Project 1: Making voice typing even better for everyone

Joplin is partnering with a French government institution to bring you innovative new features! We will work on accessibility, voice typing, HTR and add Rocketbook integration. Today we'll present the planned improvements to voice typing:

Right now, voice input works pretty well, but there’s one thing that still needs improvement: punctuation. Our current system is accurate, but it doesn’t pick up on things like commas or periods, which can make spoken text harder to understand. That’s why we’re looking into other voice recognition engines that can handle punctuation better while keeping the accuracy we need.

Improving voice input like this isn’t just about convenience – it’s about making our app more accessible to everyone. For people with visual impairments, being able to use voice input means they don’t have to rely on typing. Those with motor difficulties can control the app without needing to use their hands. And for users with dyslexia or other learning challenges, voice input can be much easier and more natural than typing out words.

We’re excited to experiment with this new feature, knowing it could make a real difference for people who rely on voice technology to get things done.

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Right now, voice input works pretty well,
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How do I access voice input on my iOS Joplin? I would like to experiment with this, as someone who uses transcription a lot in other apps.

It sounds like a great addition to Joplin — there are very few notes apps that have in-app capable transcription To my knowledge, only Reflect, Tana mobile and now Evernote.

So this looks like a strong feature — whether a development in the pipeline or something we can access now.

--Ian Greig, UK writer

Hello,

The voice input in android mobile application run good with the french language after the file's download. To do that (if it the same in iOS @greiggy) :

  • create a note,
  • choose to began,
  • choose vocal input in the menu (the 3 dots in the high right corner),
  • file language will download automatically,
  • give rights for the application to run on your phone,
  • now you can speak ti your phone to input text in your note.

:clap: to the Joplin developers for this.

I did it before with Helliboard keyboard application (android only), witch propose to input voice too, with every application use the keyboard to input text.

It's good Joplin can do the same directly in the application.

Wait, there's voice input on the Windows app too?

Here's what I think might be beneficial.
I installed an open-source app called Whispering and have a keyboard shortcut that starts recording my voice anywhere where I have an active cursor.

Then I just provide my Whisper token from OpenAI - I imagine it can be pricy for folks whose voice input is primary one, but I bet it's possible to make some agreements with OpenAI.

Current price: $0.006 / minute.

The speach recognition quality and speed is maybe the best on the market. If you ever used ChatGPT voice input you know what I mean.
Cons: In OpenAI's Whisper model, you can't explicitly instruct it where to place punctuation like ., ,, ;, or ! during transcription. The model determines punctuation based on the speech's intonation, pauses, and context. However, there are some strategies you can use to influence punctuation placement.

Whispering app also has ability to connect self-hosted or 3rd party models.
It's also 65% TypeScript, so I can imagine everything except frontend can be relatively easily ported from there to Joplin.
Link: GitHub - braden-w/whispering

@Desmoric I am not seeing any option for voice input in the three-dot menu in my iOS 18.2 Joplin.

Currently, voice typing is Android-only.

@IanGreig The response as been given by @personalizedrefriger :pray:

I wasn’t totally good in my firs answer : I use Futo keyboard (website and sources) to add voice input with Heliboard (I disabled Google voice input to be sure it run good).

Thank you, both. Let’s get the new Markdown plugin approved by Joplin and then iPhone Joplin users can get to work!