Guides

Scrivener dictation on a Mac: from one scene to a whole draft by voice

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To dictate into Scrivener on a Mac, click into the Editor where the words should go and start a dictation tool: Apple Dictation, built into macOS, or YapToText, the free app I built, which types at your cursor in Scrivener like in any app you can type in. Apple Dictation suits a paragraph at a time. YapToText keeps listening through long pauses, leaves your prose the way you said it, and runs on your Mac.

My hands make typing difficult, so I dictate everything. This page is the Scrivener part: where the words land, which mode to use for a draft and which for an outline, long sessions, and chapters you dictated into your phone. The habits that make a book-length draft work are on the dictation for writers page. I built YapToText, so read its parts with that in mind.

Download YapToText on the Mac App StoreDownload for free. No account, nothing locked, macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon. Source on GitHub.

On this page: 11 sections
  1. Steps
  2. Use Apple Dictation in Scrivener's Editor
    1. Step 1: Turn Dictation on once
    2. Step 2: Dictate in the Editor
  3. Dictate into Scrivener with YapToText
    1. Step 1: Click into the document
    2. Step 2: Tap Right Command and talk
    3. Step 3: Tap it again
  4. Keep a draft in your own words with Raw Transcription
  5. Dictate a long session without a cutoff
    1. If you write in Composition Mode
  6. Outline in Note mode, in a document of its own
    1. Step 1: Make a document for the outline
    2. Step 2: Talk through the chapter in Note
  7. Transcribe a chapter you dictated into your phone
    1. Step 1: Pick Raw Transcription
    2. Step 2: Drop the recording
    3. Step 3: Paste it into the chapter
  8. If a take does not land in Scrivener
  9. What it cannot do
  10. The short version
  11. Questions

Steps

  1. Select the scene in Scrivener's Binder and click into its text in the Editor.
  2. Tap Right Command and talk through the scene, pausing as long as you need.
  3. Press 2 while you talk if you want the take exactly as spoken in Raw Transcription.
  4. Tap Right Command again, and the words land at the cursor.
  5. For a chapter recorded on your phone, drop the file on the Transcribe a file card, click Copy and paste it into the document.

Use Apple Dictation in Scrivener's Editor

Literature & Latte's own blog post on dictating into Scrivener uses the Mac's built-in Dictation: turn it on in Keyboard settings, then press the shortcut, which it says is the F5 key with the microphone symbol on a Mac keyboard by default. Apple says Dictation works anywhere you can type, and Scrivener's Editor is a place you type. Apple Dictation in Scrivener is free and fine for a paragraph, as long as you never stop talking for 30 seconds.

Step 1: Turn Dictation on once

  • You: Choose Apple menu, System Settings, then Keyboard. Go to Dictation, turn it on, and click Enable.
  • macOS: May ask whether to share audio recordings to improve Siri and Dictation. Not Now is a fine answer.
  • Check: Dictation stays on. Note the key in the Shortcut menu.

Step 2: Dictate in the Editor

  • You: Click into the document in the Editor, then press the Microphone key or your Dictation shortcut.
  • macOS: Highlights the cursor and makes it pulse, or plays a tone, when it is ready.
  • Check: Words appear as you speak. Press Esc, the Microphone key or the shortcut when you are done.

What Apple says about Dictation, which matters more in a long manuscript than in a text message:

  • Thirty seconds of silence ends it. You can dictate text of any length, but Dictation stops by itself when it hears no speech for 30 seconds, and a pause to think counts.
  • Breaks arrive late. Say new paragraph for a break; Apple notes that it appears when you are done dictating.
  • Unsure words are marked. Words it was unsure of are underlined in blue, and you click one to pick an alternative. On an Apple silicon Mac you can type while it keeps listening.
  • Where your voice goes. The text below Dictation in Keyboard settings says whether it is processed on your Mac and not sent to Siri servers.

The 30-second limit page covers the ways around the cutoff, and the guide to dictation on a Mac sets Apple's version up step by step.

Dictate into Scrivener with YapToText

Literature & Latte describes three main parts of the Scrivener window: the Binder on the left, the Editor in the center and the Inspector on the right. YapToText types wherever your cursor is, so the one rule is to click into the Editor first. It is free on the Mac App Store and needs an Apple silicon Mac with macOS 14 or later. Click into the Editor, tap, talk, tap, and the scene lands at the cursor.

Step 1: Click into the document

  • You: Select the scene in the Binder, then click into its text in the Editor where the next words belong.
  • YapToText: Nothing yet. It types into the app in front, never into its own window.
  • Check: The cursor is blinking in the text, not on an item in the Binder.

Step 2: Tap Right Command and talk

  • You: Tap Right Command once and talk through the scene.
  • YapToText: Opens the floating panel with your voice as a wave and your words as they form.
  • Check: The wave moves when you speak. If it stays flat, the app is not hearing your microphone yet.

Step 3: Tap it again

  • You: Tap Right Command again when the scene, or the part of it you had in mind, is done.
  • YapToText: Finishes the transcript on your Mac, pastes it at the cursor and puts back whatever you had copied before.
  • Check: The words are in the document. If they went to the clipboard instead, Accessibility is not on yet.

Three things decide what your prose looks like when it lands:

  • No lean for Scrivener. Auto mode, on by default, gives mail apps, chat apps and code editors a lean, and only those it names. Scrivener is on none of its lists, so ordinary prose gets a conservative pass that fixes what was misheard and rewrites nothing: your wording, tone, slang and sentence structure stay.
  • Sentences that join up. Intelligent Insert reads the words around the cursor first, so a take dropped mid-sentence starts lowercase and gets one space where words would collide. The Intelligent Insert guide explains it.
  • Punctuation you say. Whisper punctuates ordinary speech by itself. Two-word names such as new paragraph and question mark work at the end of a clause, and one-word names need insert first, as in insert comma. The spoken punctuation guide lists all of them.

Character names and invented words belong in Dictionaries before chapter one; the Dictionaries guide shows how, and the writers page covers teaching names by voice.

Keep a draft in your own words with Raw Transcription

The conservative pass keeps your sentences, but it still fixes words. For a draft that is exactly what you said, use Raw Transcription: Whisper hears you, basic punctuation goes in, and no AI model touches the words. Raw Transcription is the one mode where nothing but the speech model handles your prose.

  • For one take. While you talk, press 2. With Auto mode on, 2 is Raw Transcription in the default order, the pick lasts for this dictation, and the next one uses Auto again.
  • For every take. Turn off Auto mode on the Home page, in the After transcription card. Raw Transcription then becomes the selected mode until you pick another.
  • To check. Open History and click Show pipeline details on a take. The Mode line says which mode ran.
YapToText's Home page: the Start Dictation button, the Keys card with Right Command and Right Option, and Intelligent Insert.
Figure 1. The Auto mode switch is in the After transcription card on the Home page. Turn it off, and Raw Transcription becomes the selected mode for every take.

Two cases where Raw Transcription matters most in fiction:

  • A letter inside the story. With Auto on, a dictation that opens with a greeting such as Dear Jessica and closes with a sign-off becomes an email in any app, Scrivener included, signed with the name in Settings, Advanced, Your name. For a character's letter, press 2 before you stop.
  • Dialogue that sounds like an instruction. With Auto on, a take that ends with words such as make it shorter or make that formal is read as an instruction to Auto and not typed. Do not end a take on a line of dialogue like that; keep talking past it, or stop one sentence later.

If you would rather keep Auto on and tidy a rambling take afterwards, press 3 for Clean Up, which removes filler words and false starts and never deletes, shortens or summarizes a sentence. The Auto mode guide and the modes guide have the rest.

Dictate a long session without a cutoff

A writing session is not a text message. You stop to think, you reread the last line, you get up for tea. YapToText has no silence cutoff by default, so none of that ends a take. The take ends when you tap the key, not when you go quiet.

  • Pauses. Auto-stop after silence and Maximum length, in the Recording card on the Dictation page, are both Off out of the box. Press Space to pause and again to resume; the space is not typed into your manuscript.
  • Very long takes. One dictation can record for up to 30 minutes, and then the app stops it as a safety net and still transcribes and saves what you said. A take over 4 minutes is cut at quiet moments into pieces of about 2 minutes and transcribed one after another.
  • Every take kept. History saves each take with its raw transcript and, by default, its recording: your last 500, for 30 days. For a book, set Keep to Keep everything and Auto-delete old items to Never in Settings, Advanced, History & audio. Even Keep everything stops at 2,000 entries.
  • A crash. If the app or the Mac dies mid-sentence, the audio survives, and the next launch transcribes it, puts the text on your clipboard and files it in History as Recovered after a crash.
YapToText's Dictation settings page on a Mac: the Keys, Recording, Microphone and Delivery cards.
Figure 2. In the Recording card, Auto-stop after silence and Maximum length are both Off by default, so a long pause in a writing session does not end the take.

If you write in Composition Mode

Literature & Latte says Composition Mode, under View, Composition Mode, turns the window into a page on a background, and that pressing Escape exits it. YapToText uses Esc too: while a dictation is running, one press cancels it, and the words go to History, marked as canceled, instead of into your scene. I have not tested whether Scrivener also sees that press, so end a take with Right Command and keep Esc for when you mean to cancel. The keys guide covers Require pressing Escape twice to cancel, which makes a stray press harmless.

Outline in Note mode, in a document of its own

Note mode turns a spoken ramble into short headings and bullets, pulls any action items into a list, and may only restate what you said. That is right for an outline and wrong for a chapter, so give the outline its own document. Outline in Note, in a document of its own, and draft somewhere else.

Step 1: Make a document for the outline

  • You: In Scrivener, press Command N, or click the Add button and choose New Text, and name the new document Outline.
  • Scrivener: Adds the new text just below the item selected in the Binder, according to Literature & Latte.
  • Check: The empty document is open in the Editor, with the cursor in it.

Step 2: Talk through the chapter in Note

  • You: Tap Right Command, press 4 for Note, the default order, and talk through what happens in the chapter. Tap the key again.
  • YapToText: Writes it as short headings and bullets, with nothing added that you did not say.
  • Check: The outline is in its own document. The next dictation goes back to Auto, so your chapter is not outlined by mistake.

Auto mode never turns speech into a list on its own. If you want bullets without switching modes, ask for them at the end.

Say: At the very end of a dictation, while Auto mode is on.

as a bullet list

What happens: The phrase is not typed. Auto mode writes what you said as a bulleted list.

YapToText's Switch Mode list: Auto, Raw Transcription, Clean Up, Note, Email, Message and Code Comment, numbered 1 to 7.
Figure 3. The number beside each mode is the key that picks it while you talk: 2 for Raw Transcription in a chapter, 4 for Note in the outline.

Transcribe a chapter you dictated into your phone

Some chapters start on a walk. Record them on your phone, then turn the recording into text on your Mac and paste it into the chapter's document. Pick Raw Transcription, drop the memo, and paste the words into the chapter.

If you record in Voice Memos on an iPhone, Apple says that with iCloud the recording appears in Voice Memos on your Mac too, when both share an Apple Account and Voice Memos is on in iCloud settings. Drag it from Voice Memos to a Finder window to save it as a file.

Step 1: Pick Raw Transcription

  • You: Open YapToText's Utility page. In the Transcribe a file card's mode menu, pick Raw Transcription.
  • YapToText: Uses that mode for the file, with no AI rewrite.
  • Check: The menu says Raw Transcription.

Step 2: Drop the recording

  • You: Drag the file onto the card, or click Choose File and pick it.
  • YapToText: Transcribes it on your Mac. A long recording is cut at quiet moments and handled in pieces, and there is no minute cap.
  • Check: The card says it is transcribing your file.

Step 3: Paste it into the chapter

  • You: Click Copy, click into the chapter's document in Scrivener, and press Command V.
  • Scrivener: Puts the text at the cursor.
  • Check: The chapter is in the document, ready for the edit.

Your dictionaries and spoken commands apply to files too, so character names come out spelled your way and new paragraph on the recording becomes a break. The Utility card does not save the transcript to History, so copy it before you close the card. To keep the recording with the project, Literature & Latte says audio files go in the Research folder, by dragging the file onto it or with File, Import, Files, and play in the Editor with play controls. The guide to transcribing Voice Memos on a Mac covers Apple's own transcript as well.

If a take does not land in Scrivener

If a take does not land, or lands wrong, climb this ladder, smallest step first:

  1. Click into the Editor first. YapToText never types into its own window, so a take started with YapToText in front goes to the clipboard. Press Command V in the Editor.
  2. Turn on Accessibility. On YapToText's Home page, press Grant next to Accessibility and switch the app on in System Settings, Privacy & Security, Accessibility. Without it, every take is copied to the clipboard instead of typed.
  3. Silence a beep. If Scrivener plays the alert sound when the words land, that is Intelligent Insert's invisible keystrokes. On the Dictation page, in the Delivery card, choose Turn off in another app and pick Scrivener.
  4. Pin a method. If pasting misbehaves, choose Add App Override under Per-app method in Settings, Advanced, pick Scrivener and keep Type character-by-character.
  5. Fix it on the spot. Within 30 seconds of a take landing, say scratch that to remove it, or replace, the wrong word, with, the right word.
  6. Find a lost take. If it landed in the wrong document, find it on the History page and choose Copy or Insert into the previous app.

The History guide covers search, playback and Regenerate.

What it cannot do

  • Drive Scrivener. It types where the cursor is. It does not make documents, move around the Binder, split the Editor or compile; its spoken commands are punctuation, emoji and snippets.
  • Format by voice. Italics, styles and headings come from Scrivener.
  • Select or scroll. Voice Control, built into macOS, does that.
  • Follow you to the iPad. YapToText runs only on Apple silicon Macs with macOS 14 or later. There is no iPhone or iPad version, which is why the phone route above starts with a recording.
  • Edit inside History. Entries cannot be retyped, so your manuscript is where the words get fixed.
  • Promise accuracy. I have not run an accuracy test on long drafts, so I will not put a number on it.

It gets the words into Scrivener; the structure and the second draft are still yours.

The short version

  • Short passages. Apple Dictation in the Editor, free, with pauses under 30 seconds.
  • Long sessions. YapToText: click into the Editor, tap Right Command, talk, tap again.
  • Your exact words. Press 2 for Raw Transcription, or turn Auto mode off for every take.
  • Outlines and phone chapters. Note mode in its own document, and the Transcribe a file card for recordings.

Click into the Editor, talk the scene, and do the writing in the edit.

For the habits behind a dictated book, from takes to teaching names, see the dictation for writers guide. If something here does not match what you see in Scrivener, open an issue on GitHub. Every one gets read.

Download YapToText on the Mac App StoreDownload for free. No account, nothing locked, macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon. Source on GitHub.

About the author. Ryleigh Newman is a developer whose hands make typing difficult and who dictates every day with YapToText, the app this site describes. Facts about other apps come from their own sites, with the date they were read. More about the project.

Sources

Questions

Can you dictate into Scrivener on a Mac?

Yes. Click into the Editor and use Apple Dictation, built into macOS, or a dictation app that types at your cursor, such as YapToText. Both put the words in the document you have open.

Does Scrivener have its own dictation?

Literature & Latte's own post on dictating into Scrivener uses the Mac's built-in Dictation, turned on in System Settings, Keyboard, Dictation. Any app that types at the cursor, YapToText included, works in the Editor too.

Why does dictation keep stopping in Scrivener?

Apple Dictation stops by itself after 30 seconds without speech, and a pause to think counts. YapToText has no silence cutoff by default, so a take runs until you tap the key again.

How do I get a voice memo into Scrivener as text?

Save the memo as a file, drop it on the Transcribe a file card on YapToText's Utility page with Raw Transcription picked, click Copy, and paste it into the chapter's document.

What is the best dictation app for novelists using Scrivener on a Mac?

For short passages, Apple Dictation is free and built in. For long sessions I use YapToText, which has no silence cutoff and can type your exact words with Raw Transcription; I built it, so weigh that.