The Great Dictator?

Scrivener Scrivener for iOS
1

Is anyone successfully dictating into Scrivener on their iPhone/iPad? I searched the forum and came across only a 2014 snarkfest involving Barbara Cartland and praise for doing something or other with Dragon something or other.

What I’m talking about is pushing the little Microphone key on the imaginary Scrivener keyboard, and telling Miss Siri (if that’s still her name) to yadda-yadda-yadda, comma, yadda-yadda-yadda, period. New Paragraph, the yadda-yadda-yadda yadded the yadda-yadda-yadda. Repeat.

Any tips? Hints? Caveats? (And yes, I’m old enough to have used a Dictaphone with blue rubber belts.)

2

Go slow. Uses network so avoid long sessions unless you are on wifi. Spend a week just learning punctuation and line ending. Start with simple lists.

The following was me reading the above to Siri

Zero editing on what she detected. As you can see it’s not terrible.

3

Thanks, Jaysen. D’ye suppose she can handle a Maine accent?

4

With time and correction. She picked up my poorly slurred hicklish with no problem but it took time. When you see words with blue squiggly it is Siri “guessing”. Make sure you fix the wrong ones (same way as red squiggles). I think it too about a month of constant use (mails, txt, notes, etc) for it to get pretty good.

I will also say “headphones in noise” and “don’t think”. The former is obvious. The latter is avoiding “and sam said open-quote the time is… sixuhseven ffffi…fourteen end-quote period”. That will not give you anything you will recognize later.

I did about 30% of my NiaD this year with Siri dictation. It can be done, but this isn’t Star Trek. :wink:

5

I’ve begun “training sessions,” but I spect Siri’s got a job-o-work ahead of her:

youtube.com/watch?v=5Jn61NUd0q8

6

And recall … she’s a she. I find that sometimes I need to figure out what she wants and do it her way. My wife has me well trained for that…

7

Using your directions now—and thanks for this helpful guide. I had no idea what the blue squiggles meant.

As far as Siri being a she, I’ve told mine to use a male voice, so that’s no help :slight_smile: but I try to remember that he’s a robot, and therefore does exactly what he’s told, not what I want. :slight_smile:

8

I prefer the female.

  1. Never been around any lady that thinks “what he says has value”. Used to being interpreted by the fairer sex. Generally to my advantage.
  2. Maybe I’m old, but you never hit a lady. Make Siri a guy and I swear I’d take a hammer to every device in about 1/1000 of a second.

:wink: