Guides

Reading the recorder badge

At the left of the record bar on the Mac, SpeakWith shows two short lines in a small monospaced typeface. The first identifies the build you are running. The second tracks your dictation over time. The diagram below walks through each segment.

Annotated diagram of the SpeakWith recorder badge. Line one reads SpeakWith 2.14.0 Pro (app=eng 20260923.10): the app name, version, edition, and the build stamp shared by the app and its engine. Line two reads 9,834w, 1,770s, 51,368c, 0.7% wer, 0.1% st: words, sentences, and characters dictated since the last reset, then the share of words you corrected and the share your special terms corrected.

The first line: which build you are running

The line starts with the app name, its version, and the edition. The edition reads Pro on a direct download, or MAS if you installed SpeakWith from the Mac App Store.

The part in parentheses is the build stamp: the build date, then the build number for that day. The app and its transcription engine are stamped together, so they normally show one value. If they ever differ, the line shows both, which is the first thing to mention if you write in about a problem.

The second line: your dictation tally

The three counts are words, sentences, and characters you have dictated since the last reset, across all sessions. The s stands for sentences, not seconds.

The two percentages use the word count as their denominator. The correction rate (wer) is the share of dictated words you went back and changed, a personal stand-in for WER (Word Error Rate). It only counts corrections you actually made, so the true error rate may be higher. The special-terms rate (st) is the share of words that your own special terms corrected: names, terminology, and words you pronounce your own way, which the recognizer would otherwise get wrong.

Hiding, resetting, and reading more

There is no visible control on the badge itself; the space belongs to the Record, Flush, and Power buttons. Long-press anywhere on the badge to open the About window. About holds the switch that hides or shows the tally, the reset that starts the counts again from zero, and a correction rate measured on reviewed lines only.

In the app, hover over any segment of the badge to see the same explanation as a tooltip. The values in the diagram are sample values.