How Does Dragon NaturallySpeaking Work?

Dragon NaturallySpeaking is voice recognition software that allows you to speak into a microphone or headset attached to your computer to type what you are saying.  With Dragon you can create documents, reports, e-mails and more - all by speaking.  It interacts with commonly used programs like Microsoft Word, Outlook, and Excel, Corel WordPerfect, and many other Windows based products. 
 
 It is not 100% accurate and it may not recognize everything you say right away, but the software "learns" your voice as you correct its dictation and gets more accurate the more you use it. So the next time it will correctly type what you dictate.  Dragon NaturallySpeaking not only types what you dictate, but can be used to open up documents, navigate through your programs, or search your computer for a file.
 
One thing we really liked about this software is you don't have to be at a computer to use it.  Meaning, it will interact with certain handheld digital recorders and PDAs so that if you need to take notes between meetings or record personal thoughts you can do so without sitting at your computer.  Later you download that recording to your computer and Dragon will transcribe your recording into text.  This is truly a software that can simplify your life, especially if you are a slow typer like me or possibly have other diabilities that make typing difficult.

For those of you who are wondering if it is MAC compatible, don't worry.  Dragon Natuarally Speaking has a sister software called MacSpeech.

The MacSpeech Dictate company was recently purchased by Nuance, makers of Dragon NaturallySpeaking software. Many Dragon users wonder whether they will be able to convert to MacSpeech for voice recognition if they buy a Mac after using Dragon on a PC. The quality and functionality of the two programs is similar. There are a few commands that work differently in the two programs and some features are labelled with different names, but for the most part the two are very similar and you can use one if you are familiar with the other.

(Photo Courtesy of Jacob Bøtter) 

Comments

[Roger Wellington]

T his is very interesting software i have never heard of such software before. I think this software make the work more easier, as sometimes we forget to write what we say. I m sure this really is going to work. Thanks for sharing it.

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[joseph]

what about periods. and starting a new paragraph. does the dragon do that also??

[Adrien]

I really liked your blog quite informative and interesting facts and figures you have discussed on your blog even the comments are very helpful in enhancing my knowledge regarding the topic.

[Alena]

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[Enablemart]

Dragon does all of that. It takes a little getting used to but once you are comfortable with the speaking style, you will not notice it. for periods and paragraphs, you just speak it out. So if you are at the end of a sentence, you just say period and it will place one there.

[Annabelle]

Is this for real...?

Dragon Naturally Speaking 11 is an incredibly power piece of software.

You can do periods by saying the word "period". You could say "new paragraph" to skip a line as well. There's also a command for "natural punctuation" which attempts to insert both commands and periods for you.

[Sally Richards]

Thank you for this - quite helpful!
Cheers,
Sally

[Dragon Software]

Good post im into using this software as it really helps me with my college homework and papers. Much more efficient than just normal typing.

[registering domain names]

Dragon does all of that. It takes a little getting used to but once you are comfortable with the speaking style, you will not notice it. for periods and paragraphs, you just speak it out. So if you are at the end of a sentence, you just say period and it will place one there.
+1

[David Vickers]

Can you use voices other than your own?
In a classroom environment could you specify which voice is being typed?
(for the deaf)

[Anya]

not sure if anybody will know the answer to this but i'm a student and i record the lectures for my course, now i know dragon only works with the voice it 'knows' but if you give it recordings of voices it hasn't been train up to understand (i.e. lots of different university lectures) will it work badly or just not work at all? i really don't care if i have to go though the whole thing correcting errors it would still save quite a lot of time when taking notes which i then study from months later

[jshurlow]

Can it heap the hearing impaired. I have I terrible time on the phone and in meetings

[Chrissy C]

I have wondered if it actually works. Thanks for sharing your experience.

[EnableMart]

A solution for students or professionals who have issues with external noise would be to listen to the audio and read back the lecture to Dragon. Dragon won't work well transcribing the recorded lecture for a few reasons - one, as pointed out above, Dragon is a one voice to one profile solution. Another reason is the recording would not be optimized for Dragon (external noise, etc)

[Cheryl K]

I am a legal secretary. We have a Dictaphone yet. I'm not sure how this works. If someone dictates into the Dragon it will automatically type on say Word (or whatever) what you dictated. Ok that's great but how do I proof read and get a finished product. Envelope etc.