I am wondering if anyone has tried Dragon Dictate 2.5 for Mac? I would love to go back to using a MacBook, but only if Dragon is functional. Previous Mac versions have been dreadful.

Also, I wonder if there are any plans to develop KnowBrainer for the Mac. Dragon without KnowBrainer is pretty much unthinkable.

 I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts about or experiences of the new 2.5 version for Mac.

Thank you!

Speedlearn

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Speedlearn

 

Windows 7 Professional;DNS Professional 11; KnowBrainer 2010;

Sony Vaio;Intel Core i7;CPU M 620@2.67 GHz;RAM 6.00; 64-bit

I sent you a private email about DD2.5.

DragonDictate 2.5 seems to only include a handful of new improvements. However, Nuance resources have just been freed up from Dragon Medical Practice Edition (w/DNS 11 Speech Engine) so you may soon see more functionality.

Although we currently have no plans to port KnowBrainer into DragonDictate, it's definitely something that we would like to do and we're speaking with a couple of programmers about the possibility of porting KnowBrainer into WSR and DragonDictate.

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I sent a private post about DD 2.5, but thought about it a bit more and decided to post this. My hesitation is mainly based on relative inexperience. I have played with DD 2.5, but have not tried to use it (or any other Mac office program) for serious work.

The background: I have a macbook pro, but tried and didn't like the flavors of MS office that were available, so started using VMware Fusion to run windows on a virtual machine. It worked great, and I still work with DNS pro (now 11.5) and word for windows 2003 in virtual windows machines. I use an extensive library of global and app-specific custom commands and words. I enthusiastically recommend DNS 11.5 to friends and colleagues, and several continue to use it with great success.

DD 2.5, the Good:

-- impressively fast and accurate speech to text, at least on par with DNS 11.5.

-- fast and good machine control, opening, minimizing, and switching among programs, etc..

-- a nice feedback/correction window that accepts transcribed words (beyond just letters as in DNS).

-- a macro creation facility based on applescript, also records and accepts text/image macros.

The less good:

Until version 2.5, dragon dictate imposed a "golden rule:" no typing and dictating in the same document. I suppose because the mac os didn't have a SAPI equivalent (as of OS 10.6), DD couldn't track the position of the cursor or the changes to the document made by typing. Because I write by interchanging typing and speaking, depending on the particular task, this limitation was a fatal flaw to me.

Now, for the first time, DD 2.5 allows typing and dictating into the same microsoft word document. My initial tests found it did work as claimed. More recent tests found that though it's better than before, the dictation and typing context still get lost sometimes, and strange characters appear. (I never saw that in DNS...until 11.5!  Now I see occasional extra letters inserted if I type and dictate into Dragonpad. Not in word, though.)

DD 2.5 supports only a few bluetooth mics (e.g., not the blueparrot vxi).

DISCLAIMER. I did not create a new user for 2.5, which may matter a lot. Also, I haven't used 2.5 enough to be convinced that it's not worthwhile. The main problem with DD 2.5 for me is that DNS works so well-- even in a virtual machine. Though Nuance does not support DNS on virtual machines, and it does support DD on OSX, I'm not too tempted to spend my time trying to recreate in DD what I've already got with DNS.

Bottom line. If I used native mac programs, had no interest in Windows, and wanted speech-to-text and computer control, I would try DD 2.5. 

I just installed today, and this is my first experience with any dictation software.   Too bad KnowBrainer doesn't support it, because it looks like wonderful info.   I plan to use my iPhone 4 as the  "off site" dictation machine, and the computer's microphone for any home dictation   I do have the Philips Voice Tracer, never used, from when I bought the PC software (never used).  Finally getting around to all of this.

 

Any suggestions where to go for better support of the program. I have a MacBook Pro operating OS X 10... (Snow Leopard)?

 

Thanks.  Dorothy - charidak 

 

                                Welcome to the KnowBrainer Forums

DragonDictate is a decent speech recognition program but perhaps 1 of the reasons why you're impressed with this application is because you haven't experienced NaturallySpeaking. Although both products utilize the same speech engine, it takes a lot more time and effort to get the same job done in DragonDictate. It's a bit like watching color television. If you've never experienced 1080p Blu-ray resolution, you won't know what you're missing

The next version of the KnowBrainer Speech Recognition Forums, literally due to go online any day now, will include a new DragonDictate forum but if you can't wait, check out the MacSpeech Forums

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I have just started Dragon 2.5 in Snow Leopard (with all current Os updates) and there is now an annoying addition of a line-break at the end of each dictated phrase in Word for Mac 2008.

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Open Office Download

Jake,

If Microsoft Word for Mac is the same as the last two versions of Microsoft Word for Windows, the problem you're experiencing is caused by the initial default settings in Word. Perhaps somebody using Microsoft Word for Mac 2008 on this forum can give you a little more information on where those settings are and how to set them so that you don't get an additional line break, but it's not a Dragon Dictate problem.

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower®: We don't make Dragon NaturallySpeaking, We make it better!

"About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends." Herbert Hoover

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