How do I use Smart Formatting & Backtrack

Dictate numbered lists, insert exact punctuation, or fix mistakes mid-sentence. Smart Formatting structures your text automatically, and Backtrack lets you correct yourself without stopping.

How to enable Smart Formatting

How to use Smart Formatting and Backtrack

Context-aware formatting

When your cursor is mid-sentence, Flow lowercases the start of your dictation so it flows naturally with the surrounding text. At the start of a sentence, text stays capitalized. Flow also adds spaces before and after your dictation as needed.

In messaging apps, Flow removes trailing periods for a more casual feel. Supported native messaging apps include Messages (macOS), WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, Telegram, Signal, Microsoft Teams, WeChat, Line, Lark, Google Chat, Beeper, and Texts. Messenger, Instagram, X (Twitter), Facebook, and Reddit are detected in web browsers only.

Trailing-period removal applies when:

• The current line has no existing period, exclamation mark, or question mark.

• No text is selected.

• Your Writing Style allows it (see below).

Behavior by Writing Style:

• No Writing Style set (default): trailing periods are removed for short dictations (up to two sentences) in detected messaging apps.

• Casual: trailing-period removal applies in any app, for shorter dictations.

• Very Casual: trailing-period removal applies in any app, with no length limit.

• Formal: trailing periods are always kept, in all apps (including messaging apps).

• Only trailing periods are removed — exclamation marks and question marks are always kept. Removal is suppressed if your dictation exceeds the length allowed by your Writing Style.

Multilingual formatting

Smart Formatting supports an expanded set of languages, including Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Cantonese, and Russian, in addition to previously supported languages.

Creating lists

Use numbers or sequence words ("one… two…" or "first… second…") to create a list automatically.

Inserting punctuation

Flow handles most punctuation automatically. Say a punctuation mark by name when you need exact control. Exact phrasing isn't critical — common variants are recognized.

• Period: "period" or "full stop"

• Comma, question mark, exclamation point

• Colon and semicolon

• Dash, em dash: "em-dash", "em dash", or "emdash"

• Quotation mark: say "quotation mark" instead of "end quote" for best results

• Apostrophe: "apostrophe" or "single quote"

• Asterisk: "asterisk" or "star"

• Ampersand: "ampersand"

• Percent sign: "percent sign", "per cent", or "percentage symbol"

• Ellipsis: "ellipsis"

• Slash: "slash", "forward slash", "per", or "divided by"

• Backslash: "backslash"

• Underscore: "underscore"

• Hashtag: "hashtag" or "hash"

• Tilde: "tilde"

• At symbol: "at", "at sign", or "at symbol"

• Angle brackets: "angle bracket", "greater-than sign", or "less-than sign"

• Parentheses: "open parenthesis", "close parenthesis", "open paren", "close paren", or "brackets"

• Plus sign: "plus" or "plus sign"

• Minus sign: "minus" or "negative"

• Equals sign: "equals" or "equals sign"

• Trademark: "trademark" or "tm"

• Registered trademark: "registered trademark"

• Copyright: "copyright" or "copyright symbol"

• Degree symbol: "degree sign" or "degree symbol"

• Degrees Celsius: "degrees celsius" or "degrees centigrade"

• Degrees Fahrenheit: "degrees fahrenheit" or "degrees f"

• New line: "new line", "next line", or "line break"

• New paragraph: "new paragraph"

Press Enter (desktop only)

Say "press enter" at the end of your dictation to simulate pressing the Enter key after your text is pasted. The phrase is only detected at the end of a dictation — saying it mid-sentence leaves it intact in your text.

Trailing punctuation is handled intelligently: both "Hello world press enter." and "Hello world. Press enter." produce Hello world. followed by Enter. If "press enter" is the entire utterance, no text is pasted but Enter is still pressed.

The first time Flow detects "press enter," it removes the phrase from your text but does not press Enter. An in-app prompt then asks if you'd like to enable the feature:

• Great: enables Press Enter. Flow also presses Enter for the dictation that triggered the prompt so you don't lose the action.

• Disable: opts out. Flow pastes "press enter" back into your text.

Once enabled, future uses work as expected. Enabling Press Enter from Settings also dismisses this prompt.

File tagging in coding apps

File tagging works in Cursor and Windsurf (VS Code is not supported). When you speak a file name in a supported app, Flow automatically tags it in your dictation and shows a confirmation notification. Tagging is skipped inside a terminal, and you can turn it off in Settings → Vibe coding → File Tagging in Chat.

Using Backtrack

Backtrack removes filler words, false starts, and self-corrections. Use a trigger word like "actually" or "scratch that," or simply restate what you meant — Flow uses your full dictation as context to decide what to change.

Examples

FAQs

Limitations and notes

• Smart Formatting is enabled by default on all platforms. On Mac, Windows, and Android, there is no toggle to disable it. On iOS, only an on/off toggle is available.

• "Press enter" is a desktop-only command and is suppressed in Command Mode.

• Trailing-period removal depends on your Writing Style and dictation length.

• Simplified Chinese (简体中文) and Traditional Chinese (繁體中文) are separate language options and cannot be selected at the same time. Cantonese (粵語) is also a separate language.

• Smart Formatting notifications are suppressed until onboarding is complete.

Still stuck?

Reach out to support if:

• Smart Formatting is not applying punctuation, lists, or capitalization after you've confirmed it's enabled.

• Backtrack is removing words you wanted to keep, or ignoring clear corrections.

• A punctuation command listed above isn't being recognized.

Include your platform, app version, and an example of what you said versus what Flow wrote. Most formatting issues are resolved in one reply.