I know that many of the regular posters on this forum use Dragon for medical or technical content. Heavy use of Dragon in Word for writing and editing in the humanities raises different issues, especially the need to use the features on the Review menu. In case anyone is interested, I have posted videos and instructional texts for using Dragon with the Reviewing features in Word here: https://wordsforsale.us/writing-and-editing-by-voice/using-dragon-for-tracking-and-reviewing/. The material covers inserting and replying to comments, switching between all markup and simple markup, adding comments when you aren't in the Review tab, using the word count feature, and getting out of the thesaurus—which is much more difficult than getting into it. Expert users will probably be familiar with most or all of the material, but newer users might appreciate some of the tips that aren't listed in Dragon's documentation.

 

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These videos are a great resource. Thank you.

Yes, I am an expert at working with such comments, and I confirm she has found several of the secret methods for getting into the right comment, etc. The Resolve issue cannot be addressed even with VBA scripts. And with the new MS Word commenting experience, the whole comment dialog box has changed and cannot be driven through VBA (bummer). Maybe one day they will provide VBA support.

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Win10/11/x64, AMD Ryzen 7 3700X/3950X, 64/128GB RAM, Dragon 15.3, SP 7 Standard, SpeechStart, Office 365, KB 2017, Dragon Capture, Samson Meteor USB Desk Mic, Amazon YUWAKAYI headset, Klim and JUKSTG earbuds with microphones, excellent Sareville Wireless Mono Headset, 3 BenQ 2560x1440 monitors, Microsoft Sculpt Keyboard and Logitech G502 awesome gaming mouse.

jacklenin and kkkwj,

Thank you for your comments. Unfortunately, I have to report a new issue with MS Word comments. Two or three times in the last couple of weeks I have been unable to trigger the Reply feature by voice and have had to use the Mouse Grid. I haven't been able to confirm this yet, but my best guess is that if the writer or a previous editor of the document has used the much-to-be-deplored Modern Comments, the response to the Reply command is disabled. I am going to have to add a note to my website to report that behavior.

Does anyone know whether Modern Comments can be deactivated in Word 2021 through File - Options? I've heard that dictation is a major problem in Modern Comments but I have Word 2019, which uses the old form of comments, so I have not been able to test the new version.

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Writing and editing (my main website):  Welcome - Words for Sale

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I can say that the new modern comments are not fully implemented as much as were the old comments. The old ones had more keybindings available, etc. I read some developer traffic around the modern comments feature, and their goal was to get a first implementation of "similar" commenting UI features across multiple apps, platforms, etc. I could be wrong, but I hope they add more features and accessibility over time. Quite a few of my existing comment commands broke immediately when the upgrade was automatically installed for Office 365.

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Win10/11/x64, AMD Ryzen 7 3700X/3950X, 64/128GB RAM, Dragon 15.3, SP 7 Standard, SpeechStart, Office 365, KB 2017, Dragon Capture, Samson Meteor USB Desk Mic, Amazon YUWAKAYI headset, Klim and JUKSTG earbuds with microphones, excellent Sareville Wireless Mono Headset, 3 BenQ 2560x1440 monitors, Microsoft Sculpt Keyboard and Logitech G502 awesome gaming mouse.

Interesting. I am not sure that that is an acceptable decision on priorities. Making the new comment feature inaccessible to people who need assistive technology seems an ADA violation to me because it is an essential function of Microsoft Word. That would argue for waiting to implement new technology in anything beyond beta versions until accessibility was ensured. If anyone is interested, there is a petition on change.org to keep the option to use classic comments: https://chng.it/MZ2pZVgg5y Although the update on the page says that Microsoft listened and kept the Classic Comments option, that applies to Microsoft 365 and is not guaranteed for the future, so I think continuing to add names to the petition will be valuable.

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Writing and editing (my main website):  Welcome - Words for Sale

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Thank you for the great video about posting comments, Margaret. I am having to post many comments into a doctoral thesis and several dissertations I am reviewing. As a disabled user, I am finding it really difficult to grapple with the limitations of Dragon in Word. Although I have watched your video several times, I'm not able to get your commands to work although I am using the same version (DNS Pro 15.61.200.010). I am using Word 365 and I don't know that makes a difference, as you were using Word 19. I cannot get the cursor to move to open any of the tabs and even if I do this using the mouse, I still cannot get any reaction from the commands "new comment" and the others you recommend. I would be so grateful for any help you can offer as I am very heavily reliant upon Dragon. Many thanks!

 

PS an additional problem I am now experiencing is that the command "What Can I Say?" is not working! :-(

Hi Laura,

 

I'm glad the videos were helpful but sorry Dragon is playing up on you. I have two suggestions to start with.

 

1. Are you trying to use Microsoft 365 online? Dragon doesn't work with the online version; you'll need to download the Office applications to your desktop.

 

2. When you are in Word, look at your DragonBar. There is a big circle that turns green when the microphone is active and a little circle to the upper right of it that turns green when you are in an application that is Select-and-Say enabled. If that little dot is red, many Dragon functions are disabled. The Word–Dragon integration is poor and often times a document opens in Word with Select-and-Say disabled. If that happens, close the document and then close Word. Then reopen Word and reopen your document. Mouseclick by voice or whatever device you use to put the focus on the document. If the little dot is now green, you should be able to dictate and use commands normally. If it is still red, go through the same process again. Just closing the file will not work; you have to close and reopen Word. If you continue to have a red dot, you may have lost the Dragon add-in for Word. Look in the Quick Tips document that Linus has posted on this site for how to reenable the add-in. (Also, if Word tells you it's causing problems and asks you if you want to disable it, always answer no.)

 

Let me know whether these suggestions help.

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Writing and editing (my main website):  Welcome - Words for Sale

The woman who dueled with Aaron Burr and won: www.MmeJumel.com

Crohn's News Blog: www.crohns-news.net

Dear Margaret,

Thank you so much for responding so quickly and in such detail.
(1) I am using a downloaded version of Word 365 which is regularly updated through my university. Unfortunately, the University IT people do not provide any support for Dragon. I have been using Dragon since the very first version in the mid-1990s and I'm finding I am struggling more with it now than ever before, as most of my commands no longer work (although most of the commands I have written for myself still work).

(2) I had been using the classic bar as I prefer its unobtrusiveness, and its explicit messages when I'm having problems, but I have switched over to the modern bar in order to try to test what you have suggested. It does show that I have full text control in the active field (thank you very much for that tip). However, I am still not able to use the commands which you have demonstrated in your video. I have the Review tab open (by mouse because I cannot open it by voice), and when I say the command "insert comment" the numbers flash up on the tabs very briefly, but nothing happens! [Your preferred command, New Comment, produces nothing whatever.] On the other hand, if I say "insert footnote" the numbers flash up and I get my footnote. I am also unable to open any tabs on all with any command.

(3) I have noticed that the dot on the Dragon bar veers from fulltext control to basic control all the time that I am trying to dictate one paragraph in Word 365. I have disabled modern comments, as you suggested in your video, and I have checked repeatedly to ensure that they are kept disabled. The Dragon add-in is still active in Word. I often struggle to get Outlook to open because of it, and it can takes several tries and reboots to get Outlook to open.

(4) I am finding the Dragon constantly crashes on me. It often refuses to recognise the microphone on booting up, even though the computer acknowledges that the mic is connected, and often after I have been working for an hour with that microphone, dictating all the while. I find I have to reboot my computer, sometimes more than once, which really interrupts my work, especially because I do so much online research and writing. So I'm beginning to wonder whether the version I have (downloaded onto my computer remotely by the UK reseller) has become corrupted.

I'm sorry for this litany of woes - any further assistance and advice would be enormously appreciated. I am finding that I am resorting to typing these days, which is very painful, but I just have to be able to get on with my work when I'm under great time pressure.

Many thanks,
Laura

1. Don't blame the University people. They have a lot on their plate, like networking and Microsoft 365. Troubleshooting Dragon falls squarely on the shoulders of Dragon experts. There are probably more experts here than any other place; including the nearly useless Nuance (800) 654-1187 outsourced Myanmar support team. They don't use Dragon but are good at reading

2a. Modern DragonBar vs Classic DragonBar makes no difference. It's simply a matter of personal taste

2b. Did you by any chance remove the checkmark from Enable Natural Language Commands under the Dragon Options/Commands/More Commands (button). This feature allows Microsoft Word application-specific commands, like insert comment, to function but we normally recommend end-users disable these commands to prevent the Jumping Cursor and Jumping Page problem. Of course you could also just wait until the 28th of this month and purchase the Ver. 16 upgrade, which fixes these issues and we deliver faster than dominoes can deliver a cardboard tasting pizza

3. This could be 1 of those rare cases where the following might help; if you cannot wait for Ver. 16

  a. Copy your Ver. 15.61 %LOCALAPPDATA%\Nuance\NS15\Users\ folder to a safe location
  b. Uninstal Dragon
  c. Run DragonRemover to clean out Windows System Registry and remove all evidence of Dragon existing on your computer 
  d. Reinstal Dragon

4. We suspect you don't have a copy of our KnowBrainer Dragon Installation/Training Guide, which includes pictorial details on the installation process, a list of Dragon commands organized by category and pictorial details on fixing 30 sandtraps. We suspect your user profile is lethargic because it has swollen to 2 Gb or even more. If you have 1 or 2 microphones, it shouldn't exceed 600 Mb. Once you fix your current user profile, you can import it, as is, to Ver. 16 when it is released. We don't normally recommend importing your previous profile but in this case, it should be fine because the Dragon 16 engine is the same as Ver. 15. This fix should make dictation deployment faster and prevent Dragon crashes.

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Dear Laura,

What a mess! I think this goes far beyond inability to use comments. There is something amiss, but I don't know the fix. The easiest possibility is to try setting up a new profile. Other possibilities would be to download Word again from scratch or to uninstall and then reinstall Dragon (staying connected to the Internet during the uninstall process so that you don't lose an activation). Others here on the board may have better ideas.

As far as the DragonBar goes, I use the modern bar but have it set to collapse automatically (instead of having to say Collapse DragonBar each time). It's really tiny. You just say Expand DragonBar when you need to use it.

For advice at your university, you might try your Disabilities office (if the university has one). The staff there may be more likely to be familiar with Dragon than the IT department.

I wish you good luck with this, and I encourage anyone else with useful information to weigh-in.

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Writing and editing (my main website):  Welcome - Words for Sale

The woman who dueled with Aaron Burr and won: www.MmeJumel.com

Crohn's News Blog: www.crohns-news.net

You might try a repair of Dragon if a new profile doesn't fix the problem.  If the repair doesn't work, then try the reinstall.  You'll need the installation file to do the repair.

@ Scribe: very nice videos. I totally get now why you wouldn't/couldn't depart from the confines of MS Word. None of the EMRs I have ever used even comes close to this level of voice-driven smoothness. Perhaps a well-configured Epic installation could provide a similar experience (into which I have no first-hand knowledge). I like the snappiness as well ... a far cry from some of my JavaScript based automation sequences.

I wonder whether you had taken the time manually configuring the keyboard shortcuts yourself into Word (for the Review Ribbon at least) prior to calling the commands from Dragon, or were these Word commands built-into Dragon V15 through a Word/Office add-in?



"Ay-ay-ay" @ Laura: I think we can feel your pain.

1. Have you sought paid advice/consultation from a "Professional Dragonist"? Is your UK-based "Dragon reseller" assisting you? Of course, professional assistance doesn't come cheap these days ... Just that loss in productivity could be more expensive. If I were you, not just stopping at reinstalling Dragon, I'd be tempted to restart at the ground level by re-installing the OS while taking a "prejudiced view" on what else gets put on that hard-drive along with Dragon and Office, unless you have the wherewithal to restore a working image "at the drop of a hat".

2. Are you using desktop Dragon on a "Company computer", by which I mean a machine to which you do not have Admin access/control yourself? If that's the case, I'm afraid woe is you, especially if IT from your premier institution is constantly updating Word 365 - with or without your blessing.

3. If you have no choice but to suffer being cuffed to a Company Rig that's managed by an IT bureaucracy, and if all you want to do is generate (classic) comments in Word, perhaps you could consider a "negotiated surrender" to Dragon Legal Anywhere. As long as you (or your delegate) can configure the keyboard short-cuts in the Word Review Ribbon/Panel, DLA should be able to call up the short-cuts through "step-by-step" voice commands.

I very briefly tested DLA's half-sibling, DMO, on the Review Panel in Word 2013 (! - the "latest" version I have access to on some hospital rigs ... otherwise I don't use Office products at all), and DMO certainly has Select & Say in Word, and could insert comments or activate features for which there are built-in keyboard short-cuts/hotkeys. DLA may never get you to Scribe's level of seamlessness. But definitely beats typing, as you have lamented ...

Now DLA/DMO isn't exactly the set menu that is desktop Dragon. Using DLA alone is akin to chewing on over-done steak with no wine to go with. To get a meal out of it (i.e., approximating "hands-free") you should ideally pair it with 3rd Party tool such as Macro Express (more acceptable and "respectable" to institutional IT posse than freeware). Of course, if you can live with clicking the mouse with your fingers (which I myself enjoy less and less these days), then you may find yourself hitting the ground running with DLA, after configuring the necessary keyboard shortcuts in Word.

Hope things work out for you.

 

Many thanks, Ax. All of the editing and tracking commands that I demonstrate on that page of my website can be triggered without doing any programming. They are Natural Language Commands that exist in Dragon or pre-existing Word keyboard commands that can be spoken like any other of the inbuilt keyboard commands in Word. I thought that it would be helpful to have instructions out there for people who don't have programming expertise and need to get up to speed on the Word + Dragon interface quickly. 

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Writing and editing (my main website):  Welcome - Words for Sale

The woman who dueled with Aaron Burr and won: www.MmeJumel.com

Crohn's News Blog: www.crohns-news.net

Hi Margaret,

In the first video, you mention you haven't found a way to "Resolve" a comment without clicking the Resolve button.

Here are three possible ways to do it:

1. Move the cursor into the body of the comment to resolve. Say "press Shift F10" to bring up a context menu. Then say "Resolve Comment" (which is an item on the context menu).

2. The name of the built-in Word command to resolve a comment is "ToggleAnnotationDone." If you assign a hotkey to this command, you'll be able to access the command by voice.

For example, if you assign "Ctrl+Shift+D" to "ToggleAnnotationDone," say "press Control Shift D" to trigger the command. (If you do this, you'll lose the hotkey for double underlining, which hopefully you won't miss!)

You could in addition create a custom Dragon command called, for example, "Resolve Comment" that outputs Ctrl+Shift+D.

 

3. Place the ToggleAnnotationDone command on the Quick Access Toolbar. (I haven't tried this yet, so can't confirm that it works.)

Hi Alan,

Thank you very much! The "press Shift F10" solution will be fine because I rarely need to use the Resolve button. But if you don't object, I'd like to add both of those solutions to my instructions on dealing with comments and credit you for them.

Laura,

If you are still following this thread, I had another thought. You mentioned that you were working with dissertations. You may have run into one of the most infuriating Word - Dragon incompatibilities: the loss of Select-and-Say capacity once you get around halfway down a page that includes footnotes, especially long footnotes. From there to the end of the page, most commands will misfire and Dragon will keep freezing. The best way to deal with this is to turn off tracking, convert the footnotes to endnotes, and then convert them back when you have finished editing the document. You will still have great difficulty once you get partway through the document (closer to the endnotes), so you may also need to divide the document into multiple parts for editing purposes. When you are done editing, you will have to paste the individual files back together again. I desperately hope that this problem has been addressed in Dragon 16, but I'm not holding my breath.

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Writing and editing (my main website):  Welcome - Words for Sale

The woman who dueled with Aaron Burr and won: www.MmeJumel.com

Crohn's News Blog: www.crohns-news.net

I don't object!