Nuance Dragon Dragon NaturallySpeaking Home 13 (Old Version)

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 am using the Dragon (DS13) Software 13, and it is an extremely sharp tool. With his help, I do think my computer, and I can take over the internet. If I only had a brain, comes to mind, but this software is great! I recommend this product to any and every writer to preserve the quality of a penciled or penned draft. Have a nice word on me. DMF :)

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.

After two days of installing and trying to set up my Dragon Naturally Speaking Home 13 I finally called tech support because although the windows speech recognition worked fine, Dragon could not recognize my microphone. I was unable to go online to do tech support because when I tried to register my product it said it was having technical difficulties. So, after waiting 20 minutes, the technician registered my product for me. She then informed me that the headset that was sent with Dragon is not compatible to Dragon. SERIOUSLY??? She told me I had to go out and buy a USB connector for the headset for it to work. This is not acceptable business people. When I pay for something Id really like to get my moneys worth and not find unexpected extras I have to buy. Im going to buy the usb microphone because at this point I have no choice. But when its time for an upgrade, I will be looking somewhere other than Dragon Speak

It really is worth buying

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!

I reduced my review from 5 to 3 stars because it has so many problems and they dont fix it. I have to ctrl+alt+del and force stop it. There is no way to make it shut off. It has also stopped backing up my files and I dont know how to make it restart again. If they fix this stuff, I will change my review back to 5 stars. I doubt it..... I am actually using NaturallySpeaking to write this review. I had Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9.0 before this, and it did pretty good. But I am shocked and amazed, and how awesome this program is! It is so good it can even tell the difference between end, and and. I put in these little marks because I dont know what you call them. LOL! It can even get things like (egr) correctly. I think this must be what Google uses to do their voice searches. I am doing emails, web searches, reviews like this one, chat sessions, and pretty much anything else that needs typing. Since I type with three fingers on my left hand (because I have my set up for mouse keyboard gaming) I type so slow its pathetic. But I can do this review in about a minute! And thats pretty awesome!

Ordered this for my friend who is not a quick typist. He absolutely loves being able to dictate directly in Word files. Its a great tool for those who arent used to typing, cant type, have a disability or simply want to relax without using the keyboard. Dragon learns your speech patterns and words over time so the longer and more you use it, the better it becomes at recognizing your distinct speech. You can even tell it to recognize British English, Indian English, southern US English, Pakistani English, etc. so it will adapt to your language. Granted it also works with many other languages, not just English. Heres my Pros & Cons List PROS: 1. It has a very accurate Speech to text system. It understood almost every single word very quickly. 2. It was very fast. I was able to finish my document just as quickly as I had typed it. 3. It comes with a Headset and microphone already in the box. 4. It has many short cut commands like backspace, delete, next line and space. CONS: 1. It took 30 minutes to install from the DVD.

I love it. Over 11 years ago tried a program like this for medical dictation and it didnt work at all. Recently because of some bursitis I thought I would purchase this program based on some positive reviews I saw in the last week. Im having to do some dictation with medical terminology and it works great I love it. I wish I wouldve considered purchasing this unit months ago as I believe I would have been able to accomplish a lot more work with my note taking. Its amazing it works so well. Its easy to use. I recommend this definitely

Software works great on my Lenovo laptop running Windows 7. Completely different story on my desktop running Windows 10. It simply will not run. Icon is on the desktop but when I double click the little circle spins for a few seconds and nothing happens. It appears the installation does not complete because I have never gotten to the point where I read the paragraph to set up my user profile, like I did on my Windows 7 laptop. Nuance contacted me and sent installation instructions which I followed with no solution. A Google search resulted in several other suggestions, still with no success. The Google search revealed many users of Windows 10 having problems. I have uninstalled and installed the software 8 additional times - even copied the CD to my desktop. Ive given up on using the software on my Windows 10 computer.