AudioPen for writers
Write your first draft by talking.
Your best lines show up on a walk, not at the keyboard. AudioPen is a voice to text app for writers who draft by speaking. Talk through an article, a chapter or a newsletter, and it turns the ramble into a clean draft in your own style. Or voice type straight into Google Docs, Scrivener or Word.
Free to start. Loved by over 200,000 people.
The slow part
Why writers draft by speaking
You usually know what you want to say. Getting it down is the slow part. Typing makes you edit before the thought is finished. The draft dies before it starts.
Talk instead. Ramble, circle back, follow the tangent. AudioPen transcribes everything, then reshapes it into a clean draft with your points in order. From a head full of ideas to a page of text in the time it takes to walk around the block.
Day to day
How writers use voice to text
Draft on the move
Dictate the rough version of an article or a chapter while you walk. The structured draft is waiting when you sit down.Beat the blank page
Talk through what you want to say first. Editing a real draft is far easier than starting from nothing.Catch the idea before it goes
The line that arrives mid sentence rarely survives until you find a keyboard. Speak it into AudioPen and keep it.
Before you pick an app
What to look for in dictation software for writers
Most dictation apps are judged on clean sentences: accuracy, filler words, punctuation. That matters. But a writer who drafts by speaking needs more than clean sentences, because a walk produces a ramble, not a draft. Check for these four things.
A draft, not a transcript
Speech comes out in the order you thought of it. AudioPen puts your points in order and shapes them into paragraphs, so you edit a draft instead of untangling a transcript.Your voice, not the app's
Look for a style built from your own writing, not a tone preset. In AudioPen you add a few paragraphs of your own prose as a custom style, and drafts come back in your phrasing. Custom styles work on the free plan.Your exact words, kept
A rewrite should never cost you the line you said. AudioPen keeps the original transcript beside every rewritten note, so you can lift a phrase word for word.Room for a long piece
Books and long articles get built over days. Record in sessions, and on Prime SuperSummaries merges the notes into one document.
It still sounds like you
Dictation that writes in your own style
Upload a sample of your own writing and AudioPen learns how you put words together. Your phrasing, your rhythm, your habits. The draft comes back sounding like you wrote it on a good day.
You decide how far it goes. Ask it to fix the grammar and leave your prose alone. Ask it to restructure a messy note so it flows. Your words, just organized.
Voice typing, in any style
Dictate straight into Google Docs or Scrivener
You do not have to record a note and copy it over. Put your cursor in Google Docs, Scrivener, Notion, or wherever you write, and talk. The words land right there.
Talk the way you think. Start mid-thought, circle back, change your mind halfway through. AudioPen types your exact words when you want them, or writes it up in a style you pick, right at your cursor.
“okay so the opening, um, start with the bread, the smell of the bread, no wait, actually first the thing about her never measuring anything, like she just never measured, and then the bread, and how you'd, how the whole street would know she was baking before you even got to her door”
My grandmother never measured a thing. And you always knew when she was baking. The smell of bread drifted down the whole street long before you reached her door.
Works in any app, on every device: a hotkey on Mac and Windows, the AudioPen keyboard on iPhone and iPad, and a floating bubble on Android.
One recording
Turn one voice note into an article or a chapter
Take the same recording and shape it into an article, a newsletter, a chapter draft, or a set of posts for LinkedIn or X. On Prime, restyle a note you saved last month into something new. Writing about your own life? Here is how to write a memoir by talking.
Speak in one language and write in another. Whatever language you draft in, AudioPen works in it, and the language you speak does not have to be the language you publish in.
Rewrite level
You control the rewrite
Choose how heavy the edit should be. Keep it close to your exact words, or let AudioPen polish everything.
“Okay, so, um, I've been stuck on chapter nine for like two weeks and I think I finally know what's wrong. The scene where Nora finds the letter happens too early, it, it gives away the twist before the reader cares about her brother. So I want to move it to the end of chapter eleven. Before that, you know, I need a quiet scene at the lake house where Nora and Daniel argues about selling it. And chapter nine should be shorter, maybe 3,000 words instead of 5,000. I'm going to draft the lake scene tomorrow morning and send the new outline to Ellen by Friday.”
Rewrite level
Retains structure where possible, rewritten in your chosen style
Create your own style
Ask AudioPen to write like your favorite author. Or give it a sample of your own writing, and it will match your voice. If you can describe a style, AudioPen can write in it.
I've been stuck on chapter nine for two weeks, and I think I know why. Nora finds the letter too early, giving away the twist before the reader cares about her brother. I'll move it to the end of chapter eleven, after a quiet lake house scene where Nora and Daniel argue about selling. Chapter nine should drop from 5,000 words to 3,000. I'll draft the lake scene tomorrow morning and send Ellen the new outline by Friday.
Free to start, on every device.
Where it lives
Voice to text on Mac, Windows and iPhone
Draft on the couch, on a walk, or at your desk. On Mac and Windows you can voice type straight into Google Docs, Scrivener, or Notion, and on iPhone the AudioPen keyboard does the same thing in any app. If your thoughts race ahead of your fingers, the brain dump workflow works for drafts too.
- Web appAny browser
- MacVoice type in any app
- WindowsVoice type in any app
- iPhoneApp and voice keyboard
- iPadApp and voice keyboard
- Apple WatchRecord from your wrist
- AndroidApp and floating bubble
- ChromeBrowser extension
One Prime account covers all of them. Your notes sync across every device, so whatever you capture on one is waiting on the next.
This is by far the greatest and most useful tool I have ever had! I have severe ADHD and it’s able to translate my rambling into a well written and concise note. I feel more organized and less anxious!
I love it. Once AudioPen knows my style, everything I write sounds like me, but better.
I used to manually summarize my transcribed brainstorming sessions. Took hours. AudioPen automates everything to the point where I am almost done with my article after talking about a topic for 10min. Magic.
I use AudioPen mainly as a way of clearing my mind.
I am a natural speaker. My ideas flow faster when I speak. I record my voice notes and with my accent, it is perfect all the time.
Testimonials
Loved by people who think out loud
Read what real users have to say about AudioPen.
No product has fundamentally changed the way I work over the last 12 months more than Audiopen. Home Screen on iPhone.
I can now create 95% of my blog posts and have minimal editing. In my tone of voice. This saves so much time
I’ve been using AudioPen to talk through my ideas, have them summarized and then use the summarization as a draft for blog posts. 13 out of 10. Highly recommend for the “blank page” problem.
This is probably the best product I’ve come across in the past 18 months. So useful and it just keeps getting better.
Simple, but effective. The best tool to convert rambling into structured text, while keeping what you rambled intact.
I freakin love AudioPen.ai. If you are not using it yet, get on it.
Most helpful AI tool = audiopen. Been using it daily to do things like: turn voicenotes into action items, content ideas (magic for this), summarize calls, giving feedback. The UI is also so clean that it’s an absolute joy to use.
You speak to it as thoughts come in. It stitches a fine narrative from the rant. Writers can edit a ‘wrong’ page, not a ‘blank’ page. AudioPen gets you to 90% and then you do the rest.
OH MY GOSH. I just learned about AudioPen today, and it’s already a GAME CHANGER. If you write, create, or do any serious thinking, this tool is for you.
This is one tool that has dramatically changed the way I think. It has allowed me to get the thoughts out of my head and down on paper.
I can’t say enough good things about the AudioPen app. It’s been my go-to app for getting ideas down without having to type. Not only does it arrange even the most inarticulate nonsense into readable sentences, it’s the best dictation app I’ve ever used.
I’ve been writing online for over 10 years and tried virtually every writing app, productivity, note-taking, and idea-capture system out there. Nothing comes close to the amount of time AudioPen saves me.
Best buy in 2023: AudioPen from @louispereira. Hats off.
Switched from Superwhisper to Audiopen Mac App within 20 minutes of using the Mac App.
Tried it out, and paid for the prime version because it is SO good and simple to use. The product has made it so much easier to track my various thoughts throughout my day.
AudioPen is able to clear my spoken thoughts into text in Estonian, one of the most complicated languages in the world! Shut Up And Take My Money!
Already not sure what I did before I had AudioPen. If you often have thoughts you want to capture in writing, check it out. Cost is super reasonable too.
Questions
Everything you might want to know
Straight answers to the questions people ask before they start.