Transforms

A transform rewrites text that is already on your screen. Select it in any app, press ⌥ and a digit — ⌥1, ⌥2, ⌥3 — and Speakly replaces the selection with the model's rewrite of it. On Windows the shortcut is Alt and the digit.

This is the other half of a custom prompt. A custom prompt only ever runs on a fresh dictation, on the words you just spoke; a transform runs on words that are already there, no matter who typed them.

Where they live

Open the main window and pick Transforms in the sidebar. Each transform carries a Name, a one-line Description shown under it on the card, the prompt — What should the AI do with the selected text? — and a Shortcut: a digit from 1 to 9, or No shortcut.

The three built-in transforms

• Polish (⌥1) — clean up the wording without changing what it says. Fixes grammar, spelling and punctuation, drops the filler and false starts that come from speaking out loud, and tightens wording that runs long — while every fact, name, number, price, date and link stays exactly as you gave it.
• Mail (⌥2) — turns what you dictated into an e-mail, in the same language. Names, dates, numbers, links and requests are kept, the body becomes short paragraphs and the request is made explicit. It greets someone only when your text names or addresses them — it never invents a recipient and never leaves a [Name] to fill in — signs off only if your text ends the message, and never adds a subject line.
• Make it professional (⌥3) — the same point, said politely. Keeps the meaning and what you meant, disagreement and urgency included; removes insults, sarcasm and blame; and adds no greeting or sign-off your text does not already have.

Reset to defaults, at the top of the page, brings these three back and re-registers their shortcuts. Any transform you wrote yourself is deleted. As long as you have written none, you never need it: while the list holds nothing but the built-in transforms, Speakly refreshes them on launch, so a new or reworded one reaches you on its own. The moment you create a transform of your own the list is yours and Speakly stops touching it — from then on, Reset to defaults is the way back to the three it ships with.

Running a transform

1. Select the text in any app — an e-mail, a document, a chat box.
2. Press ⌥ and the transform's digit (Alt and the digit on Windows).
3. Speakly reads the selection, sends it to the model with your prompt, and pastes the answer over the selection.

That shortcut is the only way to run a transform: there is no button for it inside Speakly. It works from wherever the text already is, so you never have to leave the app you are writing in — select, press, done.

Writing your own

1. Click Create New, top right.
2. Fill in the Name, and the Description if you want one on the card.
3. Write the instruction under What should the AI do with the selected text?. The selection is sent as the input, so ask for the rewritten text only — whatever the model answers replaces the selection.
4. Pick a Shortcut — ⌥ + 1 to ⌥ + 9. No shortcut saves the transform but leaves it idle: with no digit there is nothing to press, so give it one when you want to use it.
5. Click Save transform.

Click a card to edit it. The trash icon on the card deletes the transform and frees its digit.

Two transforms on the same digit

A digit runs one transform only: the first one in the list order that claims it. The other one is left with no way to run — its shortcut is inactive, a warning above the list names both, and the shortcut badge on the losing card is struck through. Give it another digit to bring it back.

Limits and safeguards

• One at a time: a transform will not start while another one is running, or while a dictation is in progress.
• 60 seconds: if the model has not answered by then, the transform is abandoned and your selection is left untouched.
• An empty answer never replaces anything — if the model returns nothing, the selection stays exactly as it was.
• With nothing selected (or a selection shorter than two characters), nothing happens.
• If another app already owns ⌥ and that digit, Speakly cannot register the shortcut and the transform has no other way to run. Move it to a free digit, or free that one in the other app.