How do you dictate in PowerPoint?

To dictate in PowerPoint, put the cursor in a slide placeholder or in the slide notes, then select Dictate on the Home tab. Wait for the button to turn on and start listening, then speak. The words appear where the cursor is. Dictate is Microsoft's speech-to-text button for Office, and Microsoft does not offer it in Office 2016 or 2019 without a Microsoft 365 subscription ¹.

Dictate types at the cursor, so place the cursor first

Microsoft describes Dictate in PowerPoint as a quick and easy way to add content into presentation placeholders and slide notes ². Nothing is typed until the cursor is inside one of those two places. Click the placeholder first, then turn on the button. If the cursor is on an empty part of the slide, the speech has nowhere to go.

The steps on the web and on Windows differ

Microsoft gives separate steps for PowerPoint for the web and for the Windows desktop app.

PowerPoint for the web

1. Sign in to PowerPoint for the web in Edge, Firefox or Chrome, the browsers that Microsoft's PowerPoint article names.
2. On the Home tab, select Dictate, the button that looks like a microphone, in the Voice section ³.
3. Wait for the button to turn on and start listening.
4. Move the cursor to a placeholder or to the slide notes, and start speaking.

PowerPoint for Windows

1. Sign in to Microsoft 365 on a device with a microphone.
2. Go to Home, then Dictate ⁴.
3. Wait for the button to turn on, move the cursor into a placeholder or the notes, and speak.

Microsoft limits Dictate on Windows to Microsoft 365 subscribers using the desktop client ⁵. Microsoft's troubleshooting also says to make sure you are signed in with your Microsoft account ⁶, so check that before you look for the button.

Build one slide by voice in a fixed order

Work in the same order each time, so the cursor is always in the right place:

1. Choose a slide layout that has the placeholders you need.
2. Click inside the title placeholder, turn on Dictate, and wait for it to listen.
3. Speak the title. If a word is wrong, you can fix it with your keyboard without toggling the mic icon off ⁷.
4. Click the body placeholder and speak the bullets. Say "new line" to start a new line.
5. Move the cursor to the slide notes and repeat.

Punctuation and control commands

While you dictate, you insert punctuation by saying the punctuation word, at any point ⁸. The words are "period", "comma" and "new line", among others. Microsoft's command list also includes "delete that", "backspace" and "pause dictation". To resume after a pause, press ALT and ' or select the microphone icon in the floating dictation menu. See spoken punctuation for how these words work.

What Microsoft documents for Mac

Microsoft's main Dictate article lists PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 for Mac among the apps it covers ⁹. Its PowerPoint article, however, gives steps only for the web and Windows. On a Mac, open Home and look for Dictate. If it is not there, your copy does not show the button, and you can use macOS dictation instead. The question on dictating in PowerPoint on a Mac covers that route.

When the button is missing, grayed out or silent

Three problems come up most often:

• The button is missing. Check that you have a Microsoft 365 subscription, not Office 2016 or 2019 ¹.
• The button is grayed out. Microsoft says to make sure the document is not in a read-only state ¹⁰.
• Dictate reports no microphone access. Microsoft says to make sure no other application or web page is using the microphone, then try again ¹¹.

If none of these fixes works, the question on why Dictate is not working in PowerPoint lists the next checks.

Internet, microphone and language

Dictation in Office needs a microphone and a reliable internet connection ¹². It is not an offline tool. By default, Dictation is set to your document language ¹³. Microsoft says Preview Languages may have lower accuracy or limited punctuation support ¹⁴, so check the supported-language list in Microsoft's article before you rely on it for a long deck.

What to do next

1. Open a blank slide and check whether Home shows Dictate in your copy.
2. Test with one short sentence in one placeholder before you dictate a whole deck.
3. If there is no button, use system dictation in PowerPoint. The guide to dictating into any app explains the options.

For the other apps in this group, see how to dictate in OneNote and why dictation is not working in Excel. The guide to dictation in PowerPoint, OneNote and Excel covers all three, and our overview of dictation in your apps covers the rest. For the term, see Dictate (Microsoft 365).