I am having some problems with the Dictation tool in Microsoft Word and I'm hoping somebody can help me out. I have used it for some time now to write articles as it's much quicker than my typing abilities. However, it has recently started to struggle and I can't find out why.

Normally, when dictating the text appears as grey and then when you pause it adds any punctuation and turns black. at the moment it is showing as grey and then usually times out before it has finalised the text. This means I can only do one sentence at a time as it then forgets the first bit that I had dictated.

I am using an external microphone that is connected through a USB cable. I have tested this in other apps and there are absolutely no problems. It only seems to be happening in Word. I have also checked that my internet speeds are fine so this shouldn't be the problem either. I've also done all the fixes and updates that I can possibly find to make sure that everything is up to date.



I am now completely out of ideas and it is driving me mad as it has significantly harmed my productivity levels. Please can someone offer some solutions about why this might be happening and what I can do to put it right again, as I can't think of anything that has changed to make the problem start.