Cortana is your personal digital assistant fully integrated into Windows 10 designed to help you make your life easier. The more you use it, the more Cortana can learn about you, and the experience becomes more personalized and accurate.
Microsoft's digital assistant can perform a variety of tasks, and it's full of handy tricks, but perhaps one of the best features is the advanced speech recognition that enables Cortana to understand the context of a natural voice conversation.
On Windows 10, and across platform with the Cortana app on iPhone and Android, the assistant can understand virtually any voice command and perform tasks. For example, by just speaking you can find facts, create reminders and manage your calendar, launch applications, change settings, and a lot more.
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If you're looking for an official list of all the voice commands Cortana supports, you'll never find it — it doesn't exist. Because Cortana can understand natural language and context, there's no particular set of commands to make things happen. Like in real life, you can ask Cortana in the same way you would ask anything to any person.
But, we want you to have an understanding of all the various ways in which you can address Cortana, at least to give you a basis to form your vocabulary.
How to use Cortana with voice commands
Before you can dive into the voice commands, it's important to know the ways in which you can invoke Cortana using natural language:
Comprehensive list of Cortana voice commands
The following list of commands are examples you can use to learn how to control Cortana with voice commands. Keep in mind that there isn't a specific way to speak the commands. For example, 'Hey Cortana: Let me listen to some tunes' is the same as asking a more systematic command like 'Hey Cortana: Play music'.
Cortana basic voice commandsGetting the time for any location
Getting weather information for any location
Opening (Store and desktop) apps and websites
Getting news information
Creating a note
Translating to a different language
Doing math
Defining a word
Tracking packages
Cortana search voice commandsFinding documents, photos, videos
Searching the web
Finding facts
It's important to note that Cortana is capable of conversational understanding, which means that you can also ask follow-up questions without having to be very specific.
For example, if you ask Cortana: 'Who is the president of the United States', you can then ask a follow-up question, such as 'Who is his wife?' or 'When was he born?' and the assistant should be able to answer to those question accurately.
Discovering food places nearby
Cortana health and fitness voice commands
Note: These commands require a tracking device, such as the Microsoft Band 2 to enable your fitness and health activities, and you need to connect Cortana with the Microsoft Health (Microsoft Band) service.
Cortana settings voice commandsOpening the Settings app
Controlling settings
Cortana reminders voice commandsCreating reminders
Creating location-based reminders
Creating person-based reminders
Creating time-based reminders
Viewing reminders
Cortana calendar voice commandsViewing calendar events
Adding new calendar events
Moving calendar events
Cortana alarms voice commandsCreating alarms
Viewing alarms
Removing alarms
Cortana timer voice commandsCreating a timer
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Note: You can only start one timer at one point in time. If there is a timer already running, Cortana will ask you to restart it with a new time.
Viewing timer
Canceling timer
Cortana location voice commandsKnowing your exact location
Cortana messaging voice commandsSending text messages
Sending quick emails
Cortana location voice commandsGetting directions
Tracking flights
Cortana entertainment voice commandsControlling music
Identifying what's playing
Movies
Cortana technical support voice commands
Note: Cortana's ability to assist you with technical question is somewhat limited; sometimes asking a 'How do I' question will result in a web search response.
Cortana phone voice commands
Cortana random voice commands
On Windows 10, Speech Recognition is an easy-to-use experience that allows you to control your computer entirely with voice commands.
Anyone can set up and use this feature to navigate, launch applications, dictate text, and perform a slew of other tasks. However, Speech Recognition was primarily designed to help people with disabilities who can't use a mouse or keyboard.
In this Windows 10 guide, we walk you through the steps to configure and start using Speech Recognition to control your computer only with voice.
How to configure Speech Recognition on Windows 10
To set up Speech Recognition on your device, use these steps:
Once you complete these steps, you can start using the feature with voice commands, and the controls will appear at the top of the screen.
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Quick Tip: You can drag and dock the Speech Recognition interface anywhere on the screen.
How to train Speech Recognition to improve accuracy
After the initial setup, we recommend training Speech Recognition to improve its accuracy and to prevent the 'What was that?' message as much as possible.
After completing the training, Speech Recognition should have a better understanding of your voice to provide an improved experience.
How to change Speech Recognition settings
If you need to change the Speech Recognition settings, use these steps:
Inside 'Speech Properties,' in the Speech Recognition tab, you can customize various aspects of the experience, including:
In the Text to Speech tab, you can control voice settings, including:
Additionally, you can always right-click the experience interface to open a context menu to access all the different features and settings you can use with Speech Recognition.
How to use Speech Recognition on Windows 10
While there is a small learning curve, Speech Recognition uses clear and easy-to-remember commands. For example, using the 'Start' command opens the Start menu, while saying 'Show Desktop' will minimize everything on the screen.
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If Speech Recognition is having difficulties understanding your voice, you can always use the Show numbers command as everything on the screen has a number. Then say the number and speak OK to execute the command.
Here are some common tasks that will get you started with Speech Recognition:
Starting Speech Recognition
To launch the experience, just open the Start menu, search for Windows Speech Recognition, and select the top result.
Turning on and off
To start using the feature, click the microphone button or say Start listening depending on your configuration.
In the same way, you can turn it off by saying Stop listening or clicking the microphone button.
Using commands
Some of the most frequent commands you'll use include:
Using dictation
Speech Recognition also includes the ability to convert voice into text using the dictation functionality, and it works automatically.
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If you need to dictate text, open the application (making sure the feature is in listening mode) and start dictating. However, remember that you'll have to say each punctuation mark and special character.
For example, if you want to insert the 'Good morning, where do you like to go today?' sentence, you'll need to speak, 'Open quote good morning comma where do you like to go today question mark close quote.'
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In the case that you need to correct some text that wasn't recognized accurately, use the 'Correct' command followed by the text you want to change. For example, if you meant to write 'suite' and the feature recognized it as 'suit,' you can say 'Correct suit,' select the suggestion using the correction panel or say 'Spell it' to speak the correct text, and then say 'OK'.
Wrapping things up
Although Speech Recognition doesn't offer a conversational experience like a personal assistant, it's still a powerful tool for anyone who needs to control their device entirely using only voice.
Cortana also provides the ability to control a device with voice, but it's limited to a specific set of input commands, and it's not possible to control everything that appears on the screen.
However, that doesn't mean that you can't get the best of both worlds. Speech Recognition runs independently of Cortana, which means that you can use the Microsoft's digital assistant for certain tasks and Speech Recognition to navigate and execute other commands.
It's worth noting that this speech recognition isn't available in every language. Supported languages include English (U.S. and UK), French, German, Japanese, Mandarin (Chinese Simplified and Chinese Traditional), and Spanish.
While this guide is focused on Windows 10, Speech Recognition has been around for a long time, so you can refer to it even if you're using Windows 8.1 or Windows 7.
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For more helpful articles, coverage, and answers to common questions about Windows 10, visit the following resources:
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