How To Capitalize Text in NaturallySpeaking
Dragon NaturallySpeaking does some capitalization for you, as you dictate. For example, it generally capitalizes the first letter of a sentence. (Its cue to capitalize is that you have started a new paragraph [more…]
What Dragon NaturallySpeaking Can Do for You
Something about dictating to a computer awakens all kinds of unrealistic expectations in people. If you expect it to serve you breakfast in bed, you’re out of luck. This article wasn't written by saying [more…]
What NaturallySpeaking Can’t Do
Even with NaturallySpeaking, your computer’s capability to understand English is more limited than what you can reasonably expect from a human. People use a very wide sense of context to figure out what [more…]
How Long for Training NaturallySpeaking?
NaturallySpeaking comes out of the box not knowing anything about you. It has to work as well for a baritone with a Scottish accent as for a mezzo-soprano with a slight lisp. It needs time to figure out [more…]
Select the Right NaturallySpeaking Product
NaturallySpeaking is not a single product; it’s a family of products. And like most families, some members are richer than others. Depending on the features you want, you can pay a hefty price for software [more…]
Expand the Use of Speech Recognition
Voice recognition such as Dragon NaturallySpeaking is used in places like cars, hospitals, and legal offices. Yet, some people are still skeptical about software that enables you to dictate to your computer [more…]
The Latest Generation of the NaturallySpeaking Programs
The current generation of NaturallySpeaking, version 11.0, was released in the second half of 2010. In addition to the usual bug fixes and incremental improvements that you expect in a new version of an [more…]
How NaturallySpeaking Learns to Recognize Speech
Computers are very smart when it comes to brain-straining things like playing chess and filling out tax returns, so you may think they’d be whizzes at “simple” activities like recognizing faces or understanding [more…]
How Dragon NaturallySpeaking Works
In order to work effectively for you, a speech-recognition program like NaturallySpeaking needs to combine four vastly different areas of knowledge. It needs to know a lot about speaking in general, about [more…]
The Training Process for Dragon NaturallySpeaking
Why does NaturallySpeaking need to be trained before it understands your speech? The simple answer is that speech recognition is probably one of the hardest things your computer does. Humans may not think [more…]
Overview of the Dragon NaturallySpeaking Process
By now, you have chosen the version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking that is best for you, you have concluded that your hardware configuration is appropriate, and you are sitting in front of your computer ready [more…]
How To Improve Accuracy with NaturallySpeaking
When you finish basic training, Dragon recommends that you let it look at your dictation, corrections, and other files to train itself and improve accuracy. This is a way for it to familiarize itself with [more…]
Choose or Switch Users in NaturallySpeaking
When you launch Dragon NaturallySpeaking, it may ask you to choose a user. If it doesn’t ask, don’t worry. You probably have only one user: you.
Remember that when you first set up NaturallySpeaking, you [more…]
The Face of Your NaturallySpeaking Assistant
Happily, Dragon has given a lot of careful attention to its user interface over the years. With Version 11.0, they’ve hit it out of the park. They have a DragonBar and a Dragon Sidebar. Both are set by [more…]
A Closer Look at the DragonBar in NaturallySpeaking
The DragonBar is docked at the top of the screen. If you prefer, you can change the placement by clicking on the Dragon icon on the left. From here you can also invoke the QuickStart option by choosing [more…]
Choose Options for Dragon NaturallySpeaking
Now that you’re in charge, you can order NaturallySpeaking to work your way. It’s time to choose some options! From the DragonBar, choose Tools→Options to open the Options dialog box. There are seven different [more…]
How to Set Up Hot Keys for NaturallySpeaking
Dragon NaturallySpeaking allows you to set up Hotkeys. All the buttons on the Hotkeys tab work the same way: Click the button and a Set Hot Key dialog box pops up. When it does, don’t try to type the names [more…]
Why Use the NaturallySpeaking DragonPad?
Before you start dictating, employing one of the myriad applications you can use with NaturallySpeaking, take a look at the DragonPad. To open it, go to the DragonBar and choose Tools→DragonPad. [more…]
How To Use the Word-Processor NaturallySpeaking DragonPad
The NaturallySpeaking window’s menu and toolbar may seem familiar to you. They are, with the addition of speech features, the same as the menu and toolbar in WordPad [more…]
Format Text in NaturallySpeaking
The Format menu is where all the formatting stuff hangs out: fonts, indentations, alignments, bullets, and tabs. Like the Edit menu, the Format menu is straightforward if you have used a word processor [more…]
How To Save and Open Documents in NaturallySpeaking
You save a NaturallySpeaking document the old-school way: with a menu choice or toolbar button. As in any other application, you can use a voice command to make the menu choice, such as saying, [more…]
Customize the DragonPad Window
In case you were wondering, you can change the appearance through the View menu in NaturallySpeaking's DragonPad. “Appearance” means stuff like toolbars, text wrapping in the window, and units of measure [more…]
NaturallySpeaking Tools and When to Use Them
You’re saying, "Let’s dictate, already!" But NaturallySpeaking will never get any better at its job if you don’t use the tools found in the menus of the DragonBar. They help you get the most accuracy from [more…]
Distinguish between Text and Commands in NaturallySpeaking
As you can see in the figure, NaturallySpeaking lets you mix dictation (words that get converted into text) and commands (instructions to the computer). You don’t have to press or click anything to tell [more…]
Control Your Microphone in NaturallySpeaking
Some people switch the microphone off and on to avoid inserting the garbage text that comes from coughing, sneezing, or answering the phone. Dragon NaturallySpeaking gives you several ways to control the [more…]
