Here’s a quick reference for those of you who enjoy dictation on your Android mobile gizmo:

Punctuation Summation

Common punctuation you can say includes the following words:

comma
period
colon
exclamation point
question mark

Simply saying those items in a sentence inserts the proper character. For example:

Utter: This broccoli yogurt comma it tastes yummy exclamation point

To Get: This broccoli yogurt, it tastes yummy!

New Line/New Paragraph

A command recently added to the Android Dictation repertoire is New Line. It acts like pressing the Enter/Return key on the keyboard.

Utter: milk new line butter new line eggs new line

To Get: milk
butter
eggs

To make it work, you really need to pause before and after you say new line, otherwise the text new line is inserted.

The New Paragraph command works similarly to new line, through it gives you two presses of the Enter key, allowing for some space between each line.

Utter: And it was night period new paragraph In the morning

To Get: And it was night.

In the morning

Still Needs Work

Android dictation still has no way to capitalize a word. There is no capitalize or initial cap command. I’m not even sure whether Google is working on it, though I know a lot of people ask.

Dictation also freely interprets numbers, so a method for uttering four or 4 doesn’t yet exist.

And, of course, there’s now way to dictate text editing.

Still, the live dictation feature in Android Jelly Bean is pretty cool and works quite well for quick notes and memos. Given that you don’t have to suffer through hours of training, I’m impressed.

When there are any dictation command updates, you can read them here on Wambooli.