Hints for Dragon NaturallySpeaking 6 Users

These hints are intended for users of Dragon NaturallySpeaking Release 6.0 and 6.1. My best hint for Release 6 users is to change software! Upgrade to Release 7, 8, or 9 if your machine will support them. Or, downgrade to Release 5 if your machine won't support Release 7. This was the buggiest release in NaturallySpeaking history.

The hints are being removed in 2008, sorry. Links for hints that are common across later releases are retained here.

For Release 3, 4, and 5 hints, see http://www.pcspeak.com/hints.htm.

Buying a System

• Memory
• Sound Cards
• Computer Systems

Upgrading a System

• Memory
• Sound Cards
• Desktop/Notebook

Microphones

• Verification of Microphones/Sound System
• What to do if the Audio Setup Wizard Shows "Below Average" in Sound Quality

Setting Up a System for NaturallySpeaking

• Defragmentation
• Swap File
• Booting

Getting Started

• Elocution
• Lesson 1 These lessons are for Release 5, but remain until/unless replaced by R6 material.
• Lesson 2
• Lesson 3
• Lesson 4
• Lesson 5
• Lesson 6
• Lesson 7
• Lesson 8
• Voice Training, Voice Strain

Accuracy

• Accuracy Hints, including Little Word Errors, Persistent Errors, Extraneous Word Errors, & Troublesome Words
• Expectations for Accuracy
• How Much Time Can Better Accuracy Save Me?

Making Corrections

• Use the mouse and keyboard, often faster for corrections than speech
• Corrections for Recorded Speech

Vocabulary Builder

• Converting many documents for processing
• Special Symbols
• What is a "numeric colon" or "numeric hyphen" or "numeric comma"?
• Adding Special Characters to NaturallySpeaking
• VocEdit to Change Characteristics of Symbols, Words, and Phrases

Special Vocabularies & Phrase Lists

• Medical
  • 5, 6, 10 point scales
  • MT Resource
• Legal
  • Code Citation Dictation
  • Dictating to Your Computer by Judge Thomas C. Smith, Provincial Court of British Columbia (200KB download, Word format, 25 pages, revised January 2002), posted by permission of Judge Smith.

   

• Architecture, Construction, Civil/Mechanical Engineering
• Programming
• Mathematics -- Call or e-mail us for special product information if you need to perform advanced mathematics using NaturallySpeaking. Several use TeX/LaTeX with NaturallySpeaking effectively after using VocEdit to change punctuation properties.

Document Formatting

• Default Font for NaturallySpeaking

Macros/Commands

• Opening Templates and Other Documents
• Saving Documents
• What to Do When They Don't Work
• Printing a List of Custom Commands
• Web Links to Macros
• Changing Commands (Release 6)

Enterprise and Multi-User Issues

• Phrase Lists for Multiple Users
• Topic Export/Import -- understand this if you have many users with similar vocabularies
• Multiple Users Per Microphone -- avoid this if you want excellent results!
• Skipping the "Open" menu for selecting users and/or selecting a specific topic when starting NaturallySpeaking
• Who benefits most?
• Is Fire-Breathing your profession? If you work for a fire department, please call or e-mail and we will explain how a major fire department uses NaturallySpeaking in several departments to reduce transcription costs.

Odds & Ends

• Backing Up Voice Files
• Keyboard Shortcuts -- Out-loud.com by Susan Fulton has a good set of keyboard shortcuts -- learn these to replace mouse movements! (http://www.out-loud.com/keyboard_shortcuts_for_windows_95.html)
• On-Line Speech Recognition Assistance

Special-Purpose Details

• Word 2000/2002 users: If you get box-like symbols when doing copy/cut/paste operations, turn off the Word "smart cut and paste" option. (Tools/Options/Edit)

Naughty Dragon

Serious Errors R6

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Updated April 17 2008