Teach dictation your names, brands and jargon
Updated
Add a name or technical term to Scribe’s Dictionary, with its misheard spellings under Heard as, to replace those forms in later dictations. Scribe can also suggest saving a spelling correction after text has been inserted.
How do I add a word?
On the Mac, open Settings › Dictionary. Type the word in Word or name, type any other spellings it gets wrong in Heard as (separated by commas), and click Add word. Scribe for iPhone has the same fields under Settings › Dictionary › +. Heard as is optional.
Take a colleague called Okafor who is often heard as “Okafore” or “Oka for”. The entry is the word Okafor, heard as Okafore, Oka for. From then on, any of those three forms in a dictation comes out as Okafor.
Does the replacement survive Refine?
Scribe applies the Heard as replacements before and after Refine. Matching ignores capitals and applies only to whole words, so “Okafore” is replaced but “Okaforever” is not. This applies to the spellings in the entry; it does not guarantee that an unfamiliar name will always be recognised correctly.
The docs note that on-device recognition does not reliably honour custom vocabulary on its own. Explicit replacements handle the listed mishearings. If a new mishearing keeps getting through, add that spelling to Heard as.
Can Scribe suggest entries for me?
When a change looks like a spelling correction rather than a rewritten sentence, Scribe can ask, for example “Always spell “Okafore” as “Okafor”?” Choose Add to save the pair to the Dictionary, or Not now to ignore the question for now.
After one Not now, Scribe waits until it has seen the same correction three more times before asking again. A second Not now marks the pair as ignored, and stops further suggestions. Forget in Corrections resets that pair so it can be suggested again. Scribe never asks more than once every ten minutes. On the Mac the question appears in the floating bar. On iPhone it appears in the keyboard’s suggestion bar and in the Library editor.
To review what Scribe has noticed, open Settings › Dictionary › Corrections. Each row shows the heard word, the word you meant, how often it was seen, and whether it is Suggested or Ignored. Use Add, Ignore or Forget on each row. Entries that came from here carry a Learned caption in the Dictionary, and you can edit or delete them like any other entry.
Can it read names from Contacts?
Turn on Use names from Contacts in Settings › Dictionary to use given names, family names and nicknames as spelling context. It is off by default. Contacts are read on the device only, and the names are not copied into your Dictionary list.
Can Refine use names on screen?
On the Mac, with Use screen context on in Settings › Refine, Scribe reads the window you are dictating into: nearby text, names and terms. That helps Refine spell names correctly. The reading is bounded, stays on the Mac and is never stored. Turn it off in the same place if you prefer.
Where are entries stored?
On the device. The Mac and the iPhone each keep their own Dictionary, and a backup carries it from one to the other. On iPhone, the keyboard uses the Dictionary too: type the first letters of a Dictionary word and it is offered as a completion, and swipe typing can pick up Dictionary words. If autocorrect changes a word and you put your spelling back twice, the keyboard stops correcting that word. You can review that list under Settings › Dictionary › Keyboard words.
To delete an entry, swipe it on iPhone, or use the − button on the Mac.
Try it
Download Scribe for Mac, then add a name that is regularly misheard under Settings › Dictionary. The Dictionary page lists every field, and Auto-learning explains exactly when Scribe asks.