Dictate in any app · Legal

Voice typing in NetDocuments

Cloud document management makes filing easy and description writing no easier. With Typally you hold a hotkey, speak, and the text lands in NetDocuments exactly where your cursor was.

We make Typally, so treat this as a vendor's guide. Where NetDocuments has a built-in option we say so, including when it is the better choice.
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In short

  • NetDocuments's own dictation: Document storage, security and workflow.
  • What Typally does instead: covers NetDocuments and every other program on the machine with one hotkey.
  • Best used for: document profiles and descriptions

Does NetDocuments have built-in dictation?

Document storage, security and workflow. No authoring speech input.

Why dictate in NetDocuments at all?

Search only works as well as what was written about a document when it was saved. Everyone knows this and nobody writes descriptions, because typing one is a tax on the act of filing.

In practice people use it for: Document profiles and descriptions, matter notes, workspace summaries, and audit annotations.

How to dictate in NetDocuments

Typally runs in the background and types into whatever window has focus, so there is nothing to install inside NetDocuments:

1

Start with the install

Windows or macOS build, signed in once.

2

Click into the right box in NetDocuments first

Put the cursor in the field you are about to fill — NetDocuments decides where the text lands, not Typally.

3

Hold the hotkey and talk

Say the whole thought, then let go. No time limit.

4

Read it before you move on

Regulated confidential material demands care. Typally sends audio to a third-party transcription service — confirm that is acceptable under your firm's policy before using it near client matter.

What Typally adds in NetDocuments

Typally types into document profiles and matter notes, so a document gets a real description saying what it is for rather than a filename. That description is what search relies on years later. Confirm your firm's policy first — audio passes through a third-party transcription service before becoming text.

What this looks like in practice

A firm running a document review dictates a one-line purpose for each of two hundred filed documents over a morning. The following year, a related matter finds what it needs in minutes instead of commissioning a paralegal to hunt.

One habit that makes it work better

Say what the document is for, not what it is called. 'Second draft after the client's insurance point' finds it; 'Agreement v2' does not.

What to watch out for in NetDocuments

Regulated confidential material demands care. Typally sends audio to a third-party transcription service — confirm that is acceptable under your firm's policy before using it near client matter.

Frequently asked questions

Does NetDocuments support dictation?

No. It is a document management platform, not an authoring tool.

Why do document descriptions matter so much?

They are what search relies on. A well-described document is findable years later; a badly named one is effectively lost.

Can I use general dictation in a regulated firm?

Only with your compliance team's agreement, given audio leaves the machine.

Try it in NetDocuments

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

Try Typally free

Also dictate in: iManage · Clio · Confluence · see all apps