Desktop version of Word got it earlier this year

Oct 16, 2018 05:55 GMT  ·  By

A future update for Microsoft Office for the web will include support for voice dictation, technically allowing users to create documents using nothing than voice commands.

Microsoft’s primary goal with this improvement is to help people suffering from dyslexia, according to a report from The Verge, and the feature is rolling out across the entire Office suite.

The desktop version of Microsoft Word has already received voice dictation support earlier this year, and Microsoft now wants to make it available everywhere.

Word and OneNote will get voice dictation support in the coming weeks, the same source notes, while PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook are already in the queue for a 2019 update. No specifics were provided on this second part of the rollout, however.

Feature announced earlier this year

Microsoft first announced voice dictation coming to Office in January, explaining that this was a feature specifically aimed at students.

“Starting in February, we will introduce dictation in Office 365 to help students write more easily by using their voice,” the company said at that point. Previously, dictation in Office was offered with a stand-alone add-in, but it’s not a built-in feature for Office 365 subscribers.

In addition to voice dictation, Microsoft will also include real-time translation in a future Office update for Word, OneNote, and Outlook online. Furthermore, OneNote for iPad, Mac, and Windows 10 will get this feature too, as Microsoft wants to make it easier to translate text right within documents. This means no other add-ins would be required to download, as the feature would run right within the browser.

The debut of this feature will happen gradually, according to the same source, as Microsoft wants to enable full page and word translations first as soon as this fall, while sentence translations will go live at a later time, with no specifics available for the time being.