Word has just picked up a couple of illustrious features. Microsoft has baked in new transcription and voice commanding capabilities in the application, which will go live later this year.
The first of these features is Transcribe in Word, and it allows users to record conversations in the Word web app and have the word processor automatically transcribe the audio. It works with prerecorded audio and video files, with a file size limit of 200MB.
Transcripts will appear alongside the Word document users are working on, and it will also be possible to add a quote from a conversation by clicking the plus icon on any line of the transcript.
This feature is set to launch first in the Word web app for Microsoft 365 subscribers, and there will be a limit of 5 hours of transcription time per month. It only works in the new Microsoft Edge or Chrome, with US English being the only supported language at launch.
It will also come to mobile by the end of the year.
The other new feature that Microsoft announced today is the ability to Dictate with voice commands in Word for the web and Office mobile. Dictation was already supported, of course, but voice commands will let users easily add, format, edit, and organize their Word documents.
Redmond has a full list of voice commands available on this page.