Microsoft is bringing dictation to its Office web apps to help people with dyslexia

Microsoft first started rolling outs its dictation feature in the Word desktop app earlier this year, and it’s now making its way to web versions of Office. Dictation (speech to text) will be available in both Word and OneNote online in the coming weeks, as part of a push by Microsoft to better help people with dyslexia. The dictation feature lets you simply type with your voice, and it’s availability in the Office web apps will make it more broadly used in schools.

Word and OneNote will be the first web apps to get dictation and PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook will all get the same feature in 2019. Microsoft is also adding real-time translation inside its immersive reader to Word, OneNote, and Outlook online, as well as OneNote for iPad, Mac, and Windows 10. The translation feature will support translating full pages, words, or sentences into another language. Full page and word translations will start rolling out in the fall, with sentence translations to follow later.