I have used Dragon NaturallySpeaking off and on for the last five or six years. And, generally speaking, I am fairly well pleased with its performance however with the later editions of Dragon, I seem to be experiencing more and more frustrating problems.

 

Of course, I don't know if this is because I have gotten used to using Dragon and, to tell the truth, I don't use it enough on a routine basis to really get good at it, but I am working on it.

 

Lately, I have been encountering a reoccurring shopping list of problems and I don't see how to correct them.

 

The first problem I have is with the punctuation exclamation mark. I seem to be getting a bout a 25% success rate on the first try!, Now that time it worked correctly! Usually, I will get something like excavation Mark instead I wouldn't mind this so much except that in the corrections the character "!" Is NOT one of the choices is there any way to correct this?

 

Also the "(the term open quote and the term" close quote are frequently miss-recognized as well as the (and) usually result in Ms. recognitions also not to mention term Ms. reck that

 

Well, you see what I mean… Also is there any way that I can keep Dragon from executing commands instead of just typing the words? For instance if I say open the door, half the time Dragon wants to open a program of course this morning, all of the typical problems seem to be at a minimum basis it must be happening because when I get tired there seemed to be more errors.

 

How can I adjust the settings to help compensate for this? And remember, you are dealing with an idiot here so make it a basic method.

 

Another problem I have is whenever I make a mistake I will say "correct that" and usually, Dragon will go into the corrections mode on the last thing I did, but sometimes it will go up into the document and search for the word "that" and want to fix it! What gives with that?

 

Also I went ahead and let Dragon upgrade to the 11.5 service pack, and it still wants to upgrade to the 11.5 service pack! I've tried to go into the startup menu and eliminate this, and Windows insists that I need to have administrator status which is curious, because this is a one user system and I am the only user and I do have administrator status!

 

I read somewhere where this was termed "Nag Ware" however I have decided that the proper term should be "P O" Ware!

 John

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Quote:

"!" Is NOT one of the choices is there any way to correct this?

This is a fairly common problem but you could open your Vocabulary Editor, scroll up to ! and click the Train button, try saying it slower or create a new Written Form/Spoken Form by using “excavation Mark” as the Written Form. Or, you could substitute explanation point as a 4th option.



You could substitute begin quote for open quote and end quote for close quote or even create your own version, as previously noted, in the Vocabulary Editor. We added left quote and right quote to produce curly quotes = “”. If you'd like to know how we did this, look up “curly” in the NaturallySpeaking Quick Tips (at the top of this page) for step-by-step. We never use straight quotes = "".



The best way to prevent NaturallySpeaking from accidentally executing commands, not to mention increasing your accuracy, is to dictate in long phrases rather than one to three-word phrases. Of course that's not always possible but when it isn't, you can prevent accidental command deployment by pre-facing the word you wish to dictate with the word Cap or no-caps. For example, if you are dictating a reply to this message, you wouldn't want to say the word “reply” by itself because it would most likely click the Reply to Post link on the forum. If your word appears in the middle of a sentence try saying no-caps reply and if your word appears at the beginning of the sentence, try saying Cap Reply. Other ways to force dictation include switching to Dictation Mode or holding down the {Shift} Key while dictating.



Unless you consider yourself as a setting, there are no settings to adjust; just your work habits. HOWEVER, it also helps to use a good soundcard & microphone. According to your profile you're using integrated soundcard (which we recommend against using) and a $5 OEM microphone which barely qualifies as a backup microphone. Speech recognition can only be as strong as its weakest link and your sound system is your current weakest link.



This occasionally happens to everyone and we have always been against using commands that end in the word “that” but another option would be to say correct <word or phrase you wish to correct> which has the added advantage of random-access (the ability to correct any word or phrase within view).

Example: If you say the brown fox jumped over the fence and NaturallySpeaking types the blue fox jumped over the fence say correct blue or correct the blue fox instead of correct that. If you're using KnowBrainer 2011 you can substitute Correct for correct that. Also note that if you're waiting for your dictation to hit the page and proofreading it before moving on, you're dictating about 400% slower than you should be. You may have to glance off the side of your monitor but avoid watching the words appear on your screen. If possible, try to dictate an entire paragraph before correcting.



This is typically caused by a registry error but if you don't want to purchase a registry utility or move your user profile to a safer address like your desktop, Uninstall NaturallySpeaking, run DNS11 Remover and reverse that process, you could optionally disable the DNS update nag. You'll find a step-by-step on this process in the NaturallySpeaking Quick Tips (at the top of this page) when you look up SSBkgdupdate.

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Thank you for all of your suggestions

 

One other problem that I am having is that Dragon NaturallySpeaking seems to have a single-mindedness when it comes to spelling things.

 

I do a lot of work with the program named Calibre, and Dragon keeps wanting to spell it Caliber!

 

This would be a problem except when I want to try and train the word I will type the word Calibre and then highlight it and tell DNS to train that. The only problem is when the training box comes up it has caliber written in the box! You cannot change the word in the training box, and even though I clearly indicate Calibre, Dragon wants to train caliber.

 

I don't understand what is happening here but I'm finding it very frustrating.

 

Thank you for all of your help – I know these sorts of things are really pretty basic, but this seems to be the only help form around it even has a clue about what is going on.

 John

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THE TRAC BALL ALWAYS LANDS IN THE GUACAMOLE  

 

DNS Prefered 11, WinXP Pro SP3, PENTIUM 4 CPU  3.40 GHz, 2.0 Gb RAM, REAL TECH High Definition Audio

In these situations, I add an alternative pronunciation: e.g., "Calibre" = "caliber caliber" or "caliber the program" or "caliber with an R E" or whatever phrase you can easily remember and say.

It's natural to assume that training a misrecognized word will force NaturallySpeaking to do your bidding but that approach always takes longer and often doesn't produce the results you're looking for. That's why NaturallySpeaking includes additional Vocabulary Editor tricks. We recommend examining your Vocabulary Editor. Check out the Written Form/Spoken Form and the Properties button which allows you to make all kinds of behavioral changes. For example, rather than fighting NaturallySpeaking when attempting to dictate “Sennheiser MD431 II” we inserted that phrase into the Written Form and gave it a Spoken Form of “Sennheiser desktop microphone”. The important thing to remember is that like Windows, there are typically 2 or 3 ways to skin the proverbial cat.

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