Which Version is Right for You?
Recommendations and suggestions for Dragon NaturallySpeaking editions.
Note about System Requirements
With Professional, Legal, and Medical editions of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, we assume that one has a system capable of effectively using its features:
- 1GHz, 512MB RAM absolute minimum (not recommended except possibly for backup systems)
- 2GHz+, 1GB+ suggested, if faster response time is important to you. 2GB+ RAM if using Windows Vista
Focus first on upgrading your system or acquiring a new system if it does not meet the suggested configuration.
Q & A
Questions and answers about your needs to help determine which version to consider.
- Standard?
- Preferred?
- Professional?
- Medical (includes Professional)?
- Legal (includes Professional)?
Do you write less than two pages per day?
- Preferred is your likely choice. Standard is OK if you just want a taste of the technology.
- If you write more, particularly repetitive documents, then the added features of Professional may justify its added cost.
- If you need hands-free use then Professional may be justified.
Do you need or want to automate repetitive tasks?
- If so, NaturallySpeaking Professional, Medical Suite and Legal Suite have extensive tools for automating tasks.
- BUT--you have to apply these tools to get the benefits. Plan on either paying for assistance or spending considerable time to learn any but the most basic automation features included in these products.
- If the repetitive tasks only relate to producing text, then Preferred with its Text and Graphics macros may be appropriate.
Do you need to use a recorder?
- If so, think twice. Recorders are “leading-edge” technology when used with speech recognition. Results vary widely.
- You need NaturallySpeaking Preferred at a minimum to use recorders.
- Sony and Olympus build the only under-$500 recorders marketed in North America we would consider today.
Do you need to dictate or operate your computer entirely hands-free?
- If so, obtain Professional (or Medical) and get professional help learning the software.
- NaturallySpeaking allows hands-free use of your system, but in practice one needs a clear understanding of the speech software, an understanding of Windows, plus understanding your applications.
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User Profiles
Law Enforcement
Are you working in Law Enforcement?
- You will get similar results with Professional or Preferred, IF you use the Vocabulary Builder. This is suggested now that the Public Safety version is not available starting with Release 7.
- Within fire departments, we have users in arson investigation, training, community assistance, and health services areas of a major fire department.
- Please don't think you can buy this software and then put it into a squad car without LOTS of effort -- there are many nasty issues to be addressed in that environment.
You need Professional if you want to do substantial automation.
Legal
Is your writing “legal” in style and vocabulary?
- You will get BEST results with Legal Suite due to its Legal Language Model. The results are slightly better than when using Professional or Preferred, so you spend less time making corrections.
- Formatting of citations may not be consistent with what is required for your jurisdictions, and there is no practical means to change its formatting rules.
- Citation formatting works best with US Federal court citations.
Which Edition?
You will get essentially the same results with Professional or Preferred, IF you use the Vocabulary Builder. But at the current pricing, the added cost for Legal over Professional is insignificant.
- Professional Edition for Substantial Automation
- If you primarily reference a few dozen citations, making explicit macros for them will let you dictate them with ease and give the desired formatting. For this reason we normally consider Professional the “top-of-the-line” product for lawyers.
- You may need Professional (or Legal) if you want to do substantial automation or if you want the benefits of complete support for Outlook for e-mail.
- Preferred Edition for Straight Dictation
- Many lawyers get value from the Preferred Edition.
- If you just want straight dictation of business correspondence, it is a fantastic value for many lawyers.
- Definitely plan on buying a separate microphone if you go this route, and accept some limitations in dictation into Outlook, Lotus, or Groupwise.
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Medical
Is your writing “medical” in style and vocabulary?
- If you have thousands of reports you have written available to you on your computer system:
- You will get BEST results with Medical, choosing the appropriate vocabulary for your practice, plus enhancing your vocabulary using the "Add Words from Documents" or VocTools.
- You will get EXCELLENT results with Medical, choosing the appropriate vocabulary for your practice, and adding new words and phrases as required.
- You will get GOOD results with Professional or Preferred IF you use the Vocabulary Builder.
- If you do not have thousands of reports you have written available to you on your computer system,
- You will get BEST results using Medical Suite.
- You will be very frustrated and spend lots of time making corrections if you use the Professional, Preferred, or Standard without a medical language model. If you collect word lists, Internet material, other writing in your field, etc. then you may alleviate this frustration but you will probably spend many hours doing so.
Specialty Vocabularies
Release 9 of NaturallySpeaking includes 14 different medical vocabularies. These include named vocabularies for radiology, pathology, cardiology, emergency medicine, ObGyn, General Medicine, general practice, neurology, oncology, pediatrics, gastroenterology, orthopedics, and mental health. Many other specialties (e.g. dentistry, dermatology, urology, etc.) have vocabulary included within these vocabularies. A Nuance TechNote documents the other supported specialties and the recommended vocabulary. Normally we suggest using these language models instead of those supplied by third-party vendors. There are a few specialties where third-party vocabularies are appropriate.
Large Organizations
Are you part of a large organization? If so, we can help you create custom vocabularies that can be distributed to other users of the Professional products. Alternately, contact us regarding other development methodologies whereby we can create custom commands that can be used with ANY version of NaturallySpeaking.
Writing a Book/Memoirs
Are you writing the Great American Novel? Are you writing your memoirs? Preferred or Standard work well for these tasks, where typically there is little repetitive work.
Multiple Styles of Material
Do you write multiple styles of material? For instance, do you practice law during the day but have a hobby of writing mystery stories on the weekend? If so, the Professional/Medical/Legal products allow multiple "topics" per person which will save you time.
Data Collection (Spreadsheet Usage)
If you do data collection, then there can be outstanding benefits of using the Professional Edition to expedite the recording of your data. Dictating directly into spreadsheets, or dictating data into a recorder then playing it back to be processed into spreadsheets, tables, or other organized and regular formats may take a while to set up, but can save huge amounts of time.
Simple data collection using Excel can be done using the Preferred Edition, particularly if you are willing to use the keyboard to navigate between spreadsheet cells.
Buying for a Group of Users
Are you buying for a group of users? If so, and you need/want to automate using speech commands, there are development alternatives allowing addition of speech commands to all versions of NaturallySpeaking:
- If you have 10+ users with needs for the same speech commands we may be able to lower overall costs by developing a custom set of speech commands to deploy using the Preferred or Standard Editions of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. See our Services section or contact us for information.
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The Competition: Alternatives to Dragon NaturallySpeaking
IBM ViaVoice
There was at one time a serious competitor to Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the IBM ViaVoice product line. But it hasn't been updated in several years so now is not a viable competitor. Reviews:
Both of these reviews are by people willing to spend many hours with each product and have good audio equipment, unlike most magazine reviewers who spend little time before drawing conclusions.
Microsoft
Microsoft has speech recognition included with Office-XP, Office-2003, and Windows Vista.
With Windows Vista, many report good accuracy for ordinary prose. Some aspects of the program, such as web surfing, are very good. But the user interface still lacks the refinement of NaturallySpeaking. Specialized vocabulary is difficult to support with Windows Vista speech recognition.
With the Office-XP and Office-2003 versions of speech recognition, there were occasional persons who reported good results. Many more persons reported poor to horrible results with the Office-XP product. Results seem to be better with the version included with Office-2003. Microsoft admits in its publicity that their speech recognition in Office-XP was experimental, not intended as a complete product. Very little is said by Microsoft about its Office-2003 speech recognition.
Philips
Philips has continuous speech technology but most often works with high-end software/hardware suppliers to embed their technology into other products. These are mainly aimed at speeding up the transcription process where one person dictates and another person reviews/edits/corrects the document.
Need Help?
We're also happy to discuss your needs with you to help ensure you get the products and accessories best suited for your particular needs.
If you're ready to purchase, Dragon NaturallySpeaking is available through our online store.
Updated November 2007
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