Dictation in Obsidian on Windows

Notes and a daily journal, said out loud.

Obsidian keeps your notes as files on your own PC. With a local speech model, your voice stays there too. That is why this pairing makes sense to me: nothing you say to get a thought into a note goes anywhere else. VinPUT types what you say into the open note, in the editor, as ordinary text.

The daily note

Open today's note, tap F1, and talk for a few minutes: what happened, what is on your mind, what you have to do tomorrow. Tap F1 again to stop. When you pause, say new paragraph on its own and then wait a moment, and you get a blank line between thoughts. A dictation you forgot to stop ends by itself after 30 minutes of silence, which you can change.

Tidy up later. Under Settings, Cleanup, Clean removes filler words and false starts. It needs a text model, so Plus or Pro, or Gemma or Qwen on your PC.

One bullet per breath

In a list, Enter normally starts the next bullet. That makes F2 handy: say one idea, stop, and it is typed with the Enter after it, ready for the next. Use F1 for paragraphs, F2 for lists.

Names and templates

• Add people and projects to the dictionary, with a "sounds like" spelling for the ones that get mangled. VinPUT writes them the way you entered them.
• A snippet turns a phrase such as "daily template" into saved text of up to 1000 characters, headings included.
• Links in double brackets are typed by hand.

How to

1. Install VinPUT and download a model under Settings, Models, On this PC.
2. Click into the note.
3. Tap F1, talk, tap F1.

Questions

Can it write up a recording I already made?

No. Dictation is live. The voice memo key saves an MP3 but does not recognize it.

Does it need the internet?

Not with a model on your PC, apart from downloading the app and the model once.

Is there a limit on how long I can talk?

No limit for a model on your PC. A dictation stops by itself after 30 minutes of silence unless you change that.

Related pages

• Voice typing on Windows 11 and Win+H What the built-in option does, and when it is enough.
• Offline speech to text What works with no connection, and what needs one.
• Whisper dictation The Whisper sizes VinPUT lists and how they run.
• Voice typing in Notion Pages, meeting notes and comments.
• Dictation to type less Use your voice for the long stretches of typing.