Dictation software for hand pain
If typing hurts, the fix is doing less of it.
- One key, either hand
- 99%+ accurate
- Ready to send
Free to try. No card. Works one-handed.
Apple Silicon · macOS 14 or later · Windows 11
There are a lot of reasons hands hurt at a keyboard, and the advice is the same for all of them. Do less of it. Rest it. Give it a break.
Fine advice for a hobby, useless for a job. Typing less means doing less, and that bill lands somewhere — a shorter reply, a note you write up tomorrow and then never do.
Do you have to type at all?
Step one
Hold one key
One key, not a shortcut. No reach, no stretch. Put it on the side that hurts less.
Step two
Talk normally
No punctuation out loud. No pausing between sentences. No waiting for it to catch up.
Step three
Let go
Finished text lands where your cursor was.
It finishes the job
Every tool turns talking into text now. What matters is how many key presses are left when it has finished — and fixing is worse for sore hands than typing was.
Auto punctuation
Worked out from how you talk. You never say “comma” and never add one.
Ready to send
Ums and false starts out. Everything else exactly as you said it.
Learns your words
Teach it the ones you use once, and stop correcting them.
It types where your cursor is
Click where the words go, hold the key, talk. Nothing to open, nothing to copy after.
To jo@fieldhouse.org
Subject Next week
Morning Jo. Tuesday works for me, any time after ten. Shall I book a room?
Just leaving now. Do you need anything from the shop?
Numbers are up on last month, mostly from repeat orders. The new supplier starts in March.
If you have a name for it
Each of these is written for a different cause. The software is the same in all of them.
Hand arthritis
Joints, and the punctuation keys that make the worst reaches.
Carpal tunnel
Numbness and pins and needles, and why they make you type more.
RSI
Years of small movements, and why rest keeps not sticking.
Wrist pain
What to do before you have a name for it.
After hand surgery
One-handed weeks, and getting back to work without rushing it.
Typing with arthritis
The settings and habits that help, ranked by how much they actually remove.
Free to try, no card. Enough for a real week of email, which is the only honest test.
Works in every app you already use
It types at your cursor, the same as a keyboard does. If there is a text box, it works.
Plus Outlook, Word, Teams and every other app on your Mac or PC.
Work that cannot leave your machine
Nothing you dictate is stored or used for training. If the work cannot leave the building at all, it can run entirely on your own computer instead — offline dictation has the detail.
Setup takes two minutes
- Download, allow the microphone, pick your key
- No voice training and nothing to read aloud first
- Free to try, every feature, no card
Compared with the other apps
They all turn speech into text. Where they differ is how much keyboard you still need afterwards.
Questions
Does dictation help if typing hurts my hands?
It takes the typing out of the writing, which is the part that loads your hands. If most of your day is email, notes and messages, that is thousands of key presses that stop happening. It is not a treatment, and it does not need to be to change your day.
I do not know what is causing it. Does that matter?
Not for this. Arthritis, carpal tunnel, RSI, a healing injury — the useful change is the same in all of them. Getting it looked at still matters, and this does not replace that.
Which hand do I use?
Either. You hold one key while you talk, so put it on whichever side is doing better and move it when that changes.
Do I have to say the punctuation?
No. Full stops, commas, question marks and capitals come from the way you talk. You never go back for the symbol keys afterwards.
Will it change my words?
It cleans up, it does not rewrite. The ums come out, punctuation goes in, everything else stays as you said it. One switch gives you the raw transcript.
Will it spell names right?
Add them to your vocabulary once and they come out right from then on. Every word it gets wrong is a correction, and corrections are the fiddliest typing there is.
Does it work in the apps I use?
It types where your cursor is, so anything with a text box works. Outlook, Word, Gmail, Teams, Slack, your browser, whatever internal system you live in.
Is it better than the dictation already on my computer?
They leave the fillers in and never learn your words, so you fix it at the keyboard afterwards. For the odd sentence they are fine and they are free.
Can I dictate things that have to stay private?
Yes. It can run entirely on your own computer with the wifi off. It works best on a machine with room to spare.
Do I have to train it on my voice?
No. Install it, pick your key, and talk. There is nothing to read aloud first.
Is this a treatment?
No. It is a way to write with your voice instead of your hands. It does not diagnose or treat anything and it does not replace a doctor or a hand therapist.
Free to try, no card. Long enough to find out how your hands feel by Friday.