Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 11 Student Edition [Old Version]

Bought this and was pleased, but the newer editions are now much more capable and productive and the price is right!

The insane procedure you must go through to activate this software is maddening. They tell you to go to a website that is frequently down and upload proof of employment at an academic institution and then they say you have to wait 24 hours before they email you a serial number. After trying for two days to get to the website which was always down I called tech support and they said theyd email me the serial number. I waited three more days and finally got an email from them telling me to go to the website again. I found a solution to activate on my own at [...]

Works really well!

I bought this only to transcribe taped interviews for a class project. I trained the program with my voice at least 3 times. The transcripts that resulted were just absolute nonsense, they were not even remotely similar to the actual conversations. I expected some confusion, maybe confusing There for Thier and stuff like that, but the sentences were just gobbletigook. If thats what youre planning on using this for, dont do it, its a waste of your money.

In doing work on my dissertation, I was looking for a viable option for transcribing recorded interviews to a text form. This would not only save me to time, but allow me to focus on the interview content over transcribing time. I contacted the company to inquire on the use of the program for transcribing audio files, and was told the Premium version 11 was the one to have for this purpose. Needless to say, the abilities of this program was explained in more fantasy terms rather than the reality of its capabilities. I took several interviews ranging in dialect, gender, and other characteristics, with similar poor results. I went as far to record my own voice, which the profile on the program was tuned into, and the results were just as poor. I am not sure what this software is good for, maybe handsfree command use for programs and computers, but transcribing is not it. Good luck to anyone purchasing this product, and now I must try to get my money back.

Verifying my student identity to get the serial number was easy and only took a few minutes online. Setting up the program was easy. This program is demanding on the CPU. I recommend not running any unnecessary programs while installing and using this software. The microphone it comes with works horribly with this software. I was very disappointed with the software at first until I realized that the microphone was the problem. Know that you are going to have to invest $80-$120 in a good headset or microphone in order for this program to work optimally. I use the SteelSeries Siberia V2 headset in combination with an Audio to USB adapter. With this setup, Dragon recognizes my speech flawlessly with minimal training. Dragon will automatically adapt your user profile to you as you use it. It will look at all of your documents and learn the most common words and phrases that you use. It is incredibly easy and quick to teach it words and phrases that it doesnt recognize. Train it while using it, then get right back to work in no time! The commands are intuitive and customizable. I am a college student and this program has been a life-saver. I take notes so much faster by dictating, even though I can type incredibly fast. I have so much more free time now. For those who have never used dictation software before, I found the following website helpful for many useful tips. [...].

The verification process is a bit of a pain. Basically, you have to select your school from a list of choices. You have to fill in your name, and as faculty I had to select which department Im in. It then asked me to send a PDF file of my school ID with the current date. Other options would be (as faculty, I cant speak for students) a recent pay stub or a letter from HR verifying my employment. I didnt have any of these readily available, so I submitted the online form without them. I was careful to use my EDU e-mail address. I then received a message to this EDU address stating that I needed to submit the above information before I would receive the necessary serial number. From reading other reviews, I decided simply to wait. Sure enough, the next day I received the serial number without having taken any further action. With the serial number I installed the product without any hassles. In other words, the only information I ended up submitting was the name of my school, my name, and my EDU e-mail address. Nothing more. The process took 24 hours. Ive used version 10 for a couple of years and I think it was version 8 that I used before that. Im happy with version 11 so far. It navigates both Explorer and Firefox better than version 10 and I like the text entry for Gmail. Accuracy is roughly the same or better, but overall speed is faster than before. Some commands are still cumbersome but overall this product is an improvement. I use a high-quality microphone which is important, as well as learning the software, by which I mean speaking clearly. Check out Emicrophones.com for great mic and soundcard information. I use the Sennheiser ME3 which is really expensive. The cheapie provided will work also, but serious users will need an upgrade eventually, and the mic lasts forever. And make sure you have the recommended specifications for your computer. Goodluck!

I bought the Dragon NaturallySpeaking software about a month ago. I was very hesitant because I was concerned about the accuracy but I needed something because I have severe arthritis. But to my surprise it was amazing right out of the box. It only took a few minutes to set up and verify that I was a student. I have used this for writing several technical papers and it has done awesome picking up on chemical compound names and engineering terms. I have been very amazed with this product and I am using it to write this review and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Company did not able to activate the software using student email address. Required additional IDs. Tried for week and finally returned back to Amazon. NO problems at return.

Okay everybody, I am not one to write a review, but after seeing everything that has been written about this product, I decided I must write a review. A lot of people, have been bad mouthing the fact, that you have to verify your student status to receive the serial number from Nuance. I can tell you now, for all of you who have a .edu address, this will not be a challenge whatsoever. I received my Dragon NaturallySpeaking, from UPS about an hour ago. Within that time, I did the online verification of my student status, received my serial number, install the program, and I am now writing this review I using my headset and my Dragon NaturallySpeaking. One recommendation I would strongly make, is that you invest in a better headset. I invested in the Koss CS 100 headset is thus far everything is working very clearly. I spent about 20 min. reading some of the documentation that they give you to learn your voice. In that short period of time, you see the results. As a graduate student, who is often writing anywhere between 20 and 60 pages a week of text this is going to be a lifesaver. I hope many of you will be able to make the same investment.