Paragraphs

Diktat measures the gap between two passages you speak. If it is clearly longer than a normal pause, Diktat starts a paragraph there instead of a space. This runs entirely on the recording's timestamps, with no language model. The feature is part of Diktat for Mac. On iPhone, it arrives with one of the next updates.

A paragraph break is a line break, not a new word. The words themselves stay exactly as the recognition delivered them. Turn the feature off, and passages connect with a space again, as before. A paragraph from a thinking pause cannot be removed afterward, because Diktat has no text editing.

You find the switch in the Settings of Diktat for Mac, right next to your chosen recognition. It is on by default. Flip it during a running recording, and the change only applies from the next recording.

Before the very first word of your dictation, Diktat never starts a paragraph. Short, completely normal pauses while speaking don't trigger one either. Only a pause that's clearly, noticeably longer than usual actually does. Use WhisperKit or Parakeet right after restarting Diktat, and that very first recording may still arrive without paragraphs. Their own pause detection is still loading briefly in the background in that one case. Every recording right after that has paragraphs again, as long as the setting stays on. Turn the setting off yourself, and no paragraphs form at all from that moment on.

A paragraph break is simply a line break, saved, copied, and pasted the exact same way. On the Mac, clipboard and pasted text match exactly for most targets you paste into. One exception is single line fields, like a search box or a terminal window. There, Diktat automatically turns paragraph breaks into plain spaces as it pastes. Your clipboard keeps the paragraphs untouched either way, in every single case. Press Cmd+V somewhere else, and you get the full text with all its paragraphs. On iPhone and iPad, where the feature hasn't shipped yet, none of this applies at all yet.