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Microphone not on keyboard. How to enable?

I've wasted 2 hours on this so I really hope someone knows how to enable voice input.

Though I've had my phone for over 2.5 years now, never used the microphone icon. I'm pretty sure it was on my keyboard at one time. Since I also accidentally _always_ swiped upwards on the keyboard - somehow, don't know why I did that repeatedly and always ended up on the microphone screen - I googled on how to disable that and did so and then was happy with that state for 2 years. Trouble is that that was then. I now have an app that recently has gotten me hooked on voice input and I'm finding the benefits to that now that I'm android-geared. I'd like to use this android ability from any app now that has keyboard access.

I followed all the instructions found today via google, even some YouTubes, but I just don't seem to have any of the settings options described so can't enable. i.e., there is no Voice Input option at all under the Google keyboard in Language and Input in Settings. That seems to be most common answer. Yet I don't have this. And all other methods described haven't yielded results, either.

I found a couple of voice input type of apps in the Play Store that have acceptable permissions but don't believe that would be best answer as it means switching to yet another keyboard, which would be a pain in the neck. I already have an extra handwriting keyboard and it's great to switch to that, it just would be more productive to switch right from any keyboard access to the voice input rather than going through a third-party to do so as no special keyboard is required for voice (unlike the handrwriting one which switches you to a handwriting-friendly screen. Perfectly reasonable there to go to another screen.)

Anyone know how to get the microphone icon back on to the keyboard on the Nexus 4?

Thanks!
 

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