Dictate in any app · Code

Voice typing in Visual Studio

Enterprise .NET work runs on documentation, and documentation is typed prose. Typally puts your words into Visual Studio the moment you release the key, in whichever field you left the cursor.

Written by the team behind Typally. Visual Studio's own features are described as accurately as we can — check them yourself before switching anything.
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In short

  • Visual Studio's own dictation: None in the IDE itself. Windows' own Win + H dictation reaches its text fields.
  • What Typally does instead: covers Visual Studio and every other program on the machine with one hotkey.
  • Best used for: xml documentation comments

Does Visual Studio have built-in dictation?

None in the IDE itself. Windows' own Win + H dictation reaches its text fields.

Why dictate in Visual Studio at all?

Large .NET codebases are maintained by people who did not write them, often years later. XML documentation comments and thorough commit messages are the only bridge, and both are long-form writing.

In practice people use it for: XML documentation comments, commit messages, pull request descriptions, architecture decision records, and Copilot prompts.

How to dictate in Visual Studio

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

1

Install Typally

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

2

Put the cursor in the Visual Studio field you are filling

Whatever has the cursor receives the text, so click the right place in Visual Studio before starting.

3

Hold the hotkey and talk

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

4

Read it before you move on

IntelliSense reacts to every inserted character, so dictating into a code file triggers completion popups that swallow text.

What Typally adds in Visual Studio

Typally types into XML documentation comments, the commit box and pull request descriptions. Windows' own Win + H covers the same fields for free and is worth trying first; where Typally differs is the cleanup pass and custom vocabulary for the class and namespace names that general models mangle. Keep it out of code files, where IntelliSense swallows text.

What this looks like in practice

A developer documenting a payment service dictates the remarks section explaining which edge cases the retry logic covers and which it deliberately does not. Two years later that paragraph is the reason a production incident takes an hour rather than a day.

One habit that makes it work better

Dictate the summary and remarks sections of XML docs. The tag structure is faster typed; the explanation inside the tags is faster spoken.

What to watch out for in Visual Studio

IntelliSense reacts to every inserted character, so dictating into a code file triggers completion popups that swallow text.

Frequently asked questions

Can I dictate XML documentation comments?

The prose inside them, yes. Type the tags themselves.

Does Windows dictation work in Visual Studio?

Win + H types into focused text fields, including the IDE's.

Is dictation useful for writing C#?

Not for the code. For everything around it, yes.

Try it in Visual Studio

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

Try Typally free

Also dictate in: IntelliJ IDEA · VS Code · GitHub · see all apps