Voice Actions

OK, you know your way around the keyboard. But wouldn't it be faster if your tablet could just take dictation? It can. There's a small caveat, however. Voice command isn't perfect, so you'll still end up having to type every once in a while to correct a few mistakes. That said, it's still pretty good.

If you want to use your voice instead of your keyboard, tap the Microphone button on the keyboard.

You should see a screen resembling the one on the right that prompts you to Speak now. Speak a short phrase into your tablet's microphone or a microphone-enabled headset. Your words will be interpreted by Google's voice recognition technology, and your tablet will attempt to type what you've just said.

You may need to clean up anything that was misunderstood by using the keyboard.

Now you can take this feature to the next level. Tap the Microphone key on the Google Search widget on the top left of your Home screen. By default, the words you say here will lead to a Google search; however, some words will trigger a different response. These are called Voice Actions. The words in bold in the examples that follow indicate Voice Actions.

Say “Navigate to Washington, D.C” and you'll see something similar to the image on the left, which will pull up Google Maps and give you navigation directions to Washington, D.C.

Now try saying, “Send email to [someone on your contact list].” You can even get more specific and include a subject and then body message; however, it's usually easier to wait for Gmail to launch and then dictate the message.

Next, send a note to yourself by saying, “Note to self: Buy more raisins at grocery store.”

Or, you could play music by saying, “Listen to Moonlight Sonata.”

Google is adding more Voice Actions all the time, and these commands usually involve easy-to-guess natural language. So if you think a term should be a Voice Action, try saying it.