Nuance Dragon Dragon NaturallySpeaking Home 13 (Old Version)

I am typing this the old fashioned way. After spending more than 30 hours trying ideas from Nuance Customer Support, user websites and YouTube videos, changing settings and even uninstalling and reinstalling the program on 2 different computers (both running Windows 10), I still have not been able to get the software to work. The frustrating thing is the microphone is working and I can use it, but not with Dragon. I get to the microphone check, see my device in the window and can speak into it and make the bars move, but when I select it and click next I get the error message: The sound system you have selected is not responding. Try selecting a different one, or check to make sure that no other application, such as Dragon Naturally Speaking, is accessing the sound system. There must be a solution for this I haven’t found, but as I am out of patience with the whole thing I will have to take a break from it. Perhaps someone will read this and be able to help me and any others who have the same issue. Update, I finally got Dragon to work, at least on my laptop. I have a new laptop that I only use for work, but I decided to see if I could set up Windows speech recognition on it, something I wasn’t able to do on my other machines. In 2 minutes I was dictating into notepad. All 3 machines run Windows 10, what’s the difference? Could it be how they got there? One computer started out as a 7 machine, the other as an 8.1. I decided to try an experiment with my 8.1 machine. First, I installed a clean version of Windows 10 (which erases everything on your computer), then I set up speech recognition and confirmed it was working. After that I reinstalled Dragon and all my other software. Took the whole day, but it works. I am not recommending this course of action to anyone else as I am not the brightest bulb in the sign when it comes to computers. I’m sure there was an easier solution to my problem, but I went the long way around to discover if you can’t get Windows speech recognition to work, Dragon won’t work either. Anyway, I went through the Naturally Speaking tutorial, then dictated a couple pieces of my writing and got surprising accuracy. Nothing close to perfect, but far fewer mistakes than I anticipated. I originally gave this a 1 star review, but I would up it to 3 stars now.

I will be writing this review using the voice to text program without making any corrections. This will provide a clear example of what the program can do. Im an anthropologist and amusing this program following surgery on my dominant arm. This makes it impossible for me to write to my students and others without the use of the program. I am correcting and responding to student papers and writing emails. Some of the language that I use is technical and specific to the field, especially in human origins, but the program has been more than satisfactory. Ive advised my students in advance that there may be issues in the wording and spelling of my responses, but is worked. The only problem I encountered was on the installation of the program on my personal computer. When I had the program installed by the tech team at the college, it was installed without problem. The only recurring problem relates to my knowing and learning all the various voice commands. I assume that I will become more proficient as I continue to use the program. Delightfully surprised that when I ordered the program, it was on sale for $22 and included a headset. Great bargain! Highly recommend

Ive been a happy user of earlier versions but after my laptop updated itself to windows 10, I found myself forced to buy version 13.0. Purported to be a great improvement, I was sold, but Ive not yet gotten it to work. After the install, I went through the microphone preparation and launched Word. The supplied headset was used. Not a single word was understood. Nothing. Frustrated, I eventually did a clean install only to get an error message that some training directory could not be renamed. Installed again without trouble. Still didnt understand a single word. Switched mics. Nope. Decided to use my wifes brand new i-7 laptop with 16GB. Installed fine but still didnt understand a single word. I reached out to tech support and got a couple suggestions. No good. Reached out again and got a suggestion to check the settings. After 3 laptops, 3 mics, and multiple attempts at setting default mic, sound card settings, hardware acceleration, etc, Ive given up. Fortunately, I found an old laptop and installed version 12.0 on it. It works flawlessly. My new laptop? I use Windows speech recognition. While not as robust as Dragon, it isnt half bad. My only regret is that I tried to upgrade to new and improved. Im beginning to think there might be an error on my disc. Nothing but trouble for me.

I have Amazon prime. Took two days to get here. I bought the Dragon naturally speaking home edition. Im using it now to write this review. It comes with its own microphone so no additional KOSS CS 100 microphone is needed to be bought. This one works just fine. I got KOSS CS 100. Its useless to me right now because I have a laptop with only a connection for ear plugs. My laptop does not have the insert for a Mic. It has a built-in mic. The mic that comes with the Dragon home edition is just fine. It took 45 minutes to the city to install it. You have to turn off the firewall. Once it is installed, you can turn the firewall back on. I like the program. So far so good. Ive given four star. This is not a perfect programT There are some mistakes. But, since I have only used it for an hour I hope that with time it becomes better. I have already gone to the Dragon site and registered that does not take. Hopefully, this has helped you all to decide whether to buy it or not. I say go for it. What you have to lose $34? Its a fun toy.

So many ways to dislike this software. First of all, it took over an hour to install; but I guess I should feel lucky as, when I read the experiences of others, many were not able to install it at all. Next, setting up the microphone was a challenge. The software came with a new headset/microphone combo so when setting it up with the software, there was an option for Dragon Remote Microphone or something like that. There was no explanation that that option pertains to an Android app which allows your tablet to act as a microphone, consequently I wasted a lot of time and finally found the answer to that problem by Googling it several times. Tried setting it up for my wife who is vision-challenged, thus her display is set to high-contrast. This resulted in some of the setup dialog boxes being invisible. Wouldnt you think that this software is likely to be used by someone with vision problems and design it to work with high contrast displays? Anyway, once we figured that out, the next challenge one faces is that of having to read documents of 5000 words, yes FIVE THOUSAND WORDS, or so to train it. The Microsoft speech recognition software that comes with Windows allows you to train it as you go, reading as much or as little at a time as you desire, a much more user-friendly way to go. Also maddening is the fact that there are dead links within the Dragon software. For example, in the training texts, a link appears above stating something like Click here to learn how to improve visibility of the text. Guess what? You click the link and absolutely nothing happens. I always thought the Microsoft Speech Recognition software was pretty good but my wife insisted she wanted to try Dragon as she had heard so many good things about it. I set up a profile for myself and trained it; so far I havent found anything it could do that the Microsoft software couldnt do as well, so I would just as soon have saved the 50 bucks or so that I spent on Dragon Naturally Speaking as a gift for my wife.

I live with a disability that prevents me from using your standard keyboard with relative ease. Dragon NaturallySpeaking has been a bit of a lifesaver, for me. Granted, there are some issues with the way it understands me (even after Ive trained the program, twice). However, as far as speech to text goes, this program is the best! I also think that the fact that Im using a web cam microphone might be why Im having some of the issues that I have. The software does come with its own microphone headset, I just dont use it because it keeps me tethered to the computer. If anybody can recommend a good wireless microphone headset (or microphone) that I can wear with my bowler hat, Id be appreciative!

this is a good option if you have trouble typing . the out of the box accuracy is very good. On the negative side, I have outlook 2010 and windows 7 and the dragon software is totally messing up my outlook and visa versa about every other day. you have to shut down the system, disable add-ins, stop tasks that are frozen using the task manager and all sorts of magical thinking types of activity to get things back on track. then it happens again. Also, if you discover that you are having problems running programs that worked before after you installed Dragon, it is dragon . My advice. call the tech line at nuance early and often. They provide free support for the first couple of weeks, after that, you are on your own with a computer that is quite idiosyncratic. Like I said, good option if you cant type.

I have dyslexia--not the kind where you have trouble reading, though. I have enormous trouble typing, and get the letters mixed around with as many as 3 to 7 typos per sentence. This meant I was a dismally slow typist. Worse, I am a writer and editor. When writing I would lose the flow of what I wanted to say when I went back to fix each sentence. Well, no longer. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Home 13 has changed my life. I used to get 1,000 words on a good 8-hour day of writing; now I can write over 1,000 words an hour. And my editing work is so much faster that I have more time to write! I know there are newer versions, but this one works for me just fine. I was up and running in two days and it just keeps getting better as Dragon adapts to my pronunciation and I learn more commands. I am one happy, satisfied customer.

Most likely anyone who has configured this to his voice, and while dictating, puts in punctuation – “period, , paragraph,” etc. -- and spells offbeat words, will be satisfied. But I had to transcribe a lecture and make the copy ready for translation. Here, Dragon did a really awful job. It missed words, got words wrong, (more to spare for more despair; business feel for business deal -- , on and on) and there was no punctuation. I had to work over the material while listening to the recording -- hugely time consuming. In contrast, a professional service on the Internet did a really excellent transcription of the material, returning it in a few hours. Their charge to transcribe was one dollar a minute. It would have been nice if Nuance put up front that this did not work for other voices. They could also improve their support. I asked 2 questions in 2 emails and got no answers. But I did get some six emails telling me if I was satisfied with the answers they would cancel my ticket. I replied I got no answer and sure enough, got the same emails again. I understand the much more expensive Dragon also requires punctuation input. I believe the service I used proof reads the transcripts, but it must have a much superior software program. The time I spent correcting was almost as long as if I listened to the recording and typed myself. . I asked Dragon if it is possible to configure the lecturer’s s voice as I did mine , but got no reply. The lecturer spoke standard English clearly. Also, for a time I didn’t understand that Dragon can be used on a Word page. I was confused because on starting Drago a window pops up where your dictation appears. There is a tab at bottom that says Transfer. I pressed Transfer, dictation vanished, and I still don’t know where it went. . I couldn’t find any reference to Transfer in the manual. . So, if you dictate yourself , you may be very pleased with this program. But I will use the dollar service.P.S. If Nuance would tweak this program so fi there is a pause it puts in a period it would not be bad Youd be surprised to know how much time it takes to put in periods on a five page article.

I am not an author but I occasionally write long e-mail messages. I bought this package because I was curious what voice recognition capability I could purchase for less than forty dollars. (My Windows 8.1 computer fortunately already contained ample RAM; Dragon is a memory hog.) I was surprised when I opened that package. In addition to the software DVD and brief instructions, the package contained a communications-grade wired stereo headset with attached boom microphone. The headset and microphone plug into the mini-jacks on the front of most desktop computers. The package also contains an adapter that will connect the headset and microphone to a single USB 2.0 port. Software installation is straightforward but ponderous. The installation user interface does not indicate ongoing progress, and I wondered if I was stalled in mid-install. After a long wait, installation finished normally. After registering the Dragon software on the Nuance Communications website, microphone proper operation is verified and Dragon then presents an interactive tutorial. The tutorial introduces voice recognition dictation concepts (explicit capitalization and explicit punctuation), and the tutorial highlights the online help functions available during Dragon dictation. I played with Dragon while using Microsoft Notepad, and I was impressed with Dragons accuracy and vocabulary, but voice recognition dictation (explicit capitalization and explicit punctuation) IMO is cumbersome, and only capitalization will improve as you personalize Dragons vocabulary. A later problem: Dragon attaches two apps to Internet Explorer, and my IE 11 began crashing in non-Dragon use. I used the IE star -> Manage add-ons function to disable the two Dragon-supplied apps. Instead of Dragon direct dictation with IE, I will dictate e-mail messages into Notepad, and then copy and paste the messages into my e-mail program, a practical compromise.