Copy This allows using speech-to-text anywhere on your Windows Phone

Well it’s not Siri obviously, but Copy This offers a very interesting speech-to-text functionality for Windows Phone 8 devices. It’s been in the Store since a while, but we recently discovered it or found a mention somewhere.

The app allows you to quickly speak text directly to the clipboard on your phone. You can launch the app from anywhere on your phone with your voice. Once the app is launched, you can say any text you want and your words will be copied to the clipboard. 

The app provides interesting functionality you can use all across the board. If the app you want to type some text in – a tweet, a comment, or maybe a note - you can use Copy This to speak the message instead of typing it.

All you need to do is press and hold the Windows key on your phone, and say, ‘Copy this to clipboard’. Say the words you want to send in the message after the beep. The spoken words would be copied to the clipboard and the app would exit automatically. In the app you prefer, you can Paste the text from the Clipboard. Pretty seamless!

You can download this neat app from the Windows Phone Store. It costs $0.99 only, although the trial is fully-functional with ads.

QR: Copy This

Abhishek Baxi
49 Comments
  • Indigo.
  • Maluuba. jejeje
  • Does indigo do this?
  • Yup
  • This is a feature that should be BUILT IN to Windows Phone by now.  Why doesn't Bing have this functionality?
  • True that we really need speech to text everywhere with better app support for speech and we defiantly need better speech accuracy on xbox!
  • Yes, we are defiant! We will defiantly demand it!
  • ^This made me lol^ Grammar police never sleep!!!
  • This wouldn't have happened if there was a speech to text option... ... Think about it :O
  • Wow - mind blown!
  • ...never sleeps... XD
  • Guess we're getting built in voice support with Cortana.
  • Certainly hope so! :)
  • I guess it's another thing to add to the Windows Phone 8.1 wishlist. Perhaps this will be a feature of the long rumored Cortana?
  • Note this is the same dev who does Simple Calendar
  • Nice app
  • Just wait for Cortana. ;)
  • Now if there was only a way to use speech commands without attracting the attention of/disturbing everyone within a 500m radius with the full volume click noise from my phone.  
  • This^
  • Lmao
  • Wow, this is actually super handy. I wish WP had it built in so it'd be quicker.
  • I just don't use speech to text. Its just easier to type it. Maybe because it's just not polished enough on any platform. Just have to wait then it won't recognize your words. Maybe in 5 more years when the tech is there.
  • Much easier to use speech-to-text while driving than physically typing. It's also illegal in most US states to text and drive, or even talk with cell phone in one hand and drive with the other.
  • It seems pretty crappy at picking up words in Australia. Its a lot more configured for the US I reckon
  • +1 I always had to put on a fake US accent and really over-pronounce my r's to get it to work. The stupid thing is the voice responds back in a nice English accent, but only seems to accept US-English pronunciations (shudder).
  • It gets better the more you use it. I use mine more often and it works just fine (I have a slight Latin accent) but a friend's doesn't work as well. I even trained it to dial the right person when I say "Call My Sister."
  • +920
  • Neat app. Would like to try this out.
  • Doesnt works...it sucks
  • Yes it does. Restart your phone. Will work after that ;)
  • tried that, doesn't work on my 620. When the phone distinguishes between "copy" and "coffee", it just does a Bing search instead of launching the app. If I say "start copy this" it starts the app, but only to that info screen as if it had been started from the app list. Glad I could try before I buy, as I really want this functionality but it's 100% nonfunctional.
  • NOT WORKING it sucks really
  • Just your phone or you. Works for the rest of us.
  • maybe phone anyway I have English(India) in speech settings is due to settings it doesn't work or any suggestions.
  • Set speech language to UK or US, it doesn't recognize if set to India
  • whichone is better English(US) or English(UK) as I am living in India  
  • I have set it UK and it works well.
  • Lol @ people who talk to robots.
  • I really wish the keyboard had a speech function.
    You should nit have to build it into every app.
    Of course, I wish there was swipe for windows phone (I mean, come on, swipe was for windows mobile, first).
    I also wish that the keyboard had dual-stage buttons, so we don't have to ho back and forth for numbers and symbols.
  • I use an app called "Copy" It lets you copy predefined strings into the clipboard. For example I could say "Copy my email" and it will put my email into the clipboard. It's by JBen Software. Here's a link if you want to get it: http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=bdeb690d-62a9-4ebf-8f6c-d89522f7df42 And no, I'm not the developer of this app.
  • Lots of people geniunely don't like voice on smartphones (I'm talking about those who tried it and didn't like it, not those who keeps complaining and making fun of it without ever trying), but this is among the glaring misses of WP smartphones.
    There's this very neat look into Android and iOS features, and they work surprizingly well and fluidly.
    Here's to hope WP will have something like that soon. Hijacking the post to talk about the voice activated personal assistant feature, sorry about that.
  • This is great! I just wish there was something to let me add my email address to the dictionary in Windows Phone 8...so I don't have to keep typing it out all of the time! Anyone know of anything?
  • Hmm, usually "misspelled" words are underlined and you can tap on them to bring up options. One of those is the same word with a plus sign. I believe that will add it to your personal list of words. Does the @ symbol cause a problem?
  • Yes the @ symbol doesn't allow it to show up with the + before it in the dictionary...my past phones had a direct way to add words to the dictionary...don't know why that was left out of Windows Phone
  • Bummer.
  • I just speak into a new text and copy the text if I want to use voice-to-text where it isn't available. Guess this takes away 1 step.
  • I would be happy if they just added my language to speech-to-text, as of now it is pretty useless for a large part of the world.
  • Anyone using this on an HTC 8X?  it just goes off to do a search on bing everytime
     
  • Not working for Spanish, therefore useless to me. Also, even if it did, the trigger sentence is a bit too long for the app to be useful, isn't it??