Dictate in any app · Education

Voice typing in Overleaf

LaTeX is the worst possible thing to dictate, and academic prose is among the best. With Typally you hold a hotkey, speak, and the text lands in Overleaf exactly where your cursor was.

This is a vendor guide from the makers of Typally. Anything we say about Overleaf is worth verifying — third-party features change without notice.
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In short

  • Overleaf's own dictation: None. Overleaf's editor is a LaTeX source pane in a browser.
  • What Typally does instead: types into the focused window, so it works in Overleaf and everywhere else you write.
  • Best used for: paragraph text inside sections

Does Overleaf have built-in dictation?

None. Overleaf's editor is a LaTeX source pane in a browser.

Why dictate in Overleaf at all?

A paper is maybe fifteen per cent markup and eighty-five per cent sentences. The markup is unspeakable — backslashes, braces, environments — but the sentences are ordinary academic English, and there are thousands of them.

In practice people use it for: Paragraph text inside sections, abstracts, discussion sections, reviewer responses, and comments to co-authors.

How to dictate in Overleaf

Nothing changes inside Overleaf itself. Typally sits in the tray and types into the focused window:

1

Install Typally

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

2

Click into the right box in Overleaf first

The cursor position is the whole instruction — Overleaf routes the keystrokes from there.

3

Hold the hotkey and talk

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

4

Read it before you move on

A dictated backslash or brace lands as literal LaTeX and can break compilation in ways that are hard to spot in a long document.

What Typally adds in Overleaf

Typally types into the LaTeX source pane, so the eighty-five per cent of a paper that is ordinary academic prose can be spoken. Build the section skeleton with its environments first, then dictate paragraphs into the gaps — a spoken backslash or brace lands literally and breaks compilation in ways that are hard to find.

What this looks like in practice

A PhD student builds the section skeleton on Monday and spends the week talking paragraphs into it. The discussion chapter reaches four thousand words in five days, having sat at nine hundred for a month.

One habit that makes it work better

Set up the document skeleton with all the environments and section commands first, then dictate paragraphs into the gaps. Never mix the two activities.

What to watch out for in Overleaf

A dictated backslash or brace lands as literal LaTeX and can break compilation in ways that are hard to spot in a long document.

Frequently asked questions

Can I dictate LaTeX commands?

Not practically. Type the markup, dictate the prose between it.

Is dictation useful for writing a thesis?

The discussion and introduction sections are ordinary prose at length, which is exactly where it helps.

Can I dictate into Overleaf's comments?

Yes — comments to co-authors are plain text fields.

Try it in Overleaf

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

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Also dictate in: Zotero · Google Docs · Scrivener · see all apps