Potok transcribes Russian speech; this site has been translated into English for convenience.
Word online has built-in dictation: Home → Dictate, available to Microsoft 365 subscribers. Russian on that list is a preview language, and Microsoft warns that such languages may be recognized less accurately and with limited punctuation support. For dictation without these limits in any browser field, Potok (potok.now) fits, with a response time of about 0.4 seconds.
Word Online can accept voice without third-party programs, but for Russian the built-in dictation does not work as smoothly as for English. Let us look at what exactly Word Dictate can do and when its limits are not enough.
What built-in input in Word online can do
Word, including the web version, has a built-in Dictate function. It opens through Home → Dictate wherever you work: in Word Online, in the app for Windows or Mac. The function is available to Microsoft 365 subscribers; older versions of Word also support dictation, but with limits. On Windows you can resume dictation after a pause with Alt+` (Alt+grave accent), on a Mac with Option (⌥)+F1. Russian on this list is a preview language: according to the official Microsoft help, such languages may be recognized less accurately and with limited punctuation support, which means the result for Russian is not guaranteed to be as accurate as for the main languages on the list. If voice input via Win+H stopped working in desktop Word, see the article about the voice input error in Word.
What changes with Potok
Potok does not split languages into main and preview ones: Russian is a working language for it, with its own model trained for it. You hold the hotkey (Ctrl+Space by default), speak, release, and the text appears where the cursor was, whether it is Word Online in a browser, desktop Word or any other program. Punctuation and capital letters are placed automatically, you do not need to dictate them separately. There is no need to install Potok separately from a Microsoft 365 subscription: it works as a separate program for any text field, not only for Word.
- Platforms
- Windows, macOS, Linux
- Free
- Free: 2500 words per week; full access for the first 14 days, no card needed
- Pro
- Pro 690 ₽/mo, 499 ₽/mo when paid yearly
- Payment
- Russian bank cards, rubles
- Where speech is recognized
- cloud, servers in Russia; internet required
Potok is a cloud service: speech is recognized on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet. Download: potok.now/download
When Word's built-in input is enough
If you are already a Microsoft 365 subscriber and dictate mostly in one of the main languages on the list, and not in a language from the preview section, Word's built-in Dictate may be enough. Potok is a cloud service, recognition runs on servers in Russia; it does not work without the internet. It has no voice commands for editing text: it inserts speech as text, and editing has to be done by hand. There are no mobile apps either, only a desktop version for Windows, macOS and Linux. For how dictation fares in other office programs, see the article about voice input in Excel.
Frequently asked questions
Because Russian is a preview language in the Word list. According to Microsoft's official help, such languages may be recognized less accurately and with limited punctuation support, unlike the main languages on the list.
Any microphone that the system sees as a recording device will do. In Potok you select it in the app settings or in the tray icon menu; system access to the microphone is required.
Potok states about 900 characters per minute by voice against about 200 when typing, roughly 4 times faster. This is a product estimate, not an independent measurement.
By a model estimate, the average dictation speed through Potok is about 900 characters per minute against roughly 200 characters per minute in ordinary typing, so speech is noticeably faster than a keyboard.
Yes: Windows has built-in voice input by Win+H (Russian only in Windows 11, Windows 10 has no Russian; it does not work without the internet), and on a Mac there is system dictation in the keyboard settings. Both are free.
Built-in system tools (Win+H in Windows, Dictation in macOS, Voice Typing in Google Docs, Gboard on Android), voice browser extensions, and also specialized desktop and web services (Potok and analogs) that work over any app through a hotkey.
How to start
Potok is available for Windows, macOS and Linux. For two weeks everything is open for free, after that 2500 words per week without paying. Potok is a cloud service: speech is recognized on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet.
Download PotokOne subscription, two tools: dictation in any program on your computer and @potok_now_bot in Telegram, which transcribes voice messages, audio and video.
Built-in dictation and Potok
| Tool | Where it works | Russian language | Where speech is recognized |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows voice typing (Win+H) | Windows 10 and 11 | Windows 11 only | Microsoft cloud, does not work offline |
| macOS Dictation | macOS | yes | on the device or on Apple servers |
| Potok | Windows, macOS, Linux | primary language | cloud, servers in Russia, does not work offline |
| Task | Characters | Typing (200 chars/min) | Voice (900 chars/min) |
|---|---|---|---|
| chat reply | 300 | 2 min | 0.5 min |
| 1500 | 8 min | 1.7 min | |
| post or meeting minutes | 4000 | 20 min | 4.4 min |
| article | 10000 | 50 min | 11.1 min |
Primary sources: www.microsoft.com · support.microsoft.com