike a programmatic list constraint, uses the XML format defined by the SRGS Version 1.0. An SRGS grammar provides the greatest control over the speech recognition experience by letting you capture multiple semantic meanings in a single recognition.

Voice command constraints

Use a Voice Command Definition (VCD) XML file to define the commands that the user can say to initiate actions when activating your app. For more detail, see Activate a foreground app with voice commands through Cortana.

NoteВ В The type of constraint type you use depends on the complexity of the recognition experience you want to create. Any could be the best choice for a specific recognition task, and you might find uses for all types of constraints in your app. To get started with constraints, see Define custom recognition constraints.

The predefined Universal Windows app dictation grammar recognizes most words and short phrases in a language. It is activated by default when a speech recognizer object is instantiated without custom constraints.

In this example, we show how to:

• Create a speech recognizer.
• Compile the default Universal Windows app constraints (no grammars have been added to the speech recognizer’s grammar set).
• Start listening for speech by using the basic recognition UI and TTS feedback provided by the RecognizeWithUIAsync method. Use the RecognizeAsync method if the default UI is not required.

Customize the recognition UI

When your app attempts speech recognition by calling SpeechRecognizer.RecognizeWithUIAsync, several screens are shown in the following order.

If you’re using a constraint based on a predefined grammar (dictation or web search):

• The Listening screen.
• The Thinking screen.
• The Heard you say screen or the error screen.

If you’re using a constraint based on a list of words or phrases, or a constraint based on a SRGS grammar file:

• The Listening screen.
• The Did you say screen, if what the user said could be interpreted as more than one potential result.
• The Heard you say screen or the error screen.

The following image shows an example of the flow between screens for a speech recognizer that uses a constraint based on a SRGS grammar file. In this example, speech recognition was successful.