Q. I am a writer and ideas for stories come to me at the most inopportune times. I usually end up making voice memos on my iPhone, but in the end I really need to transcribe them to text. Is there an effective and efficient app to automatically transcribe voice recordings?

A. Third-party apps and services that convert spoken words into text files on iOS devices are plentiful in Apple’s online store, but depending on when you need the transcribing to happen, you may not need to download anything extra. For example, the Siri assistant software built onto iOS can open the iPhone’s Notes app and transcribe your words as you speak them.

Hold down the iPhone’s Home button (or say “Hey Siri” to wake up the software), say “Make a new note,” and then speak your thoughts — reciting the punctuation like “period” or “comma” aloud. The resulting note can be emailed, copied, pasted or shared with a compatible text app.

Image Many apps can transcribe dictated notes on an iPhone, including the Siri assistant. Credit... The New York Times

Siri may be the quickest way to dictate a quick set of thoughts without fumbling with other apps, but if you do not use the Siri assistant, you can turn on the Dictation tool in the iPhone’s Settings app. In Settings, go to General and then to keyboard to find the Dictation option buried at the bottom of the screen. When the setting is enabled, a small microphone appears on the keyboard of text-entering apps like Notes, Google Docs, Microsoft Word for iOS, or Apple’s own Pages word processor.