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Basic Usage

The examples below are just a very small selection of common commands for working with Talon. These are based on the Talon Community user file set.

Mode Switching

Talon has three basic modes by default:

  • In command mode, your speech will be interpreted as commands by default.
  • In dictation mode, your speech will be transcribed as plain text by default (although with some commands, like "comma" etc. for punctuation), similar to traditional speech recognition systems.
  • In sleep mode, Talon will do nothing until it hears a commands that wakes it up.

To keep track of what mode you are in with a visual icon, enable the mode indicator feature in the community repository.

CommandDescription
wake upEnable speech recognition.
talon wakeEnable speech recognition.
go to sleepDisable speech recognition.
talon sleepDisable speech recognition.
dictation modeSwitch to dictation mode.
command modeSwitch to command mode.

Help Commands

CommandDescription
help alphabetshow the spelling alphabet for pressing individual keys
help contextshow all defined commands
help activeshow all currently available commands
help next, help previousgo to the next or previous page of help items if there are a lot
help closehide any open help window again
command historyshow the command history
talon open logopen the talon log for debugging

Dictating Text

Say a formatter then the text. (i.e. say "hello world") to dictate while in command mode

FormatterDescription
sayno special formatting is applied
sentencethe first word is capitalized
titleevery word starts with a capital letter
all downevery word is all lower case
smashno spaces between words
kebabdashes instead of spaces
help formattersshow all available formatters

Customize Talon

These commands will open up a csv in your default text editor that you can edit to customize voice commands without needing to write Talon scripts.

CommandDescription
customize additional wordsadd additional words that Talon will recognize
customize words to replaceremap or reformat words that Talon will recognize
customize alphabetchange the default Talon alphabet
customize websitesadd websites that can be opened with Talon

Working with applications

CommandDescription
focus "app name"say "focus chrome" for example, to switch active window to chrome
running listsee all active applications
launch "app name"say "launch chrome" for example, to open chrome
window closecloses the currently active window

Working with tabs

Command
tab new
tab last
tab next
tab close
tab restore
go tab <number>
go tab final

Working with media

Command
mute
play next
play previous
play

Controlling the Tobii eye tracker

CommandsDescription
run calibrationstart Tobii calibration
control mousetoggle on/off Tobii moving the mouse
zoom mouseToggle Control Mouse (Zoom).
control offTurn the eye tracker off

Working with text

CommandDescription
copy that
control capcopy via the keyboard shortcut using the talon alphabet (cap for c)
paste that
control vestpaste via the keyboard shortcut using the talon alphabet (vest for v)
cut that
undo that
redo that
scratch thatundo Talon dictation

Mouse Commands

CommandDescription
touchsingle click
dukedouble click
trip clicktriple click
draghold down the mouse. Repeat to release
curse yeshides the mouse cursor for eye tracking
curse noshows the mouse cursor
rightyright click

Scrolling

CommandDescription
page downpress the page down key
page uppress the page up key
scroll downscroll down
scroll upscroll up
wheel downscroll down
wheel upscroll up
wheel leftscroll left
wheel gazescroll according to the mouse position
wheel uppercontinually scroll up
wheel downercontinually scroll down
wheel stopstop scrolling