Nuance Dragon Dragon NaturallySpeaking Home 13 (Old Version)

Would not recommend this software to someone with a southern accent - I could not get product to understand my words no matter how many times I tried the setup feature that should teach the program my voice. Im fairly decent with computers but this is one of the few items Ive had to return to Amazon. It did come with a nice headset which impressed me, so Ill give it 2 stars instead of one. I felt bad that it didnt work since it would have made my life much easier. The software install and setup seemed easy and software was easy to navigate. Just a caution - once installed it seemed to make some of my other programs open slower. Update 12/1/19: I returned this software for a refund a week after purchase. However, I really needed a voice to text software and ended up buying the pro edition (even though I feared it wouldnt be any better). It was a struggle to get the software loaded but I called Dragon support and they helped. Turns out the pro version works great for me. Im using a low-cost USB mic that had high ratings (not a headset).

Spent over three hours trying to get it to work. Found a telephone number thru Google and made two calls to tech service. This was very disappointing. I told them the earphones and mic were defective They ran me through all the start up aND STILL THE MIC WOULD NOT WORK. They then told me my sound card was defective. I purchased a new mic and earphones and the first time I tried it. It worked great. No wonder they dont put their telephone number anywhere in their package. Their tech service is terrible.

I bought this dictation program (CD software and headset/mic) hoping that it would work, and knowing that because its Amazon, if it did not, I could get my money back. Well, surprise, it works incredibly well. I talk, it writes (into a Word file for me) almost exactly what I say. Of course, it will not get every word perfectly, but perhaps 95% to 99%, which is good enough, since I can speak about 4 times faster than I can type. If youre a writer, doing documents, drafts, etc., this product can save you a huge amount of time, and make you much more efficient.

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.

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.

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.

Ordered this for my friend who is not a quick typist. He absolutely loves being able to dictate directly in Word files. Its a great tool for those who arent used to typing, cant type, have a disability or simply want to relax without using the keyboard. Dragon learns your speech patterns and words over time so the longer and more you use it, the better it becomes at recognizing your distinct speech. You can even tell it to recognize British English, Indian English, southern US English, Pakistani English, etc. so it will adapt to your language. Granted it also works with many other languages, not just English. Heres my Pros & Cons List PROS: 1. It has a very accurate Speech to text system. It understood almost every single word very quickly. 2. It was very fast. I was able to finish my document just as quickly as I had typed it. 3. It comes with a Headset and microphone already in the box. 4. It has many short cut commands like backspace, delete, next line and space. CONS: 1. It took 30 minutes to install from the DVD.

I am typing this the old fashioned way. After spending more than 30 hours trying ideas from Nuance Customer Support, user websites and YouTube videos, changing settings and even uninstalling and reinstalling the program on 2 different computers (both running Windows 10), I still have not been able to get the software to work. The frustrating thing is the microphone is working and I can use it, but not with Dragon. I get to the microphone check, see my device in the window and can speak into it and make the bars move, but when I select it and click next I get the error message: The sound system you have selected is not responding. Try selecting a different one, or check to make sure that no other application, such as Dragon Naturally Speaking, is accessing the sound system. There must be a solution for this I haven’t found, but as I am out of patience with the whole thing I will have to take a break from it. Perhaps someone will read this and be able to help me and any others who have the same issue. Update, I finally got Dragon to work, at least on my laptop. I have a new laptop that I only use for work, but I decided to see if I could set up Windows speech recognition on it, something I wasn’t able to do on my other machines. In 2 minutes I was dictating into notepad. All 3 machines run Windows 10, what’s the difference? Could it be how they got there? One computer started out as a 7 machine, the other as an 8.1. I decided to try an experiment with my 8.1 machine. First, I installed a clean version of Windows 10 (which erases everything on your computer), then I set up speech recognition and confirmed it was working. After that I reinstalled Dragon and all my other software. Took the whole day, but it works. I am not recommending this course of action to anyone else as I am not the brightest bulb in the sign when it comes to computers. I’m sure there was an easier solution to my problem, but I went the long way around to discover if you can’t get Windows speech recognition to work, Dragon won’t work either. Anyway, I went through the Naturally Speaking tutorial, then dictated a couple pieces of my writing and got surprising accuracy. Nothing close to perfect, but far fewer mistakes than I anticipated. I originally gave this a 1 star review, but I would up it to 3 stars now.

I’ve been using the various editions of Dragon ever since it came out. It is one of the most useful things for computer use. If one needs to do any significant amount of writing it is essential. I find that it is 90% accurate right out of the box, and approaching 100% after a little bit of use. I am of course writing this with Dragon and I will note any errors that it makes. I can see how some people might have some difficulty with it, particularly those who aren’t that computer savvy. One may have to adjust their sound settings for example. And of course having a competent computer is required. I just purchased this version for a new laptop. It is one half the price as the Nuance website. And the basic version does come with a Nuance headset. Which brings me to virtually my only complaint. The headset has excellent audio quality. But for the life of me I have yet to find any reasonably priced headset that doesn’t squeeze my head too tightly. I am trying to bend this one out so that it is a little more comfortable. Actually I am writing this using Amazon’s earbuds with microphone. Much more comfortable. I’ve also tried a Bluetooth headset designed more for listening than dictating, and the audio quality was not sufficient. I am going to look into a reasonably priced dictating Bluetooth headset which would be extremely convenient. You may have noticed that Dragon has not made a mistake yet even though I got it yesterday, and have only used it a couple of times.

I purchased 13.0 because 12.5 dose not work with Windows 10. I tried to install 12.5 when I got my new computer and it wouldnt install. I called support at Nuance. Sorry does not work w W-10. Dont you have an update to make 12.5 work w W-10? No you have to buy 13.0. Grrr! I purchased 13.0. This program is very time consuming to install. Finally got it installed along with my profile from 12.5. Make sure to save your voice profile if you are upgrading. There is a huge learning curve with this program. But after training it recognizes most words. I use it mostly for word dictation. I dont try to dictate the commands. Way too confusing. It is a great help in doing my rough drafts very quickly.