How to Dictate a Chatter Message and Save Your Voice Shortcuts

In Chatter you can say a message instead of typing it. Click the microphone, talk, then pause. Chatter writes your words into the message box, tidied up, and waits for you to send it. You can also save the names you use and spoken shortcuts for text you type often, so dictation spells things your way and can write your signature for you.

Dictating a Message

1. Open Chatter and the conversation you want to write in.
2. If the box already has text, click where your words should go.
3. Click the microphone beside the smiley. The first time, your browser asks to use your microphone. Allow it.
4. Say your message. While Chatter listens, the microphone turns into a stop button with a ring around it.
5. Pause when you are done. After about two seconds of quiet, Chatter writes your words into the box. In a long message it waits a little longer, so you can stop to think.
6. Read it over, then press Enter or click send. Nothing is sent until you do.

If you type in the box while Chatter is listening, what you typed stays and your spoken words go at the end.

1: the microphone. 2: your voice settings.

While Chatter listens, the microphone becomes a stop button.

What Dictation Tidies Up

• It adds punctuation and capital letters.
• It takes out um, uh, words said twice and sentences you started over.
• It keeps a clear correction. Say Tuesday, actually Wednesday and you get Wednesday.
• Say new line or new paragraph to start one.
• A list you count off out loud is written as a list.

It never adds words of its own, answers a question you dictated or changes what you meant. If the tidying fails, you get your words as they were heard. The names on your Chatter screen, such as the people in the conversation, help it spell them right.

Canceling

To stop without adding anything, click the microphone again or press Esc. This works while Chatter is listening and while it is writing your words. Sending the message or switching to another conversation also cancels it.

If Chatter hears nothing for about 8 seconds after you click the microphone, it stops on its own and your message box is left as it was.

Limits

• One recording can last up to 5 minutes.
• You can dictate one message at a time, up to 12 times a minute. Go faster and Chatter asks you to wait a moment.

If the Microphone Does Not Work

• Allow microphone access in your browser, then try again. Your browser is blocking the microphone for Argenta. Turn it back on in the browser's settings for this site, then click the microphone again.
• No microphone was found. Connect a microphone or headset and try again.
• The microphone is busy. Another program, such as a video call, is using it. Close that program and try again.
• This browser cannot record audio. Open Chatter in an up-to-date browser.

Dictating on a Phone

The microphone also works in Chatter in your phone's web browser. On a small screen the message box sits on its own line, above the microphone and the other buttons.

Your Voice Settings

Click the gear beside the microphone. It opens Voice & Dictation on your User Settings page. You can also get there by clicking your name at the top of any page, then User Settings.

Your dictionary and snippets belong to your login alone. Nobody else on your team sees them or dictates with them.

A saved word and a saved snippet.

Adding a Word to Your Dictionary

Add the names, acronyms and spellings dictation gets wrong.

1. In Preferred spelling, type the word the way you want it written.
2. If dictation keeps writing it one particular wrong way, type that wrong spelling in Heard as. This is optional.
3. Click Add Word.

From then on, dictation spells it your way. Your words share 1,200 characters in all, and the line under Add Word shows how many you have used. To change a word, click its green button. To remove it, click the pink one.

Saving a Snippet

A snippet is text you save once and insert by saying a short phrase, such as your signature or a reply you send often.

1. In Spoken shortcut, type the words you will say, such as my signature.
2. In Saved text, type what should go into your message. It can run over several lines.
3. Click Add Snippet.

To use it, click the microphone and say the shortcut on its own, with nothing before or after it. The saved text goes into your message exactly as you saved it. Say the shortcut inside a longer sentence and Chatter writes the sentence as you spoke it instead.

You can save up to 50 snippets, each up to 4,000 characters.

For everything else in Chatter, see Argenta Chatter: Complete Guide.