Nuance Dragon Dragon NaturallySpeaking Home 13 (Old Version)

When I purchased Dragon I was a little pessimistic in the accuracy of the softwares abilities, but I can honestly say that 97% of my speech, at least, is faithfully transcribed into text. I needed this product because I injured my hands and cant type, and it has been a godsend. There are a few problems though. There is a little avatar that hovers around your text, and for me it constantly looks like its loading, trying to recognize speech, even when Im silently thinking. Also, sometimes when I turn it off and on again it doesnt work and I have to restart the whole program. Still, Im pretty amazed at the technology and thankful that I can write stories again.

Essential software for so many people for so many reasons, Naturally Speaking offers opportunities to express oneself in writing when writing is impossible. Integration is relatively seamless and voice recognition is spot on. Dragon Naturally Speaking is a robust piece of software that would take one many months to completely master. I use it in Word, but also in my browser and search engines. It functions beautifully and intuitively with Word. However, in other applications one must really learn how to best employ Naturally Speaking. Its worth the effort!

I never liked typing, so I really like this software! Its not perfect, sometimes I have make corrections, I expected that, its still a lot less to type! Im very happy using Dragon, to write facebook messages and emails. I ordered the Disc and the microphone. There was an option to purchase a Koss microphone, the implication was that Koss is a better microphone. So I ordered that too. I have a laptop, and as it turns out, I dont need a microphone at all! I just speak and it types! This is wonderful, because both 2 ear microphones were very tight on my head. So now I have 2 headsets for sale!

I am writing this review using DSN 13. I had a very hard time downloading the software onto Windows 8.1. Thus the reason why I am giving it four stars. When I tried to install I kept getting a message saying the installation was interrupted and unable to finish. I searched on the Internet for fix actions and found one that worked for me. Create a guest account on your computer and install DSN 13 to that guest account, it took it a little while to start the download but it worked on the guest account and Im able to use it on my primary account. This is the link I found the fix action in http://nuance-community.custhelp.com/posts/c5c9614e18 hopefully this will work for some of you that are having a hard time downloading the software. Also on a side note I never had any previous Dragon software before this. The software itself I give 5 stars! I have had no issues with it after the install.

Its too early for me to review this yet; I just got it loaded. First of all Amazon sells it as a bundle with a headset/microphone that you dont need as one comes with the software. Even so, it was cheaper than buying it directly from Nuance. Installing it only took me an hour or more. :-( First I tried to do an advanced install and not load the things I did not need like Australian English, Asian English... After clicking the final go, the pop-up said it was installing, but nothing happened. I finally told it to install everything and it then loaded without a hitch. I then tried to use my USB headset and mic that I already owned and it kept telling me that it couldnt recognize what I was saying, so I tried switching to the one that comes with the software and that kept telling me that I had to press the on button on the headset and there isnt one. I finally created a new profile with my USB headset again and dang, that worked. Again, I havent used it much, but I can tell that it is heads and shoulders above the speech recognition in Win 7. Im not a blazingly fast typist, but I still havent decided which I prefer. I write short stories and occasionally my ideas get partially forgotten before I can type it all out so Im hoping that DNS will help. I hope to edit my review in the future.

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.

This program is not as easy as one would think. First thing you should do is buy a better set of headphones with the program. The pair that are included did pick up my voice well and caused me hours of frustration. It also does not work well if you are reading things like recipes. It clearly states that you should speak in a normal voice and at a normal pace, but reading a recipe doesnt always work that way. After about two hours of continually having to correct the word eggs I gave up. By the time I went back and corrected all the mistakes in the text it would have been faster to just type it myself. I would guess if I wanted to dictate letters or work on a term paper this would work fine, but its not what I purchased it for. What a pity.

I have dyslexia--not the kind where you have trouble reading, though. I have enormous trouble typing, and get the letters mixed around with as many as 3 to 7 typos per sentence. This meant I was a dismally slow typist. Worse, I am a writer and editor. When writing I would lose the flow of what I wanted to say when I went back to fix each sentence. Well, no longer. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Home 13 has changed my life. I used to get 1,000 words on a good 8-hour day of writing; now I can write over 1,000 words an hour. And my editing work is so much faster that I have more time to write! I know there are newer versions, but this one works for me just fine. I was up and running in two days and it just keeps getting better as Dragon adapts to my pronunciation and I learn more commands. I am one happy, satisfied customer.

I have only been using this for one day, but I must say that so far I find it incredibly functional and easy to use. My microphone is Sennheiser PC 25-S. I am speaking naturally, without having to awkwardly enunciate all my words, and the accuracy is really high, 90% or more. Whats great, too, is that telling it to correct is easy. The user interface is helpful, and prompts you in straightforward intuitive ways. I look forward to working with this more, especially as the program is learning my speech patterns and vocabulary. I purchased this after reading a lot of user reviews, and after trying to use the built in Windows speech recognition (which totally sucked! even though I was using the same quality Sennheiser microphone and spoke clearly and slowly-- accuracy rate at best was 40 to 50%-- very frustrating). One thing that was a hitch, though, was that the program did not install properly from the CD disc onto my Windows 7 Pro 64 bit desktop. But a quick call to Nuances tech support solved the problem. They walked me through discovering that, in my case, it was a .dll error, the solution to which was to uninstall, then download a new installer online which they sent me a link to. That installation went smoothly and I was immediately able to work through dictation! Whew, I am so glad! This is an important first step for me to heal from the bad tendinosis I have in both arms from too much typing and mousing!

This is the base model of the software - the premium versions may have slightly better VR processing, but this is adequate more most applications, if you speak a reasonably standard form of the language. It handles slang and idioms in context surprisingly well, but does not do as well with accented speech or dialects. The UI is capable, but takes a little practice to learn how do command it to format text. Good value for the price.