Ever wish you could just say your essay aloud and have Microsoft Word write it out for you?

Well, now you can, with a new app called Dictate. Microsoft has released the add-in for not only Word, but also Outlook and Powerpoint. It uses Cortana's speech-recognition technology to offer speech-to-text functionality. In other words, you simply speak what you want to type. But Dictate is not the first app to offer dictation. Goole already offers a similar experience in Google Docs, for instance.

Office also supported voice-to-text typing before now. Dictate just adds some new features, including support for 20 languages and new editing commands such as "new line", "delete", and "stop dictation. Another cool feature is real-time translation into over 60 languages. So, you could say something in English and have it immediately translated in French, Spanish, or whatever else you want.

Dictate is available for 32- and 64-bit Office. You must be running at least Windows 8.1. It's also free to download and use. Keep in mind this app, which is from Microsoft's experimental Garage unit, follows the release of Microsoft Office via the Windows Store for the first time.