![]() ![]() ![]() What if I can’t afford to buy the product? They are a little better than the free online tools, but still a long way short of Dragon’s offering both in terms of accuracy, features and their ability to adapt to your speech. Microsoft Word and Google Docs now both incorporate dictation tools as part of their feature sets. Additionally, Dragon has the ability to learn unique words (very important for writers) and adapt its ‘voice engine’ to the way you speak. With Dragon, provided you are using a decent microphone, it is possible to speak at normal conversational speed and expect 98 – 99% accuracy after training. While there are a few free voice dictation products available on the web, they are very limited in the functions they provide and require you to speak slowly to get any sort of accuracy in translation. If you’re serious about productivity improvements for your writing, Dragon Dictate is the only product (in my opinion) you should consider. In this article, I summarise my experience as a writer with the product and answer the most common of these recurring questions to help you decide if Dragon is right for you.ĭo you need Dragon Dictate software or will any speech recognition software do? Over the years, I’ve posted answers to a wide variety of questions writers have on Dragon. It turns out that writing fiction is a different proposition to writing IT documentation, but after several weeks of trial and error, I was consistently turning out 2,000-word first-draft chapters for my new novel in under an hour. The process wasn’t quite as ‘seamless’ as I had expected. When I moved into writing fiction, it was a ‘no-brainer’ for me to continue using the software. Perhaps it was the expense? Or the time you needed to invest in training the software? Or the lack of a real medical condition like I had that was forcing a change? Whatever the reason, the number of ‘converts’ I had to Dragon over the next 15 years could be counted on two hands. I became somewhat of an evangelist for the product, but very few of my colleagues made the switch to Dragon, even though they could see my typing output was double and sometimes triple what they could produce in an equivalent timeframe. With my IT career back in business, I was hooked on the productivity benefits of Dragon and never looked back. ![]() But I persisted and after two weeks of using Dragon on a daily basis, my work output was more than double my best day on a keyboard. The software needed to learn how I speak (I’m Australian and speak with a twang), and I was worried this might be a challenge. ![]() To my surprise, the results were reasonable after only two hours of basic training and I had new hope my career might be salvageable. At that point, I didn’t have much to lose, so I shelled out two hundred dollars for the software and a decent microphone and got to work learning about this new technology. …but had heard good things about it and suggested it might be worth a try considering my career was at a crossroad. A work colleague suggested I try Dragon Dictate (Dragon) voice recognition software. My disability left me with few options for staying in the IT industry and I began to ponder a career change and a job that didn’t require typing. Rest was suggested, as were exercises, as was an operation, but no medical physician was prepared to offer any guarantee of a complete cure.Īs an IT professional, my working life depended on being able to use a keyboard. For any of you who are not familiar with the condition, it can be debilitating – a constant burning pain in your wrists and lower forearms that leaves you with a weak grip and unable to type for more than a few minutes without experiencing severe pain. 84 comments Dragon Dictation – Is it Right for You?Ībout 15 years ago, while I was still working full-time as a business analyst, I contracted carpal tunnel syndrome from spending too much time typing on a keyboard. ![]()
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