Dictation is an extremely powerful tool in OS X Mountain Lion. Not only can you use it to have your mac type the text that you speak, but it also works extremely well across many third-party apps such as Microsoft Word, Google, and even Facebook.
What this means is that instead of typing a status update on say Facebook, you can have your mac do it for you.
To help you get started using dictation in OS X Mountain Lion, I have compiled a list of 50+ dictation shortcuts in Mountain Lion that you can use to manipulate text, insert symbols, and use just your voice to compose documents, emails, status updates and more in OS X Mountain Lion.
- “new line” moves your cursor to a new line
- “new paragraph” inserts a new paragraph
- “cap” capitalizes the next spoken word
- “caps on/off” capitalizes the spoken section of text.
- “all caps” makes the next spoken word all caps
- “all caps on/off” makes the spoken section of text all caps. Ex: caps on/off test would result in TEST
- “no caps” makes the next spoken word lower case
- “no caps on/off” makes the spoken section of text lower case
- “space bar” prevents a hyphen from appearing in a normally hyphenated word
- “no space” prevents a space between words
- “no space on/off” to prevent a section of text from having spaces between words
- “period” or “full stop” places a period at the end of a sentence
- “dot” places a period anywhere, including between words
- “point” places a point between numbers, not between words
- “ellipsis” or “dot dot dot” places an ellipsis in your writing
- “comma” places a comma
- “double comma” places a double comma (,,)
- “quote” or “quotation mark” places a quote mark (“)
- “quote … end quote” places quotation marks around the text spoken between
- “apostrophe” places an apostrophe (‘)
- “exclamation point” places an exclamation point (!)
- “inverted exclamation point” places an inverted exclamation point (¡)
- “question mark” places a question mark (?)
- “inverted question mark” places an inverted question mark (¿)
- “ampersand” places an ampersand sign (&)
- “asterisk” places an asterisk (*)
- “open parenthesis” opens a set of parenthesis “(“
- “close parenthesis” closes a set of parenthesis “)”
- “open bracket” opens a set of brackets “[“
- “close bracket” closes a set of brackets “]”
- “open brace” opens a set of braces “{“
- “close brace” closes a set of braces “}”
- “dash” places a dash (-) with spaces before and after
- “hyphen” places a hyphen between words without a space
- “em dash” places an em dash (–)
- “underscore” places an underscore (_)
- “percent sign” places a percent sign (%)
- “copyright sign” places a copyright symbol
- “registered sign” places a registered trademark symbol
- “section sign” places a section sign
- “dollar sign” places a dollar sign ($)
- “cent sign” place a cent sign (¢)
- “degree sign” places a degree symbol (º)
- “caret” places a caret (^)
- “at sign” places an at symbol (@)
- “pound sign” places a pound symbol (#)
- “greater than sign” places a greater than symbol (>)
- “less than sign” places a less than symbol (<)
- “forward slash” places a forward slash (/)
- “back slash” places a back slash (\)
- “vertical bar” places a pipe (|)
- “smiley” or “smile face” places a “:-)”
- “frowny” or “frown face” places a “:-(“
- “winky” or “wink face” places a “;-)”
- “e g” places a “e.g.”
- “i e” places a “i.e.”
Source: Siri dictation guide
Know of additional dictation shortcuts in OS X Mountain Lion? Leave a comment below.