CKEditor Speech+ Voice Editor Plugin

A full-featured text / HTML editor in the browser now with speech recognition. Even better, Speech+ has voice-operated editing commands for nearly hands-free editing. CKEditor with Speech+ is perfect for mobile, library, and school computers that don't allow software to be installed. We use it all the time.

Now available on GitHub.

Using Voice Commands

Press the maximize Alt+M button in the toolbar for an ad-free experience.

Or click the microphone or press Alt+D and say "maximize."
Highlight text with the mouse and start talking to change it.
Say "whoops", "undo", or "what's" to undo mistakes.
Press Ctrl+A or say "select all" to select the page and press Ctrl+C to copy.
To post to HTML forums, click the Source button and copy and paste from there.
Say "file open" or press Ctrl+O to open a local file for editing.
Say "file save" or press Ctrl+S to save the file locally to disk.* (See warnings)

Try it.

More Spoken Commands

Spoken Command	Action
make a link to	<a href="
with link text	">...</a>
whoops (or undo)	undo recent edits
maximize	expand editor
select all	select all text
select [spoken text]	find and select spoken text
delete that	delete selection
backspace	delete a character to the left of selection
beginning of line	move cursor to the beginning of the line
beginning of document	move cursor to the beginning of the document
end of line	move cursor to the end of the line
end of document	move cursor to the end of the document
mute	turn off microphone

Hotkeys

Command	Hotkey
Start dictation:	`Alt`+`D`
Dictation help:	`Alt`+`F1`
Remove format:	`Alt`+`Shift`+`F`
Right justify:	`Alt`+`Shift`+`R`
Left justify:	`Alt`+`Shift`+`L`
Center:	`Alt`+`Shift`+`E`
Source:	`Ctrl`+`Enter`
Create link:	`Ctrl`+`Shift`+`L`
Maximize:	`Ctrl`+`M`

Features

There's no question online voice dictation can speed up productivity. Of all the FREE voice dictation apps we tested, ListNote and the Speechkeys voice typing keyboard (links to the Android play store) stood out as some of the best, but they all left something to be desired. Using a PC is better for posting complex responses to the forums with formulas and references, but we wanted a "zero installation" web page editing app for use on locked tablets and library computers that restrict downloads of new software. Now we can have a fully-functional text / HTML editing notepad with voice dictation in a web page.

Having already authored FreeSpeech, a real-time dictation application for Linux desktop PCs, it was time to bring that experience to the web. Like many others, we chose to use The Web Speech API. The API is not designed to compete with dictation applications like DragonNaturally(TM) Speaking, and many applications based on it attest to this fact; however, when we combined it with CKEditor's powerful HTML editor and added the following features, we made it quite usable. The hands-free voice commands are a big improvement.

CKEditor's hundreds of features.
Fixes Android's missing Undo button.
Skips on-screen keyboard, so it doesn't hog the screen.
Improves Google's buggy auto-capitalization and spacing.
Spend less time editing and more time dictating.
Automatically chooses language from browser settings.
Autosaves to temporary local storage. Never lose work.
Loading and saving of basic HTML documents.*
Permits simultaneous editing and dictation.

*Note: CKEditor is a friendly WYSIWYG editor, not a true source code editor. It automatically reformats the source in ways that advanced users may not prefer.

Spoken Symbols

period = .
comma = ,
exclamation point = !
question mark = ?
colon = :
semicolon = ;
HTTP colon slash slash = http://
HTTPS colon slash slash = https://
apostrophe = '
tab key = \t
ellipses = ...
ampersand = &
asterisk = *
at sign = @
at symbol = @
backslash = \
open bracket = [
close bracket = ]
open parentheses = (
close parentheses = )
less.than symbol = <
greater.than symbol = >
open quote = "
close quote = "
open curly quote = “
close curly quote = ”
long dash = —
short dash = -
degrees Farenheit, °F
degrees Celcius, °C
Hashtag stuff = #stuff
Five dollars = $5
Copyright symbol = ©
Registered symbol = ®
trademark symbol = ™

Support and Development

Copying. CKEditor and our accompanying speech plugin runs in a web page. As such, web pages may be saved, modified, and re-used. It would be a simple matter to obtain CKEditor and serve it from a web server along with a mirrored copy of our speech plug-in. In fact, it would be nearly impossible to prevent that from happening.

As of this writing, the HTML5 standard Web Speech API employed by this editor requires at least Firefox 49, Chrome 33, or Edge, but support for other browsers may become available as it is in development. If Chrome does not remember the permissions of the microphone, try going to the secure site. If speech recognition does not work, it may be used as a regular notepad text editor. The editor works even while offline, but browser security may prevent JavaScript from running from a locally-saved copy. CKEditor may be served by a web server such as a local intranet if it is to be adapted strictly for offline use, or behind a firewall, such as a classroom environment. In addition, Chrome-based browsers and apps would need to communicate with Google servers (or a locally-hosted facsimile) to decode the speech information. Offline support for the Web Speech API for Chrome or fall over to the operating system's default speech recognition engine is rumored to be in development, however. Try updating.

We owe a debt to the creators of CKEditor, the makers of JavaScript, our great educational institutions, and those who have supported us over the years, and so we have to charge for our time, but we would be more than happy to help. By all means, please let us know if you want more commands or customizations, or if you want to hire us to speech-enable your website. :)

If you appreciate this plugin, as little as a dollar a month will help with development.

Privacy notice

Editing and saving occur locally on your computer, but Chrome's speech API sends recorded speech to remote servers to enable real-time speech recognition. A warning should pop up asking for permission to use the microphone. Our server does not retrieve or store any of your audio, but we have no control over what Chrome's API does with your voice recordings. We do not recommend using it for sensitive information that does not belong on public servers. Other browsers like Firefox maintain offline speech recognition solutions.

Third-party networks may occasionally display advertising on our pages. These advertisers may use pixels, cookies, or other targeting techniques to serve ads based on interests. The Network Advertising Initiative provides an opt-out tool to prevent the collection and local temporary storage of ad targeting information. Understand that opting out does not prevent or block ads as ad blockers do. It merely makes them less relevant.

If flash is enabled, some third-party ads may use Flash cookies to collect and store information (again, locally) for purposes similar to the above.