Heidi’s Transcribe feature is used for live clinical sessions. Outside of this, there are four distinct voice input features — Dictate, Session Dictation, Inline Dictation and Mobile Dictation — each suited to different workflows.
💡 Just launched: Dictate — Heidi's new hotkey dictation tool. Press and hold a hotkey to speak text into your EHR, documents, notes, messaging windows, or any other app on your computer, plus inside Heidi. Recommended for every clinician. Read the full Dictate article.
Which feature are you using?
Dictate — you pressed and held a hotkey to transcribe your voice as text. With the Desktop App, this works in any application or text field on your computer (EHR, documents, notes, messaging windows, and more); in a web browser, it works throughout the Heidi platform.
Session Dictation — before starting a session, you clicked the arrow on the green Transcribe button and selected "Dictate". Heidi listens to your voice and generates a word-for-word document when the session ends.
Inline Dictation — inside an open session or existing Note, you clicked the microphone icon in the top-right corner of a text area and dictated directly into that field.
Mobile Dictation — you launched Heidi on your phone (iOS or Android) and selected either the in-app Dictate toggle inside a session, or your device's keyboard microphone to speak directly into any Heidi field.
Dikte
Dictate is Heidi's dedicated hotkey dictation tool. Press and hold a hotkey and your words appear directly in whatever field or document you're working in — available within Heidi in your browser, or across any app on your computer via the Desktop App.
Best for: getting voice-to-text into any screen on your computer, from EHR to messaging apps, email and more, plus inside Heidi — wherever you place your cursor.
💡 Note: Dictate is a desktop feature and is not available on mobile. For mobile voice input, see Mobile Dictation below.
Session Dictation
Session Dictation is used at the start of a clinical session. Before starting, you switch the green Transcribe button into dictation mode — Heidi then produces a word-for-word document from everything you say, which appears in the Note tab when the session ends.
Best for: letters, operative notes and reports — short-form content you're dictating solo. Not recommended for patient sessions; use Transcribe for those.
How to use it
Click the arrow on the green Start Transcribing button
Select Dictating from the dropdown
Speak, then end the session — Heidi generates your document in the Note tab
Template options
Choose between Smart Dictation (structured output) or Word-for-Word (verbatim). Note: templates cannot be applied during the session. If you need to apply or adjust a template, do so once the session is complete.
Audio storage
By default, audio is not stored after a session. When using Session Dictation, you can opt in to Dictation Playback before starting — this saves your audio recording so you can replay it after the session.
Things to know
Session Dictation works best for solo dictation — for patient sessions, use Transcribe instead.
Templates for Session Dictation are only available after the initial dictation document is created. To produce a templated note from the first output, use Transcribe.
The output appears as a verbatim script in the Note tab, similar to traditional dictation software.
Inline Dictation
Inline Dictation lets you speak directly into the Note or Context fields in Heidi. It's accessed via the microphone icon inside these tabs.
Best for: adding voice to text inside an existing Note or in the Context tab in Heidi. Available in the browser and desktop app.
How to use it
Open the Note or Context tab in an existing session
Click the microphone icon in the top-right corner of the text area
Speak — text appears in real time
Click the microphone icon again to stop
Template options
Smart Dictation and Word-for-Word are both available when using Inline Dictation.
Things to know
The microphone icon appears in the top-right corner of the Note and Context tabs.
In the Note tab, the icon only becomes operable once Heidi has generated a note for the session.
The icon is not available in other text fields — for those, use Dictate instead.
There is no audio storage for Inline Dictation.
Mobile Dictation
Mobile Dictation covers the two voice input paths available on Heidi's iOS and Android apps: in-app Session Dictation (which works the same way as on desktop and generates a word-for-word document) and your device's keyboard microphone (which dictates directly into any Heidi text field).
Best for: dictating between visits or anywhere away from your desk — anything that would otherwise need you back at a computer.
Session Dictation on mobile
Session Dictation is available on both iOS and Android.
Open the Heidi app and open or create a session
Use the Transcribe / Dictate toggle at the top of the screen to select Dictate
Tap the microphone button to begin — tap Smart Dictation at the bottom to switch between Smart Dictation and Word-for-Word Dictation
Tap the stop button when done — Heidi generates your document in the Dictation tab.
Keyboard dictation
Both iOS and Android have a built-in keyboard microphone you can use to dictate directly into any text field in Heidi, including Note and Context fields.
Tap into any text field in Heidi to bring up your keyboard
Tap the microphone icon on your keyboard
Speak — your words appear directly in the field
Keyboard dictation is enabled by default on both iOS and Android, and can be toggled on/off in your respective device’s Settings.
Things to know
Dictate (the hotkey feature) is not available on mobile — use one of the two paths above for mobile voice input.
Keyboard dictation uses your device's built-in dictation, not Heidi's. Accuracy depends on your device, not Heidi's clinical voice model.
For patient sessions on mobile, use Transcribe — Dictation is for solo voice-to-text.