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Ulysses dictation on a Mac: dictate a sheet, handle the markup, edit by voice

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To dictate in Ulysses on a Mac, click into a sheet in the editor and start a dictation tool: Ulysses's help says it uses Apple's own Dictation, built into macOS, and YapToText, the free app I built, types at your cursor in Ulysses like in any app you can type in. Apple Dictation suits a paragraph at a time. YapToText keeps listening through long pauses, can leave your prose exactly as you said it, and runs on your Mac.

My hands make typing difficult, so I dictate everything. This page is the Ulysses part: where the words land, Markdown markup typed or spoken, long drafts, editing a passage by voice, and writing goals. I have not tested YapToText in Ulysses, so where something depends on how Ulysses behaves, I say so. 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 a Ulysses sheet
    1. Step 1: Turn Dictation on once
    2. Step 2: Dictate in the sheet
  3. Dictate into Ulysses with YapToText
    1. Step 1: Click into the sheet
    2. Step 2: Tap Right Command and talk
    3. Step 3: Tap it again
  4. Markdown markup in Ulysses: type it or say it
    1. Saying the marks
  5. Dictate a long draft, in your own words
    1. Your exact words
  6. Edit passages by voice with Quick Edit
    1. Step 1: Select the passage
    2. Step 2: Tap Right Option and say the change
    3. Step 3: Tap it again
  7. Word count goals and outlines
    1. Step 1: Open a material sheet for the outline
    2. Step 2: Talk through it in Note mode
  8. If a take does not land in Ulysses
  9. What it cannot do
  10. The short version
  11. Questions

Steps

  1. Pick a sheet in Ulysses's sheet list and click into its text in the editor.
  2. Tap Right Command and talk through the passage, 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. Select the words and press Command B or Command I to add Ulysses markup.
  6. To change a passage, select it, tap Right Option, say the change and tap again.

Use Apple Dictation in a Ulysses sheet

Ulysses's help says its dictation is Apple's: Ulysses uses the system feature to let you enter text in the editor by speaking. Its help describes choosing the shortcut that starts Dictation by pressing the fn key twice, in System Settings, Keyboard, Dictation, Shortcut; then you press fn twice in Ulysses to start and once to end. Apple Dictation in Ulysses 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. Pick a shortcut in the Shortcut menu.
  • macOS: May ask whether to share audio recordings to improve Siri and Dictation. Not Now is a fine answer.
  • Check: Dictation stays on, and you know which key starts it.

Step 2: Dictate in the sheet

  • You: Click into the sheet in the editor where the words go, then press 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 sheet than in a text message:

  • Thirty seconds of silence ends it. 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.
  • 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.

Ulysses's help adds one more: to dictate in a language other than your system language, change the dictation language in System Settings, Keyboard, Dictation. The 30-second limit page covers the ways around the cutoff.

Dictate into Ulysses with YapToText

Ulysses's help describes the window in three parts: select a group in the library and its sheets appear in the sheet list; select a sheet and it opens in the editor. All writing happens in sheets, and a sheet holds as much text as you like. 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 sheet, tap, talk, tap, and the words land at the cursor.

Step 1: Click into the sheet

  • You: Pick the sheet in the sheet list, or press Command N for a new one, then click into its text 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 editor, not in the library or the sheet list.

Step 2: Tap Right Command and talk

  • You: Tap Right Command once and talk through the passage.
  • 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 passage 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 sheet. 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 Ulysses. Auto mode, on by default, gives the mail, chat and code apps it names a lean, and only those. Ulysses is on none of its lists, so it gets no lean: ordinary prose gets a careful pass that fixes what was misheard and rewrites nothing, keeping your wording, tone, slang and sentence structure.
  • 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.

Markdown markup in Ulysses: type it or say it

Ulysses writes in Markdown XL, its own markup language, which its help says is inspired by Markdown and has 28 tags. A title starts a line with one hash, a heading with two, and a subheading with three or more, up to six. Strong text sits between two pairs of asterisks, emphasis between underscores, and the shortcuts are Command B and Command I, with Strong and Emphasis also in the default toolbar. The simplest split: dictate the words, then add the markup with Ulysses's own keys.

  • You: Dictate the heading or the sentence as plain words, then select them and press Command B for strong or Command I for emphasis, or pick Strong or Emphasis in the toolbar. For a heading, type the hashes at the start of the line.
  • Ulysses: Applies the markup.
  • Check: The tag shows around or before the words.

Saying the marks

YapToText can type the marks, and one of them lines up with how Ulysses's help writes a title. Hashtag, hash sign, pound sign and number sign all type the number sign, and it glues to the next word.

Say: At the start of a new line, with Require the word insert before a command on, which is the default.

insert hashtag Chapter One

What happens: You get #Chapter One, the same shape as the #Title example in Ulysses's help. I have not tested how Ulysses treats a dictated hash, so check that the line turns into a title before you rely on it.

  • Other marks. Insert asterisk and insert underscore type those characters, but how they sit against the words around them is not something I will promise for markup, so the keyboard is the surer route for strong and emphasis.
  • Markup you use all the time. On the Commands page, a snippet types any text you write, after insert and the phrase you choose. Snippets go in after any AI cleanup, so a rewrite cannot drop or move them. Try one in a test sheet first.
  • The cleanup pass. Spoken marks are settled before AI cleanup runs. For a take full of marks, press 2 for Raw Transcription, where no AI model touches the text and spoken commands still work.

The Obsidian guide shows a custom mode that asks for Markdown headings and bullets, if you want structure written in for you.

Dictate a long draft, in your own words

A writing session stops and starts. You reread the last line, you look something up, you get up. 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 sheet.
  • Very long takes. One dictation can record for up to 30 minutes, then a safety stop finishes it as if you had tapped the key. A take over 4 minutes is cut at quiet moments into pieces of about 2 minutes, transcribed as they finish.
  • 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.

Your exact words

Auto's careful pass keeps your sentences but 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. While you talk, press 2; with Auto on, that pick lasts for this take. To make it stick, turn off Auto mode on the Home page, in the After transcription card, and Raw Transcription becomes the selected mode until you pick another.

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 in your Ulysses sheets.

Two cases where that matters with Auto on. A take that opens with a greeting such as Dear Jessica and closes with a sign-off becomes an email in any app, Ulysses included, so press 2 for a letter inside a story. And a take that ends with words such as make it shorter is read as an instruction and not typed, so keep talking past a line like that. Names of characters and places belong in Dictionaries before the first chapter; the Dictionaries guide shows how, and the modes guide covers the rest.

Edit passages by voice with Quick Edit

Quick Edit fixes a passage you already wrote without the keyboard. Select the words in Ulysses, tap the Quick Edit key, say the change, and tap again. The result replaces your selection, and the model that does it runs on your Mac. Select, say the change, and the passage is rewritten in place.

Step 1: Select the passage

  • You: Highlight the sentence or paragraph in the editor.
  • YapToText: Nothing yet.
  • Check: The words are highlighted.

Step 2: Tap Right Option and say the change

  • You: Tap Right Option and say what you want, such as make this shorter.
  • YapToText: Opens the Quick Edit card, which says Listening for your edit and shows your words in quotes.
  • Check: The card shows your instruction.

Step 3: Tap it again

  • You: Tap Right Option again.
  • YapToText: Applies the edit on your Mac and replaces the selection.
  • Check: The card says Done. While it says Applying your edit, Esc cancels and leaves your text as it was.
App Store poster headed Edit anything by voice: the Quick Edit card listening, applying the edit, and done.
Figure 2. Quick Edit's three cards: it listens for the change, applies it on your Mac, and says Done when the passage in your sheet is replaced.

Plain requests work best: fix the grammar, make this shorter, make it sound more formal. Capitalize this and an exact swap such as change this to Lisbon are instant and skip the AI. With a name's right spelling selected, say this:

Say: After tapping the Quick Edit key, with a character's name selected.

add this to my dictionary

What happens: The card says Added. The name goes into your first dictionary exactly as written, and later dictations spell it your way.

Two cautions for Ulysses. The rewrite comes from a small model on your Mac, so read a long one before you move on. And I have not tested whether a rewrite keeps Markdown XL markup, so select plain text inside a paragraph and check any tags afterwards. Ulysses's own help says its Apple Intelligence Writing Tools, on a Mac with M1 or later and macOS 15.1 or later, keep markup, links, footnotes and images when you click Replace, though they ignore code blocks and tables, so that is the tool for a marked-up passage. For a take that just landed wrong, say scratch that as its own dictation within 30 seconds to remove it. The Quick Edit guide lists every result the card can show.

Word count goals and outlines

Ulysses's help says writing goals can be attached to a sheet, a group or a project, with a target in words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, lines, pages or reading time, set as at least, at most or about. On a Mac you can drag a goal out of the sidebar and it floats on screen, updating as you write. You can add a deadline, and a group or project can have a daily goal that resets at midnight. Dictated words are ordinary text in the sheet, so a goal should count them like typed ones; check the goal icon after your first take.

Ulysses also has material sheets, which its help describes as a place for notes and rough ideas that are left out of export, statistics and writing goal progress. That makes one the right home for a spoken outline, so it does not inflate your word count. Its keyboard shortcuts list Command N for a new sheet and a separate shortcut for a new material sheet.

Step 1: Open a material sheet for the outline

  • You: Make a material sheet in the group and click into it.
  • Ulysses: Opens it in the editor, outside your goal.
  • Check: The cursor is in the empty material sheet.

Step 2: Talk through it in Note mode

  • You: Tap Right Command, press 4 for Note in the default order, and talk through what the chapter or article needs. Tap the key again.
  • YapToText: Writes it as short headings and bullets, action items pulled into a list, nothing added that you did not say.
  • Check: The outline is in the material sheet. The next take goes back to Auto, so your draft is not outlined by mistake.

Auto mode never turns speech into a list on its own; end a take with as a bullet list when you want one without switching modes. For a chapter you spoke into your phone, the Transcribe a file card on the Utility page turns the recording into text on your Mac, with Copy and Insert; the Voice Memos guide walks through it.

If a take does not land in Ulysses

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; a take started there goes to the app you used just before, or to the clipboard. Press Command V in the sheet.
  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 Ulysses 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 Ulysses.
  4. Pin a method. If pasting misbehaves, choose Add App Override under Per-app method in Settings, Advanced, pick Ulysses and keep Type character-by-character.
  5. Fix a mark. If a mark comes out as a word, one-word names need insert in front, and two-word names fire at the end of a clause.
  6. Find a lost take. If it landed in the wrong sheet, 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 Ulysses. It types where the cursor is. It does not make sheets or groups, move around the library, set goals or export; its spoken commands are punctuation, emoji and snippets.
  • Promise markup. It can type a hash or an asterisk, but how Ulysses reads a dictated tag is untested, so the keyboard is the sure way to mark up.
  • 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.
  • 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 Ulysses; the markup and the second draft are still yours.

The short version

  • Short passages. Apple Dictation, which Ulysses's help says is what it uses, free, with pauses under 30 seconds.
  • Long drafts. YapToText: click into the sheet, tap Right Command, talk, tap again. Press 2 for your exact words.
  • Markup. Dictate the words, then Command B, Command I or typed hashes. Insert hashtag types a hash, untested as a title.
  • Edits and outlines. Quick Edit on a selection, and Note mode in a material sheet that stays out of your goal.

Click into the sheet, talk the draft, and do the writing in the edit.

Writing a book in another app? The Scrivener guide covers the same ground there. If something here does not match what you see in Ulysses, 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

Does Ulysses have dictation on a Mac?

Ulysses's help says it uses Apple's system Dictation: turn it on in System Settings, Keyboard, Dictation, click into a sheet and press your Dictation shortcut. Any app that types at the cursor, such as YapToText, works in the editor too.

Why does dictation stop in Ulysses?

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.

Can I dictate Markdown headings and bold text in Ulysses?

The surest way is to dictate the words and add the markup with Command B, Command I or typed hashes. With YapToText, insert hashtag types a hash glued to the next word, but how Ulysses reads a dictated tag has not been tested.

Does dictated text count toward a Ulysses writing goal?

Dictated words are ordinary text in the sheet, so a goal should count them like typed words; check the goal after your first take. Ulysses's help says material sheets are left out of goal progress, which makes them a good place for a spoken outline.

Can I edit a passage in Ulysses by voice?

With YapToText, select the passage, tap Right Option, say the change, such as make this shorter, and tap again. The result replaces the selection; check any markup afterwards, because that has not been tested in Ulysses.