Dictation software for RSI
Same work. A fraction of the keystrokes.
- Cuts the count, not the output
- Nothing to fix after
- Works offline
In short
- RSI is a numbers problem. No single email hurts you. The total does.
- Rest works until you go back to the same job and the same keyboard.
- Dictation lowers the count without lowering what you get done.
- One key, held. Nothing to clean up afterwards, so nothing creeps back in.
Nobody gets RSI from one email. You get it from years of them. That is what makes it hard to do anything about: there is no moment where the damage happens, so there is no moment where you can obviously stop.
Which is also why rest keeps failing. You take two weeks off, it settles, you come back to the same inbox and the same keyboard. Six weeks later you are where you started, because nothing about the work changed while you were away.
The only thing that breaks that loop is doing less typing on the same amount of work. Not fewer emails. Fewer keystrokes per email.
Step one
Hold one key
One key, not a shortcut. Wrist flat, no reach. Put it on whichever hand is doing better this week.
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. Nothing to copy, nothing to paste, nothing to tidy.
The count is the injury
A working day of email, notes and messages is somewhere between five and fifteen thousand keystrokes. Every one is small. That is the whole problem with them.
Anything that makes those keystrokes nicer is worth doing, and none of it touches the number. A split keyboard is still ten thousand presses. A break every hour is still ten thousand presses, spread out. Talking is a few hundred, on the edits you decide to make by hand.
40 words a minute
Comfortable typing, and every word of it built from individual key presses.
150 words a minute
Comfortable talking. Same minute, four times the writing, no key presses.
Thousands a day
What a normal day of writing costs you now, and what mostly stops happening.
What you have probably already tried
Most people find a page like this after the obvious things. The obvious things are real. They are also all variations on typing more carefully.
Kit
Split keyboard, vertical mouse, wrist rest, new chair. Better positions, same count.
Breaks and stretches
Genuinely useful, and the first thing to go the week something is due.
Typing less
Works, and you pay for it in short replies and jobs pushed to tomorrow. Dictation gets the same drop without the bill.
It types where your cursor is
No window to open, nothing to copy afterwards. Click where the words go, hold the key, talk.
To team@northgate.co
Subject Friday handover
Quick one before I log off. The invoices are approved, and Dan is covering the client call at ten.
Happens on the second save, not the first. Looks like the draft is written before the id comes back.
Approved. Send it to finance and copy me in.
It cleans up. It does not rewrite.
Say “um, quick one before I log off, the invoices are approved and, uh, Dan is covering the client call at ten” and you get that back without the ums, punctuated, in your words.
That matters more here than it sounds. A tool that improves your writing has to be read back and checked, then fixed where it got you wrong. That is a reading pass and a typing pass arriving at the end of every job, which is how the keystrokes quietly come back.
Names it would otherwise get wrong
Every dictation tool trips on the same words. Colleagues, clients, the systems your company runs on, your industry’s acronyms. Each one it gets wrong is a correction, one letter at a time.
Add them once and they come out right after that. The same twenty words turn up in nearly everything you write, so the saving is bigger than the feature sounds.
Add it once
A name, a product, a system, an acronym. Type it once and never again.
It follows you
The list moves between your Mac and your PC. Teach it once, not twice.
25+ languages
It works out which one you are speaking. You do not set it each time.
60 minutes free, no card. Enough to get a week of work done without the keyboard.
60 minutes free · no card
Everywhere you already write
JotMic types at your cursor, the same as a keyboard does. Nothing to integrate, no plugin to install. 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
There are two engines and you pick which one runs. The offline one stays on your computer: nothing is uploaded, nothing is queued to be uploaded, and it works with the wifi off. The hosted one handles difficult audio better and is the better default everywhere else. Offline dictation has the full comparison.
Better than what came with your computer
Windows and macOS both include dictation, and for the odd sentence they are fine. They stop after a pause, so you restart them mid-thought. Punctuation is patchy or you say it out loud. Neither learns the name of your ticketing system however many times you fix it.
Every one of those gaps gets settled at the keyboard afterwards, which is the part you were trying to remove.
Stops after a pause
It cuts out mid-thought and you restart it by hand.
Punctuation is yours
Either you say it out loud, or you add it afterwards at the keyboard.
Forgets your words
However many times you correct the same name, it never learns it.
Setup takes about two minutes
Download it, allow the microphone, pick your key. No voice training, nothing to read aloud first. It works from your first sentence.
The free 60 minutes covers both engines and every feature, with no card. Use it on a real week rather than a test sentence — the number that matters is how much you typed by Friday.
Read next
Carpal tunnel
The nerve version, and why numb fingers make you type more rather than less.
Wrist pain
What to do before you have a name for it, and the mouse half of the problem.
Hand pain
The short version, whatever is causing it.
Questions
Does dictation help with RSI?
It cuts the number of keystrokes in your day, which is the thing RSI is built out of. It does not treat anything, and it does not undo an injury you already have. What it does is let you keep working while doing far less of the movement that got you here. Whether that is the right call for you is a question for your doctor or physio.
I already take breaks and I have a good keyboard. What else is there?
Breaks and better kit change how you type. They do not change how much you type, and for most desk jobs the amount is the problem. Dictation is the only common change that lowers the count without lowering what you get done.
How many keystrokes does it actually save?
Almost all of them, for anything you are writing rather than editing. A normal day of email, notes and messages runs to thousands. After you switch, what is left is the edits you choose to make by hand.
I am mid flare-up. Can I use it now?
That is the point of it. You hold one key while you talk, with your wrist flat, and you can put that key on whichever hand is doing better. There is no shortcut to stretch for and no chord to hold.
Will it slow me down?
The other way round. Most people type around 40 words a minute and talk at about 150. The first day feels odd because talking to your computer is new, not because it is slower.
Do I have to say the punctuation?
No. Full stops, commas, question marks and capitals come from the way you talk. You never say "comma", and you never go back for the symbol keys afterwards.
Will it change my words?
It cleans up, it does not rewrite. The ums and false starts come out, punctuation and capitals go in, everything else stays as you said it. You can turn the cleanup off and take the raw transcript instead.
Will it spell names and jargon 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 exactly the small repetitive typing you are trying to cut.
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, Jira, your browser, whatever internal system you live in. Nothing to set up per app.
Can I use it on my work laptop and my own machine?
One licence covers both, and your vocabulary and settings follow you between them. A word you teach it on one is already there on the other.
Is it better than the dictation built into Windows and macOS?
They stop after a pause, leave the punctuation to you, and never learn your words. You fix all of that at the keyboard afterwards, which defeats the point. For the odd sentence they are fine and they are free.
Can I dictate work that has to stay private?
Yes. Switch to the offline engine and nothing is uploaded. It runs on your own machine and keeps working with the wifi off.
Do I have to train it on my voice?
No. No setup, nothing to read aloud first. Install it, pick your key, and talk.
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, a physio or an occupational health assessment.
What does it cost to try?
60 minutes of dictation, free, no card. Enough for a real week of email rather than a test sentence.
60 minutes free on both engines, no card. Long enough to see what your day costs without the keyboard.
60 minutes free · no card