How To Use the NaturallySpeaking Dictation Box
Wondering when to use the NaturallySpeaking Dictation Box? Work at the Dictation Box level when you find you don’t have all the voice commands you normally use. Pop open the Dictation Box as shown in and see what happens.
Using the Dictation Box
When you dictate into an application where only the Dictation Box applies, you don’t have access to several capabilities that you would have in a Full Text Control application or a Natural Language application. But, fear not, you can:
Easily move around in a document
Select and edit text
Delete text
Make corrections
Doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice, right? The Dictation Box gives you the option to do things in applications that otherwise don’t want to play nicely with NaturallySpeaking.
First, confirm that your application doesn’t have Full Text Control (the check mark in the DragonBar is gray instead of green). Put your cursor in the desired application and say, “Show Dictation Box.” The Dictation Box will open. It’s a plaintext application, so there is no advanced formatting; you have Full Text Control.
You can use the application’s menus and hotkeys to work around some limitations. For example, you can get italics by saying either
A menu command (Click Style, Italic)
A hotkey (Press Control I)
Moving around in a document
The Move and Go commands work the same way in the Dictation Box as they do in the NaturallySpeaking DragonPad. The “Insert before” and “Insert after” commands also work here. You can also use the mouse commands to position the cursor.
If you are just reading a document and don’t care where the cursor is, use the Press Page Up and Press Page Down commands.
If an editing job turns out to require more work than you feel like doing in the Dictation Box application, take it back to the shop. Cut the text out of the application window and paste it into the NaturallySpeaking DragonPad, where you have more tools to work with. After you get the text the way you want it, cut and paste it back to the original application.
Making corrections
Your ability to make corrections at the Dictation Box level is affected by how recently you spoke it:
If you spot a NaturallySpeaking mistake immediately after it happens, you can say, “Correct That” to invoke the Correction menu.
To correct a NaturallySpeaking error that happened a while ago, select the text with your mouse and then dictate new text.
If the new text is still wrong, say, “Correct That” to invoke the Correction menu. You can also say, “Correct <xyz>” or “Select <xyz>” to highlight and correct the text.
The Correction dialog box itself always works the same way, no matter what application you call it from.
You can use all the capitalization, hyphenation, and spacing commands. You can’t, however, say things like “Bold <xyz>.”
