Nuance Dragon Dragon NaturallySpeaking Home 13 (Old Version)

Very difficult to get operational. Google searches not overly helpful. It doesnt seem to loke Windows 10. I type faster than it transcribes, so not as helpful as I had hopes. I had an older version that was awesome though. May more be interface than program.

Im a writer, and I resisted getting dictation software for age. It seemed silly, especially since typing is pretty far down the list of things that are difficult to do. But I finally caved after an acquaintance of mine said she used it for recapping client sessions. It was one of my best business decisions Ive ever made. I fly through rough drafts now, and Ive found its an excellent tool to power through writers block and work out a plot or concept. It starts out a bit shaky because you have to train it (it was particularly fun teaching it how to swear, but thats just because Im immature), but Im a few weeks in and Ive never made so much progress on my writing as I have since I got this program. I installed it on my desktop and laptop with no problems. The headset included didnt work for me, Im not sure why (hence the four stars), but it works just fine with the Rosetta Stone headset I already had.

I use it to dictate all my notes for clinicals and I have about 20 to 30 notes to put in on each patient. At the end of the day my fingers are falling off! They helped saved me from getting finger cramps. Its a little annoying at first but I use a lot of medical terminology but it learns as it goes. I had to correct it a couple of times and now it picks up on most of the words. I really enjoy it. Still trying to get the hang of the other functionalities involved but I mainly use it to type for me.

I was actually surprised at how accurate it is, especially after such little training of the program. I tried varying my voice, speaking very succinctly, but then also very naturally with run together words and higher speed and it kept up impressively. Most of the errors were my own as it is a little unnatural to say all the punctuation out loud. Its spelling is impeccable and I may be hallucinating but it seems to pick the right word in context for words that are similar in sound like hear and here. Maybe Im imagining things. Im using it to transcribe 100 yr old typewritten pages for archiving and it turns out to be quicker to read the pages out loud than to use professional OCR software which is inaccurate for typewritten text from old mis-registering typewriters on aging and stained paper. Correcting the OCR is very time consuming. Theres far less to correct using Dragon (most are my errors anyway) and you can make many corrections using voice commands while transcribing. As it seems to work as an input device like a keyboard (albeit with a clipboard-like step) I suspect Ill be finding ways to use it in multiple programs. The headphones that came with it work very well and are comfortable over a few hours. It was very easy to set up, though it took a while for installation to complete. Overall, I love this thing!

I purchased version 13 for home usage. its accuracy is amazingly superior to versions 10 and 12, both of which I have had. However, at times my computer appears to have too many resources running, resulting is painfully long response times. Even a single word can take minutes to display. One time when it happened, I shut down Google and almost immediately got a better response time. Be prepared to do the same. But if you hate to type or make many typing errors, Dragon Naturally Speaking is your remedy. My only warning is that you discipline yourself to learn the commands that make corrections an easy task. Dragon Bar occasionally misunderstands a word and displays wording that must be changed. Some other words it seems to know from context and can, therefore, distinguish among homonyms like to, too or two, or for, fore and four. I cant say enough good about this product except for the times the computer over-load simply wont let it function.

I bought this for a computer that was running windows 7 or 8 and had to upgrade to windows 10 when I bought a new computer about 1 year later. I was told by tech support, that I have to buy a new version of dragon to get it to work the same as it did on the old computer.

I used this when I had a really bad accident and couldn’t use my hands. Got this for my mom for her Christmas present for her business that she writes 50+ emails a day. Of course she hasn’t even opened it yet. Sigh. Only con when I used it was that it took a good week or two to recognize my voice, but perfect for nagivating the web, creating word documents/excel, and sending emails all without using your keyboard!

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.

I am a Computer Tech and I use this for emails and creating detailed Trouble Tickets. Mostly this is pretty good, but sometimes it misunderstands me. As I said, I am a PC Tech. I can be doing Tickets for clients and say Installed a Printer. Instead of the typed message, Windows opens the New Printer Wizard. Once I said Rebooted the PC and DNS almost rebooted my PC. Ive tried turning off the Commands portion, but that does restrict the functionality of the PC. BTW, it does not type curse words. You still have to delete the gibberish, but at least it is not profane. :)

Ok, I can dictate, and it types what I have dictated. Sort of. If that were the only issue, I would probably provisionally rate it 3 stars since it is still learning my voice recognition. BUT -- Nuance is the absolute #1 poster child for corporate greed. I paid for my user license, only to learn that if I want to use it on my laptop while on the road, I cant since I have already installed it on my desktop. Never mind that I cant/wont be using the two at the same time (i.e., only one user at any one time, period), they want me to buy another license. But wait, theres more... I only need the basic Home version of DNS for the limited purposes I put it to (simple dictation translation due to physical disability). So if I bite the bullet and pay for a second license, I can sync my user profile between the two machines so that I dont have to train the second machine from the beginning (which is called reinventing the wheel), right? WRONG!!! Not with the Home version; this functionality only begins with the premium version (twice the cost, more or less). Never mind that the added cost to Nuance to include this functionality would be maybe 39¢ or so (total, not per copy, electrons are cheap). So now Im up to 4x the original cost, and they did not disclose this in the promo material for the program. Can anyone say, Class action? Are you listening, Nuance? And customer service? Dont ask. The simple fact of the matter is that unless you are into feeding corporate greed or (like me with my physical disability) have no other options, steer clear of these money-grubbing jerks.