Typing after hand surgery
Back at work before the hand is. One key, and the good hand does it.
- Works one-handed
- Fine with a splint on
- Set up in two minutes
In short
- Your surgeon decides when you type again. This is about the weeks before that.
- One-handed typing is slow, and slow is what pulls the operated hand back in early.
- Hold one key with your good hand and talk. Finished text, nothing to tidy.
- If you only need it for six weeks, take the monthly plan and cancel it.
The instructions you came home with are the ones that matter, and nothing on this page changes them. What they usually do not cover is the bit you are actually worried about: there is a job waiting, and you have one hand.
So people type one-handed. It works, in the sense that words eventually appear. It is also three or four times slower, and that is where the trouble starts — when a short reply takes five minutes, the operated hand starts helping. A finger here, holding Shift there. Usually earlier than anybody told you to.
Dictation takes away the reason to. You hold one key with your good hand, say the sentence, and it lands finished.
Step one
Hold one key
Put it on the good side. One key, no grip, nothing the splinted hand needs to do.
Step two
Talk normally
No punctuation out loud. No pausing between sentences. No waiting for it to catch up.
Step three
Let go
Finished text lands where your cursor was. No hunting for the shift key with one hand.
Why the cleanup matters more right now
Most dictation hands you a block of words with no punctuation and a name spelled wrong. Normally that is annoying. One-handed it is the whole cost of the exercise — every full stop is a reach, every capital is a Shift you cannot hold, and selecting a word to fix it needs a hand you are not supposed to be using.
Here the punctuation and capitals come from the way you talked, and the names you have taught it are already right. There is nothing waiting at the end.
No Shift key
Capitals arrive on their own. Nothing to hold down while reaching for a letter.
No symbol row
Full stops, commas and question marks land in place. The awkward keys stop being part of writing.
No corrections
Names you use are spelled right, so there is nothing to go back and select.
It types where your cursor is
No window to open, nothing to copy afterwards. Click where the words go, hold the key, talk.
To hr@northgate.co
Subject Phased return
Hi Ann — I’m back on email from Monday, mornings only for the first two weeks. Happy to join the Tuesday call.
Back online. Slow on the keyboard this week, so ping me rather than emailing.
Three things missed while I was off: the supplier renewal, the March forecast, and Dan’s handover.
If you only need it for a few weeks
Then use it for a few weeks. The first 60 minutes are free without a card, which covers a good chunk of a first week back, and after that the monthly plan cancels whenever you want.
Plenty of people who arrive this way keep it, because talking turns out to be faster than typing was before the surgery. But that is a decision for later, and nothing here is built to make it awkward to walk away.
Work that cannot leave your machine
There are two engines and you pick which one runs. The offline one stays on your computer: nothing is uploaded, nothing is queued to be uploaded, and it works with the wifi off. The hosted one handles difficult audio better and is the better default everywhere else. Offline dictation has the full comparison.
Everywhere you already write
JotMic types at your cursor, the same as a keyboard does. Nothing to integrate, no plugin to install. If there is a text box, it works.
Plus Outlook, Word, Teams and every other app on your Mac or PC.
Setup takes about two minutes
Download it, allow the microphone, pick your key. No voice training and nothing to read aloud first, which is what you want on a morning you are trying to clear two weeks of email.
60 minutes free, no card. Enough to get through a first week back without the keyboard.
60 minutes free · no card
Read next
Carpal tunnel
If a release is what you have had done, or what you are still deciding about.
Hand pain
The short version, whatever is causing it.
Offline dictation
Dictating with the wifi off, and when that is the engine you want.
Questions
When can I start typing again after hand surgery?
Whenever your surgeon or hand therapist says, and not before. It depends entirely on what was done — a carpal tunnel release, a trigger finger, a fracture and a tendon repair are not the same recovery, and anyone publishing a single number is guessing. What this page can help with is the other question: how to work while you are waiting.
Can I dictate with one hand?
Yes. The whole thing is one key, held while you talk. Put it on your good hand and the operated one never comes into it.
Can I use it with a splint or a cast on?
Yes. You are pressing a single key, not gripping anything or holding two at once. If the splinted hand is out of action entirely, move the key to the other side of the keyboard.
Is one-handed typing really a problem?
It is slow, and slow is what causes the trouble. When a reply takes four times as long, the operated hand starts creeping back in to help, usually before it should. Talking removes the reason to.
I only need this for a few weeks. Is that worth it?
The first 60 minutes are free with no card, which covers a fair bit of a first week back. After that there is a monthly plan you can cancel when your hand is working again. Nothing here needs you to commit to a year.
Do I have to say the punctuation?
No. Full stops, commas, question marks and capitals come from the way you talk. You never say "comma", and you never go back for the symbol keys afterwards — which matters when going back means typing one-handed.
Will it change my words?
It cleans up, it does not rewrite. The ums and false starts come out, punctuation and capitals go in, everything else stays as you said it. You can turn the cleanup off and take the raw transcript instead.
Will it spell names right?
Add them to your vocabulary once and they come out right from then on. Corrections are the most annoying typing there is when you only have one hand available.
Does it work in the apps I use?
It types where your cursor is, so anything with a text box works. Outlook, Word, Gmail, Teams, Slack, your browser, whatever internal system you live in. Nothing to set up per app.
Is it better than the dictation already on my computer?
Windows and macOS dictation stop after a pause, leave the punctuation to you, and never learn your words. Every one of those gaps is fixed at the keyboard, and right now the keyboard is the problem. For the odd sentence they are fine and they are free.
Can I dictate things that have to stay private?
Yes. Switch to the offline engine and nothing is uploaded. It runs on your own machine and keeps working with the wifi off.
Do I have to train it on my voice?
No. No setup, nothing to read aloud first. Install it, pick your key, and talk. Two minutes, which is what you want when you are trying to clear an inbox.
Will this slow my recovery or speed it up?
That is not a claim we are going to make. It is a way to write without using your hands. Whether that is useful during your recovery is a question for the person who operated on you.
60 minutes free on both engines, no card. Monthly after that, cancelled whenever your hand is ready.
60 minutes free · no card