Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 11 [Old Version]

I read the reviews before purchasing the software, and I was really concerned about whether or not to purchase it. With version 12 just coming out the Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 premium seemed to be a pretty good price and I figure since Amazon had a good return policy, if I didnt like it I would just return it to Amazon. When I received the packaging I noticed that I got the 11.5 upgrade of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. If you are a owner of Dragon NaturallySpeaking premium 11 you automatically get the upgrade to 11.5 for free. The software installs flawlessly, the stereo headset does not plug into the USB ports are rather into the 3.5 mm microphone jack and the 3.5 mm headphone jack. Training just took several minutes and after that I was off and running. Since I am using the software to make a study guide for the college classes that I am taking I went and grabbed my anatomy and physiology book and instead of typing the notes into the computer actually read the notes into the computer. After about 45 min. to an hour of getting used to how the program operated, it gives me a better outlook of how the software actually operates. I tried using the software with the Kingsoft wordprocessor, open office word processor and Microsoft word 2010 word processor. With kings soft and open office I was not able to use the bold function in the wordprocessor but in Microsoft Word Dragon NaturallySpeaking seem to work very well. So the question then becomes how well is well. I was able to dictate six pages of notes in about 45 min., speaking at a fairly rapid but normal rate. This same process wouldve taken me at least a couple hours having to look between the book the computer screen and the keyboard while typing. With using Dragon NaturallySpeaking I was able just to read the text out of the book and have the words mysteriously appear on the computer screen. If youre looking forward a inexpensive alternative to Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 I was just run the Dragon NaturallySpeaking premium 11 due to the price point and the reviews that I read online said that people who own the 11.5 will not see a reason or a justification to upgrade to the 12. This review was written using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 premium without having to do any edits. *** UPDATE *** I have been using the program for several months now. I just tries the Logitech H600 wireless headset, I am sad to say that the Logitech H600 does not work very well. As far as the software program goes, I am very please with it. Well worth the cost.

This program seems to work well enough, but I wouldnt, based on my experience, recommend putting it in your startup folder unless you are a real computer whiz. It will take over your computer and if you try to get it out of there it may cause a big mess. Thats what happened the FIRST time I tried to use the program. Then I found out you cant use both the English and the Spanish versions on the same machine. You cant use more than one copy of DNS on one machine. When I bought the Spanish version (after purchasing the English one), I found this out the hard way. The rep did not tell me though that if you just get the Spanish one, you can make a profile in English and Spanish using just that one. Things would have been a lot easier if she had. When I got my machine into a mess trying to put the Spanish version on, I called them and another rep essentially told me that you can only use one language at the time. The gist of it was from what he said, one language, one machine. This turned out not to be true. Later, I had to uninstall my English copy and it wouldnt uninstall properly, so I called them again. The rep sent me a link to download a removal tool which worked fine. That particular representative was extremely knowledgeable and very helpful. While I had him on the phone I mentioned the bilingual problem and THEN I was told that the Spanish version will let you set up profiles in both languages. Well, I now have the Spanish version installed on my machine and it works fine for both languages. So, in my experience their customer rep department is batting 33%. Or however you say it. The program itself is not difficult to learn but it will perform SIGNIFICANTLY better if you have copious amounts of written documents and e-mails on your computer that have the same sort of vocabulary that you use. It goes out looking for these when you first train the program, and the more that is available, the better the program will recognize what you are saying. Otherwise, you have to train it more frequently.

Im impressed with this software. I use it for dictating interviews and reports. You have set it up at the start. It means reading around 20 minute worth of a known story. Once done, you get about 90 percent correct dictation out of the box. If you take the time to correct errors using the software, most of the common errors dissappear.

I ordered this for my medical practice. I had considered the Medical version which cost $1600 however the price was a little too much for my rural practice. So I decided to first try this product which was inexpensive. I ordered it and paid extra for one day delivery and that is what I got! It was easy to install on my computer and the voice recognition was fast. I was surprised that there was a selection for Southern users. Now this was a first for me. Usually when I try to speak my accent confuses the software and lots of nonsense is written on the page. I dictated a patients note in a few short minutes and that completed my charting. I was so pleased. Although this is not a medical format it managed my medical terminology well. I am so happy that I decided upon this product and saved $1500 to boot. I am just learning about this since I have only used it for less than one hour. So Dragon Naturally Speaking made a great first impression with me. This was a good investment for me. Just transcribing that one patient note saved me about 30-40 minutes. Very satisfied and happy with the purchase.

I am a writer who was looking for a way to write another novel without getting typers cramp. My novels are running roughly 180,000 words so anything I can do to tighten that up is only good. I am not using it for its intended purpose yet; however, I still believe it can do it. It will not do it right out of the box. That I know. You first train it to respond to you. That takes a few days anyway. My other problems were two-fold: First, finding the right headset. I use an Andrea now and I am glad I found them. The set that came with the Dragon software is not good. It picked up something like 1 in 3 words I said. I have no idea why, but it was pretty bad. The other problem is this: When I am dictating, I can manage 2-3 sentences before I pause to think further about what I want to say. For it to really save time, you have to know what you want to say and how you want to say it. In my own case, I was using the time it took to type to think about what to say next. This is SO fast, I couldnt do that. So I first build a story structure/outline to follow as I dictate. That does make it a LOT easier. Long story short, I think it WILL BE great. I need to get used to it and it needs to get used to me. It is not an instant solution, but for anyone wanting speed or needing it to deal with a life challenge AND you can deal with a learning curve, this could be the answer to your prayers.

I recently bought a new computer (64-bit, Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2300 CPU @ 2.80GHz, 2801 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s), 8 GB of RAM) with Win 7 Pro installed. Id been thinking about trying Dragon for a while and decided this would be the computer to try it with. Ordered from Amazon and it was delivered promptly. I installed it for the first time on 6/2/2011 and went through the registration process successfully. When I tried to run it I got an error: NaturallySpeaking isnt installed completely. Please try reinstalling. When I clicked details I got this additional information: One or more registry settings are corrupt and your registry permissions prevent Dragon NaturallySpeaking from correcting them. Please run Dragon NaturallySpeaking Setup and select the Repair option. I followed that suggestion and again got the notice at the end that installation was successful. But got the same error when I started the program. I went to the online support page on their site and filled out a support ticket with all pertinent information. On 6/3 I got a response giving detailed instructions for taking a screenshot of the error message and pasting it into Word and uploading it to them. I had already pasted the full text of the error message into my support message, and I had uploaded the dragon log file that also gave the full text of the error message, but I took a screenshot and uploaded it. Their next response explained how to set the computer to start up in diagnostic mode and told me to do that and install Dragon. Followed the instructions and got an error that Windows Installer Service couldnt be Accessed. I reported this back through their online support system. And support basically went quiet on me for five days. I continued to experiment with the installation, with no luck. While doing this I noticed an app that was loaded that their setup complained about...it couldnt stop it and wanted me to do so. It was Acresso Software Manager, which it turns out was installed by the Dragon InstallShield setup program. Several days later I started getting pop-up ads on my computer that I traced to this app. On 6/8, after submitting several more online updates and sending several emails to support asking if they were going to respond, I called the support line and spent over an hour online with a very nice support person in the Philippines. His English was good and I could understand him. He had me change some registry settings and reinstall. He also sent me an exe to run to fix an issue with GUIDs. After an hour of trying solutions that didnt help, he emailed me a link to download another build of DNS 11 that he said would fix the issue. I downloaded the 2.3 GB EXE and first ran it in repair mode as suggested. Same thing. Then did a full uninstall and reinstall...same thing. I reported all this to online support and uploaded the log again. I got the original canned response to set startup to run in Diagnostic mode, with the addition of explaining how to first set up an admin account. Did that, uninstalled and reinstalled. Same error when trying to run the program. Ive sent several more emails and online updates in the four days since that, but have had no response from support. While reading other reviews this morning I came across references to Windows Voice Recognition. Id forgotten it existed and hadnt tried it for years. Figured out how to activate it on Win 7 and did so...that took about five minutes and it worked fine. Decided to try it on my Asus netbook, to see how it works on a lower-powered computer (running Win 7) and it worked fine there too. Perhaps not as well as DNS 11 would work IF DNS 11 would work for me, but at least it worked with close to 100% recognition. I decided to uninstall and return the DNS 11 app to Amazon. This is the first thing I have returned to Amazon and wasnt sure just what to expect. It was absolutely simple and a model for all other companies. Clicked a button, selected a reason, clicked to print the UPS label, and that was it. I couldnt believe they even paid the return postage. Class act. Nuance outsources their support to a company with the rather inaccurate name RightNow. I think RightNow needs to put a little more effort into setting up their online support system...there is really no excuse for going four or five days without responding to an update on an ongoing problem.

Lets face it, we all get very frustrated trying to learn new programs! But its usually not the program thats the problem. Its our lack of understanding on what it wants. As you know, computers are not intelligent beings - they only do what theyre told. In working with Dragon premium 11, it is exactly the same way. It only does what its told. The difference is now Im talking to it. And when it doesnt do what I tell it to do, I get very frustrated! After all - it couldnt be me, could it? It takes a lot of patience to learn any new program. And it takes even more patience to be comfortable with yourself, and learn to speak clearly and talk to an inanimate object. Articulate, articulate, articulate! Ive had the fortunate experience of some public speaking. That makes it a little easier for me to sit at my desk and talk to my dumb computer. But it still can be very frustrating. Im developing a new website, and felt that it would be very handy to use speech recognition instead of the keyboard for developing the content of my site. I first tried the speech recognition software that came with Vista - now that was interesting! Each paragraph was filled with gobbledygook and I actually ended up on the planet Jupiter! It didnt take long to know that was not what I wanted to use. I purchased Dragon premium 11 and have found it to be very precise and easy to use. The problem I have with it only happens when I began to mumble or not articulate my words properly or give incorrect commands. The most frustrating thing to me is learning the commands for fixing my mistakes. I find it gaining accuracy all the time as the program is continually upgrading my profile and learning the way I speak. And I am learning to be more accurate in my pronunciation. I am really enjoying this program, and hope become very proficient at it fairly quickly. I have written entire review with Dragon premium 11. There were a few mistakes that I corrected that were entirely my fault (the program worked well). The rest is left uncorrected. It works well. Just relax and be patient, especially with yourself. J. R. P. S. It even likes big words like articulate and objectionable and Pentateuch and introspective and hyperbaric biosphere and - well just get the program and give it a try. And be patient. Just remember what it was like when you tried to get your keyboard proficiency up to 70 words per minute.

Ive read most of the reviews about Dragon naturally speaking. 11.5 premium. I have had my software for about three weeks now and I am impressed with its capabilities. Is the Dragon perfect? No. Does it do everything it said it would do? No. But then again during my lifetime, I was never perfect, and never did everything I said I could do. Would I recommend this program to a friend, you bet I would, I just recommend it to my daughter. The first few days I worked with the Dragon. I was relatively disappointed, everything seemed to be wrong with the way it worked. After looking at the blogs on the Internet. I realize that my Adobe reader active X was the culprit which I removed from my system and installed the free download Nitro, which does everything that active X.. At this time. Im very pleased with the system and getting more comfortable with it every day. I realize now that half the problems were mine and not the software, if you are willing to work with this program. It will do everything quite well. Im writing this review using it with no corrections. So there is probably some some errors in it. But hey before I got the system I could not spell very well and could only type with two fingers, so Im not complaining. Looking at the reviews. Some people love it, some people hate it but I think its all in the context of how hard you work at it, I think its a great program. Everybody recommended getting a quality microphone and headset but Im using the one that came with it and he gets the job done for me.

I bought this as a Christmas gift for someone who has been talking for years about writing a book but never took action. I read all of the reviews carefully before purchasing Dragon because the recipient is not particularly proficient with computers. After a month, he is still having great difficulty with it. I am sure that if he were take the time to use the tutorial and/or peruse the online manual at least some of his troubles would be resolved. Unfortunately, he is one of those I dont need no stinkin instructions type of guys. I guess I was overly optimistic about his ability to make use of Dragon. Just from my sessions trying to assist him, I notice that Dragon does take time learning, both on the part of the person and the software itself. Conclusion: be careful who you buy this for as it is nowhere near as easy to use as it first appears.

I havent had a chance to use this much, yet. So far, though, I have been happy with it. I didnt realize when I purchased it, thought, that the headset was not USB so that makes it a bit inconvenient. Otherwise, it seems to be working well. With more practice, Im sure it will make my life much easier.