Did I ever mention that I am a big fan of speech-to-text functionality? Not only does it save time, but it is also magical to see your spoken word turn into pretty accurate text. (Yes, even in Dutch)
Of course you have the option to dictate in various applications, see this Microsoft help. And I recently wrote about options to transcribe meetings and recordings.
The latest addition, as far as I know, is the Voice option in the Office Mobile app. It is super easy to use and allows you to make notes while on the go. But I have also used it while sitting at home on the sofa, capturing the most interesting statements from election programmes for our recent council elections.
It has saved me a lot of writing. 🙂
How to start?
- Download the Office Mobile app to your phone
- Log in with your account (one-time, unless you want to switch accounts)
- Click +, then Voice
- Select language by clicking the world logo (one-time, unless you want to switch language)
How to record?
- Click the Microphone button – this will turn red
- Speak
- Click the Microphone button to pause, and click again to resume
- When done, click Done button
Now what happens?
Depending on your license, different things will happen. As far as I could find out, from literature and experiments, my Business Basic subscription has limited options, but my Family account is supported. How strange!
In the screenshot below, the subscriptions marked with * have limited options.

Supported license:
- You will see the written text appear while you speak. Magic! Even in Dutch it is very accurate.
- When you open the file on your phone and click the Share icon, you can share it to Word which creates a Word file with a link to the voice file. You can save that in OneDrive.
- A voice file (.wav) and a transcript (.transcript) will appear in OneDrive, in a new folder called Voice Captures.
I have tried to share my phone screen in a Teams meeting and recording that, but that did not work out. I suppose it is a microphone issue. So, I made a (silent) video using screenshots.
Non-supported license:
You will create a voice file (.wav) which is stored on your phone. You can share it and save it on OneDrive, or download it and transcribe the text to Word, as described in my earlier post, option 1.
So, rather disappointing.
You can see the difference in outcome in below screenshot:

Another limitation: device
Voice appears to be available on phones only and not on tablets. In any case, I could not select any microphone settings on my iPad, not even when I had my headset attached.
I have already added the new “Voice Captures” folder to the post: Who created those folders in my OneDrive?
Conclusion
I really like this option for taking quick notes, but I was rather disappointed to find out that my Business Basic license only has limited options. But you, reader, will probably have a solid Enterprise license so I guess that won’t be an issue. So, why not give it a try!
Do you or your organization have any experiences with the app? Have I missed something, or do you have more experiences with the licenses? Please share!
I am also investigating the other Mobile app options, so watch this space 😁!