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Voice typing in Google Slides

Google Slides has voice typing for speaker notes specifically — a genuinely useful and little-known feature. With Typally you hold a hotkey, speak, and the text lands in Google Slides exactly where your cursor was.

From the people who build Typally. If Google Slides's own option covers your use, use it — this page will tell you when it does.
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In short

  • Google Slides's own dictation: Tools → Voice type speaker notes, which is scoped to the notes pane rather than the slides themselves, and is Chrome-only like the rest of Google's voice typing.
  • What Typally does instead: works above the app rather than inside it — Google Slides sees ordinary typed text.
  • Best used for: speaker notes

Does Google Slides have built-in dictation?

Tools → Voice type speaker notes, which is scoped to the notes pane rather than the slides themselves, and is Chrome-only like the rest of Google's voice typing.

Why dictate in Google Slides at all?

The built-in tool covers the one place it is most needed, but it stops when the tab loses focus and does nothing for slide text, which means switching methods depending on which box you are in.

In practice people use it for: Speaker notes, rehearsal transcripts, the narrative you will actually say, and long text boxes on appendix slides.

How to dictate in Google Slides

Setup happens once, outside Google Slides, and then applies to every program on the machine:

1

Install Typally

Windows or macOS, then sign in. No card for the free tier.

2

Click into the right box in Google Slides first

Whatever has the cursor receives the text, so click the right place in Google Slides before starting.

3

Press and speak

Hold, talk, release. Long passages are fine.

4

Read it before you move on

Voice typing in Slides only fills speaker notes. Text boxes on the slide itself need something that types wherever the cursor is.

What Typally adds in Google Slides

Typally covers slide text boxes, which Google's speaker-notes voice typing does not reach, and keeps working when the tab loses focus. Use whichever suits the box you are in — the built-in feature is genuinely good for notes, and Typally handles everything else on the slide plus every other app you have open.

What this looks like in practice

A conference speaker runs her talk twice with voice typing capturing the speaker notes, then edits the second run into the final version. The notes end up matching what she really says on stage rather than the tidier script she never followed.

One habit that makes it work better

Rehearse into the speaker notes rather than writing them. What you say when practising is nearly always better than what you would have written.

What to watch out for in Google Slides

Voice typing in Slides only fills speaker notes. Text boxes on the slide itself need something that types wherever the cursor is.

Frequently asked questions

Does Google Slides have voice typing?

Yes, for speaker notes: Tools → Voice type speaker notes. It is Chrome-only and does not fill slide text boxes.

Why does Slides voice typing stop when I switch tabs?

It listens only while the tab is focused, the same limitation as voice typing in Google Docs.

How do I dictate into a slide's text box?

The built-in feature will not. A system-level tool types into whichever box has focus, including slide text.

Try it in Google Slides

You can try this on the free plan — 100 minutes a month, no card, no trial countdown.

Try Typally free

Also dictate in: PowerPoint · Google Docs · Google Sheets · see all apps