Spoken Punctuation
WhisperTyping's transcription engine automatically adds punctuation like periods, commas, and question marks as you dictate. For more control, you can also speak punctuation commands explicitly — say the punctuation name while dictating, and it will be converted to the appropriate symbol.
Other languages: German (Deutsch) | Dutch (Nederlands) | French (Français) | Spanish (Español)
Common Punctuation
| Say | Result |
|---|---|
| “full stop” | . |
| “comma” | , |
| “question mark” | ? |
| “exclamation mark” or “exclamation point” | ! |
| “colon”* | : |
| “semicolon” | ; |
| “apostrophe” | ' |
| “hyphen” or “dash” | - |
| “em dash” | — |
* Works best with a brief pause before and after, since the word is commonly used in everyday speech.
“Period” is also recognised as a full stop, but we recommend “full stop” because it has no other meaning in English. The word “period” is ambiguous (a period of time, a historical period, a menstrual period) so the transcription engine sometimes leaves it as a literal word instead of converting it to a full stop.
Quotes and Brackets
| Say | Result |
|---|---|
| "open quote" or "opening quote" | " |
| "close quote" or "closing quote" | " |
| "open single quote" | ' |
| "close single quote" or "apostrophe" | ' |
| "open parenthesis" or "open bracket" | ( |
| "close parenthesis" or "close bracket" | ) |
| "open square bracket" | [ |
| "close square bracket" | ] |
| "open curly bracket" | { |
| "close curly bracket" | } |
Special Characters
| Say | Result |
|---|---|
| "ampersand" | & |
| "asterisk" | * |
| "underscore" | _ |
| "at sign" | @ |
| "slash" or "forward slash" | / |
| "backslash" | \ |
| "ellipsis" | … |
| "equals sign" | = |
| "plus sign" | + |
| "minus sign" | - |
| "dollar sign" | $ |
| "euro sign" | € |
| "pound sign" | £ |
| "yen sign" | ¥ |
Symbols
To insert a symbol, say its name followed by the word “sign”. The matcher is forgiving: pauses, commas, or periods that the speech engine inserts between the words still match (e.g. “right arrow, sign” works the same as “right arrow sign”), and concatenated forms like “tickmark sign” or “rightarrow sign” also match.
If a symbol command sits between two sentences and the speech engine inserted a period for the pause, the symbol consumes that period so the result reads naturally. For example, dictating “That sounds cool. Right arrow sign. Let's do it.” produces “That sounds cool → let's do it.” rather than leaving stray periods around the arrow.
Saying “the”, “a”, “my”, etc. immediately before a symbol name keeps it as plain text, so you can talk about a symbol without inserting it: “the trademark sign goes here” stays literal, but “Acme trademark sign” becomes “Acme™”.
For arrows you can say the direction either before or after the word “arrow”: “right arrow sign” and “arrow right sign” both produce →.
Math and comparison
| Say | Result |
|---|---|
| “plus or minus sign” | ± |
| “multiplication sign” or “times sign” | × |
| “division sign” or “divided by sign” | ÷ |
| “approximately sign” | ≈ |
| “not equal sign” | ≠ |
| “less than or equal sign” | ≤ |
| “greater than or equal sign” | ≥ |
| “infinity sign” | ∞ |
| “square root sign” | √ |
| “per mille sign” | ‰ |
| “prime sign” | ′ |
| “double prime sign” | ″ |
Superscripts and fractions
| Say | Result |
|---|---|
| “squared sign” | ² |
| “cubed sign” | ³ |
| “one half sign” | ½ |
| “one quarter sign” | ¼ |
| “three quarters sign” | ¾ |
Reference marks and copyright
| Say | Result |
|---|---|
| “trademark sign” | ™ |
| “copyright sign” | © |
| “registered sign” | ® |
| “degree sign” | ° |
| “section sign” | § |
| “paragraph sign” | ¶ |
| “dagger sign” | † |
| “double dagger sign” | ‡ |
| “prescription sign” | ℞ |
Arrows
| Say | Result |
|---|---|
| “right arrow sign” | → |
| “left arrow sign” | ← |
| “up arrow sign” | ↑ |
| “down arrow sign” | ↓ |
| “left right arrow sign” | ↔ |
| “up down arrow sign” | ↕ |
| “double right arrow sign” | ⇒ |
| “double left arrow sign” | ⇐ |
| “double up arrow sign” | ⇑ |
| “double down arrow sign” | ⇓ |
| “double left right arrow sign” | ⇔ |
Greek letters
Heavy use in medical and scientific dictation.
| Say | Result |
|---|---|
| “micro sign” | µ |
| “delta sign” | Δ |
| “alpha sign” | α |
| “beta sign” | β |
| “gamma sign” | γ |
| “pi sign” | π |
| “sum sign” | Σ |
| “sigma sign” | σ |
| “omega sign” or “ohm sign” | Ω |
| “lambda sign” | λ |
| “theta sign” | θ |
Bullets, ticks, boxes, and stars
| Say | Result |
|---|---|
| “bullet sign” | • |
| “white bullet sign” | ◦ |
| “check mark sign” or “tick mark sign” | ✓ |
| “cross mark sign” or “x mark sign” | ✗ |
| “checked box sign” | ☑ |
| “empty box sign” | ☐ |
| “star sign” | ★ |
| “white star sign” | ☆ |
Note: “bullet sign” inserts a single bullet character inline, which is different from “bullet point” (in the section above) which starts a new list item.
Formatting Commands
| Say | Result |
|---|---|
| "new line" | Line break |
| "new paragraph" | Double line break |
Bullet Points
Create bullet point lists by saying these commands. Each command starts a new line with the appropriate bullet symbol.
| Say | Result |
|---|---|
| "bullet point" or "bullet" | • (new line with bullet) |
| "dash point" | - (new line with dash) |
| "asterisk point" | * (new line with asterisk) |
Example: "Here are three items. Bullet point. First item. Bullet point. Second item. Bullet point. Third item."
Result:
Here are three items.
• First item
• Second item
• Third item
Numbered Lists
Create numbered lists by saying these commands. You can specify the number explicitly, or let WhisperTyping auto-increment for you.
| Say | Result |
|---|---|
| "number point one" or "numbered point 1" | 1. (new line with number) |
| "number point two" or "numbered point 2" | 2. (new line with number) |
| "number point" (without a number) | Auto-increments from last number |
Auto-numbering example: "Here are my steps. Number point. First step. Number point. Second step. Number point. Third step."
Result:
Here are my steps.
1. First step
2. Second step
3. Third step
Mixed numbering: If you say "number point three" followed by "number point", the auto-numbering continues from 3, giving you 4, 5, 6, etc.
Tip: The transcription engine may automatically add punctuation in many cases. If you find spoken punctuation is conflicting with auto-punctuation, you can adjust the punctuation settings in Settings → Transcription.
Spelling Mode
Need to spell out a name, email address, or uncommon word? Say “spell” followed by individual letters, and WhisperTyping will combine them into a word. The spelling sequence ends automatically when you continue with normal speech.
Example: “My name is spell capital S-A-R-A-H and I live in London.”
Result: My name is Sarah and I live in London.
Letter-by-Letter Spelling
Speak individual letters clearly. The speech engine will produce hyphenated letters (like S-A-R-A-H) which get combined into a word.
| Say | Result |
|---|---|
| “spell J-O-H-N” | john |
| “spell capital J-O-H-N” | John |
| “spell all caps A-B-C-D” | ABCD |
NATO Phonetic Alphabet
For better accuracy, you can use the NATO phonetic alphabet. Each word maps to a single letter.
| Say | Letter | Say | Letter | Say | Letter | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alpha | a | Juliet | j | Sierra | s | ||
| Bravo | b | Kilo | k | Tango | t | ||
| Charlie | c | Lima | l | Uniform | u | ||
| Delta | d | Mike | m | Victor | v | ||
| Echo | e | November | n | Whiskey | w | ||
| Foxtrot | f | Oscar | o | X-ray | x | ||
| Golf | g | Papa | p | Yankee | y | ||
| Hotel | h | Quebec | q | Zulu | z | ||
| India | i | Romeo | r |
Example: “The code is spell Alpha Bravo Charlie and it works.”
Result: The code is abc and it works.
Symbols and Spaces
Use these keywords inside a spelling sequence to insert symbols and spaces:
| Say | Result |
|---|---|
| “space” | (space character) |
| “dot” | . |
| “dash” or “hyphen” | - |
| “underscore” | _ |
| “at” or “at sign” | @ |
| “colon” | : |
| “slash” | / |
| “backslash” | \ |
| “hash” or “hashtag” | # |
| “plus” | + |
| “ampersand” | & |
Email example: “Send it to spell S-A-R-A-H at G-M-A-I-L dot C-O-M please.”
Result: Send it to [email protected] please.
Multi-word name: “The patient is spell capital V-A-N space capital D-E-R space capital B-E-R-G and she is fine.”
Result: The patient is Van Der Berg and she is fine.
Trigger Words by Language
| Language | Trigger words |
|---|---|
| All languages | “spell” (always works) |
| Dutch | “spellen” |
| French | “épeler”, “épelle” |
| German | “buchstabieren”, “buchstabiere” |
Start with a lowercase letter
The transcription engine normally capitalizes the first word of every dictation. If your cursor is already in the middle of a sentence and you want to keep writing without forcing a capital, begin your dictation with the word “lowercase” as the very first word. The word is stripped from the output, and the next word stays lowercase.
Example: Cursor is sitting after “I went to the store and”. Say “lowercase bought some bread” and you get “bought some bread” (lowercase “b”) appended, instead of “Bought some bread”.
This only works when “lowercase” is the very first word you say in that dictation. Saying it later in the sentence (e.g. “Show lowercase letters”) has no effect.
Need more punctuation options?
Let us know what spoken commands you'd like to see.