Odds & Ends
Pitfalls, Warnings, Shortcomings
If you have documents in your My Documents folder that are not representative of your speech, the automatic vocabulary building done by NaturallySpeaking after your enrollment may be counterproductive. In that case, skip the step! Or, if using a Pro/Medical/Legal version, opt to create a new vocabulary and redo building vocabulary.
USING NaturallySpeaking with Other Speech Recognition Programs
Dragon NaturallySpeaking may not be the ideal speech recognition program for some of your applications. If so, one can normally use other speech recognition programs and switch back and forth by voice.
You can probably use IBM ViaVoice with NaturallySpeaking 7. You will have to have the microphone off in one program while it's on in the other. One can start NaturallySpeaking with a voice command from ViaVoice.
Microsoft Speech is more tempermental. If you need to use it, shut down NaturallySpeaking completely before starting it.
If one is using a recorder, we suggest enrolling the recorder at the same time as one dictates the enrollment passage directly into the computer system. This can save a few minutes. You should also save the ".wav" file from the recorder used for enrollment so that you do not have to re-read the text should something go wrong.
Some people can't read the PC screen. For these people, one can use NaturallySpeaking in conjunction with a "screenreader" program such as JAWS (by Henter-Joyce, www.hj.com)
You can use JAWS with DNS 6.0. The best solution is to use it with JAWBONE, a set of NaturallySpeaking macros. Expect Release 7 support by summer 2003.
(For those looking in who may be confused or just interested, JAWS is a screen reader generally used by visually-impaired persons. It reads essentially EVERYTHING on your screen!)
Alternately, use Dragon Professional to create commands giving speech feedback. In the commands, generate speech or sounds (using the "Beep" command is efficient) to verify recognition.
You may use Windows or Dragon to change font attributes.
AUDIO FEEDBACK FOR VERIFICATION OF COMMANDS
Audio Feedback One can have audio feedback given when NaturallySpeaking understands what you said. This can be accomplished using the "PlaySound" macro command. This is most useful when the person dictating is not looking at the PC monitor. One can create macros including a recording that is played back, signalling that the computer understands. If one does not hear a recording after saying a command, one can look at the monitor or repeat the command.
Speech Recognition on a Macintosh
NaturallySpeaking does not run on a Macintosh. There are at least two ways to have NaturallySpeaking control a Macintosh.
A. IBM ViaVoice is available for Macintosh.
B. Synapse Adaptive has developed a more general interface to allow control of a Macintosh as well as other systems (e.g. Unix) via a PC acting as a keyboard emulator. Many will view this as an expensive solution. (www.synapseadaptive.com)
www.out-loud.com tracks the Macintosh developments and may have more up-to-date information. IBM ViaVoice is available for Macintosh..
NaturallySpeaking EASTER EGG (just for fun!)
You may click on:
Help
About Dragon NaturallySpeaking
Shift-F1.
Updated March 2003