Nuance Dragon Dragon NaturallySpeaking Home 13 (Old Version)

I had this on my PC at one point and then I had to reinstall everything and suddenly Dragon wouldnt install. It kept asking for some special program first. I called the help desk and the next thing I knew I was getting notices that people were trying to access my financial accounts and personal information. What Dragons help desk did with my personal information, I dont know. Sell it? Give it away? Or, did the person on the phone for Dragon have a side business trying to hack customers private accounts, bank, credit, etc.? Luckily, they didnt get far, as far as I know. I never did get it to work again, so I thought Id take a chance and buy a new copy, but instantly I ran into installation errors saying it needed some sort of program to run first and I had to dig into the software to find it. Why doesnt the software do it by itself? Even when I found and ran that program, it stalled and wouldnt install either. I give up. What a horrible company and program! They are a monopoly worth being investigated by the Feds. We need another company to compete with Dragon and give customers better choices.

Love this program. Exactly what I needed and expected. Installed onto my 8.1 Windows without any fuss or hick ups. Runs smoothly.Though I use my Logitech Wireless, It did come with a pretty sturdy wired headset of its own. Good to know if I ever need a back up its there. Fast and precise. Mainly bought for score to make essays and reports a breeze and yet Im able to instantly note any random thought, spontaneous idea, or random rhyme that may come to mind. Hides almost unnoticed at the top of your screen and blooms out when you need it. If you want a hands free service for school, business or just pleasure then this is what you need. Favorite Perk: All around fast program.

Beware!! Nuance changed its software support policy with Dragon 13. Any program that is not explicitly supported by Dragon now has to be accessed through either DragonPad or the dictation box. This means that text within legacy programs, especially legacy email programs, can no longer be edited within that program. Instead you have to do all of your edits within DragonPad or the dictation box and then transfer the result into your legacy programs. This slows down the writing process at least 50% and interrupts your train of thought repeatedly. I reverted back to 12.51 without fighting for a refund. Dragon 13 may indeed have a 15% increase in recognition accuracy over version 12. But it also has at least a 15% decrease in usability, in my case considerably more than a 15% decrease. Having said that, if you know you will only be using programs that Nuance lists as fully supported, version 13 may work well for you. However, Nuance lists Mozilla Thunderbird as fully supported. A quick search of the net will reveal that there are many users that disagree and claim that Thunderbird is not fully supported in Dragon version 13 regardless of Nuances statements to the contrary. I STRONGLY advise against upgrading from Dragon version 12.51. Also, be sure to install Dragon from a disk copy rather than a downloaded copy. Regardless of the version there are many more installation problems with downloaded copies. Time for the scalpers to stockpile disk copies of 12.51. Get them while you can folks. Additionally, do NOT judge Dragons recognition success rate in any version using the microphone that is included with a disk copy of Dragon. To use this program effectively you MUST buy a separate good-quality USB microphone. I recommend the Logitech business line of headsets. At the time of this writing these Logitechs were designated with a B somewhere in the model number rather than an H. These may only be available on eBay at this point.

I was an IT manager/Unix geek on Wall St for 25 years. The install for this product is one of worst I have ever experienced. It failed a few times, then proceeded, taking about 30 minutes to install all of the files. Various other issues with tutorial. Then came the software performance, which was abysmal. I followed all the profile suggestions, then tested it with the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The software was not able to reproduce the sentence even ONCE properly after many tries. Could not get the word quick until I taught the software the word. I tried various other readings, etc using both the built in microphone on my laptop as well as the included microphone. There were far too many errors, about 30-40%, Some words were so far off they were laughable. Slow as a turtle as well. My wife tried as well, total fail. We are both educated, articulate people, no speech issues. This software is simply not worth the effort, not ready for prime time. More effort correcting than typing would be. If you are totally disabled this may be a choice but it will be very frustrating. I am returning the product, dont bother ordering.

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 now going to review Dragon Naturally Speaking 13, Home. (Business comes with tools for using Excel and other business programs I dont use that much.) I found the installation process a little interesting as the program progress bar does not seem to move at first. After a while, when I was about ready to give up, it did move and the installation continued. However it was very, very slow. I had turned off my antivirus software as suggested and followed the prompts. Installation process was slow enough that I could have literally gone out, made a meal and then come back and found the installation still in progress. This concerned me a little because I was not sure that my computer was up to the task of running this program as expected. My computer runs Win 7 Pro, with a 2.66 GHz processor, four gigs of RAM even though Windows 7 can only utilize 3.5 gigs. I am now typing this in Word 2007 and it seems to be working quite well. When I went through the registration process, I noticed that it one point a window came up and said that it needed the serial number. The serial number was already in the box and was highlighted. When I pressed continue or next, a window popped up and said that the registration was not completed. I went back and took out the highlighted number and then retyped it using the numbers at the top of the keyboard rather than on the keypad, as previous experiences shown that some programs in some instances will not accept the import from the keypad the same way they accept information from the numbers across the top of the keyboard above the letters. DO NOT put n the hyphens, as I believe the program will not register properly if you do. There is a sentence that tells you not to put them in. Getting used to this is interesting as it seems to recognize all my words and unfortunately my bad grammar and my way of speaking in run-on sentences. However, as I learn the commands, I think that it will be quite helpful in getting my thoughts down at a higher rate of speed. So far the accuracy is very, very good probably more than 99%. It doesn’t like words like very, very good (two of the same word repeated.) I just tried using Dragon in Final Draft 2.5. I use it for script writing and for movie production. The Dragon box came up and would allow me to paste my text into the program and it seemed to work just fine. This one extra step is probably not a huge issue and will actually allow me to edit my thoughts better than if I type directly into the program. So very pleased with this program so far. Follow the instructions for installation to the letter. They are there for a reason and you probably won’t have any problems.

Im dictating this review so you can get a sense of how accurate it actually can be. I usually need to make at least two or three minor corrections in one short paragraph. Dragon is a godsend for people who really have problems with their arms and cant type or input text the usual way. Dragon 13 does seem to be a improvement over Dragon 12; theres a considerable uptake in speed. A huge problem remains that it is practically dysfunctional in Microsoft Word. I use the dictation box or pad and then copy and paste my text into my word file. I did not have any particular problems with the installation, beyond the fact that it took a very long time (a few hours). Dictating this review, there was one major error: Dragon typed men instead of improvement. However, Dragon is typing the words almost as quickly as I can say them. I like that a lot.

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 been wanting to write a book for some time. In looking at reviews about and functions of this product I thought I would give it as try. The first problem I had with this product was the install. Most products install from a disk or even with a download from a web site in about 5 to 10 minutes. I started the install and after 20 minutes I thought there was something wrong. I canceled the install and started over. After waiting another 20 minutes I was sure that I had a bad DVD. I did some research and found that others had experienced this same problem or similar issues with the install. I called Nuance tech support and after talking with three people I finally got a tech who could discuss the issue. He told me that I should wait 40 to 50 minutes as the install could take that long. He was wrong. It took one hour and forty-five minutes. I have been using the product for about 10 days and it recognizes most of my speech. I think that as I use it more the acceptance rate will increase. I do find the placement of the Dragon Bar annoying and when you change it to a floating bar it is even more annoying. The Learning screen pops up at times when I didnt ask for it. Depending on the browser you use there is an annoying message that pops up that I havent been able to disable. Checked the web and it seems to be an issue other have described, which has something to do with their add-in. All in all I would just say it is OK. I have seen other reviews that say the premium product is better but it also comes with a premium price.