Voice commands: Say a Line Break or Symbol When You Mean It

Sometimes layout is part of what you want to say. A deliberate line break can separate an address, and an exclamation mark can make a short message read as intended. Voice commands replace enabled phrases in recognized text with their configured result.

These are text commands, not controls for navigating macOS. They can operate in Exactly as spoken without an AI formatting pass, or alongside a formatted style.

Enable both the style and the command

• Open a style's Rewrite and enable Voice commands. It defaults off for each style; your saved choices may differ.
• Open Voice commands in the sidebar and inspect the Command, Phrases and Enabled columns.
• Enable the command row you want. One row's switch controls all of its phrase aliases.
• Under Try it, enter a sentence in Dictated text and click Try it to inspect the replacement.
• Select the enabled style and use Today's Start listening for a short real example; check the resulting text.

For global shortcut recording into another app, use Default style to select your command-enabled style for unmatched destinations or link it under Linked apps or Linked websites. Linked matches take priority. A selected card alone does not set the global recording style; verify that the destination-selected style has Voice commands enabled.

The initial command registry enables line breaks, new paragraphs, exclamation marks, question marks, dollar signs and percent signs. Commas, periods, colons, semicolons, at and hash signs, parentheses and quotes start disabled. Those registry choices have no recording effect until the style's Voice commands switch is enabled.

For example, with the relevant commands enabled, test “See you tomorrow exclamation mark next line Thanks.” The intended transformation inserts ! and a line break. The typed preview tests command replacement; it does not test whether the speech model will recognize your recording correctly.

Add a phrase you can distinguish from prose

Choose Add command, enter a Result, add the spoken wording under Add phrase, choose Language, then Save. Pressing Enter in the Result field inserts a line break. Edit lets you adjust an existing command's phrases.

Prefer a phrase you are unlikely to use accidentally in ordinary sentences. If the app rejects a save, check duplicate enabled phrases, reserved phrases and the displayed validation feedback. Keep the phrase and result short; the manager has size limits.

Preserve a command phrase as words

Use the literal escape when you want to discuss a command rather than invoke it. The interface's example is “literal next line” producing the words “next line”; Korean uses “문자 그대로 다음 줄.” Try that behavior in the preview before relying on it in a longer recording.

If a command did not fire, check the style switch, row switch and recognized phrase. If ordinary wording was replaced unexpectedly, disable that row or choose a more distinctive alias. See the Voice commands instructions, Exactly as spoken, and custom rules for related text controls.