Thread: Word Processing by Voice

get yourself a cheap digital voice dictator and learn to type, will be heaps cheaper and less frustrating than getting an average program that will make you go nutty trying to learn how to get it to work

I've got Naturally Speaking, too, but not the full blown version.

It requires commitment to get it to learn your voice. I haven't the commitment so I keep giving up.

Maybe if I stayed with it, I could answer all those unanswered emails....

I use Dragon naturally speaking version 10. It is definitely quicker than typing. However, a couple of things that I would point out --

Vista has inbuilt voice recognition, which I cannot comment on, but I gather is an excellent product for basic dictation, considering it is free.

The challenge that I personally have with dictation is that I struggle to formulate a whole paragraph in my head before dictating. I find the quality of the document is higher if I type it than if I dictate. I am really not sure if one would be able to write a thesis of high grammatical standard, using dictation. To get basic ideas down however -- may be worthwhile considering. I regularly use dictation for e-mails and letters. Not knowing me, you properly cannot tell (that should be probably) that if I had been to tighten its (that should be type this) the sentence structure would have been slightly different. Obviously, in this scenario, no issue.

And yes just to be corny I have dictated this post as you see it with no corrections. As you will see, significantly quicker and more accurate than typing. Please note that all formatting and punctuation for this post was done using dictation.

I would also point out that the current version needs very little " training". About 15 minutes is all that is needed. One does need to speak clearly, but not unnaturally, when dictating. The only change that I needed to make was to stop mumbling. Once I did that I was fine. It is correct however that the more one uses dictation, the better one gets that it (should be at it) and the better the recognition becomes. I only loaded the software up less than a week ago on this machine, so I would expect the accuracy level will improve over what I have dictated now.

I would also stress that the quality of microphone used is crucial. Many people give away dictation because they try using a cheap microphone. Ironically, often the microphone provided with the software. It doesn't hurt to have a reasonably good computer to dictate on as well.

Well, not bad -- only three mistakes that I have noticed. Hope that is helpful.

Matthew

That's damn good, Matthew, compared with my results with Naturally Speaking (a much older version).

I'd be tempted to upgrade and try again.

I think I started with about version 5 or six and looked back in on version 8, have watched it "grow up". I have not previously been able to use dictation as a viable tool. Although definitely not perfect, definitely now a useful practical tool, not like before.

I just have to concentrate on my 'a' 'the' 'ed' (yes I typed those) and not get lazy in my enunciation.

I understand!. NS has trouble with some of my enunciation.

Ron aka Mumbles

I have one of those voices that regularly defies speech recognition, learning to type was the only way I could and the best way I ever found to learn typing was to join an IRC channel that had a flame room and then try to keep up with the flame posts.

you had to type very quickly and accurately if you werent quick by the time you typed out the insult and hit send[enter/return] the topic of insult had changed.

If you made a typo/spelling error that would usually mean the next round of insults was coming your way.

leet speak kinda put an end to all those rooms tho and the fun of doing it was taken away from those of us who enjoyed rapidly stringing 40 or so words togeher to chuck at each other.

You could always get an mp3/4/5 player with a mic and use it as a dictophone.

I used the full version of Dragon 9 for a short while and it wasn't too bad. I didn't worry about the cut down version as I wanted the extra features. After setting the accent to 'Australian' and doing the initial setups it didn't take too long to get decent accuracy. If you read samples from different technical journals containing jargon you will be using that helps sort out most of the inaccuracies.

I would also strongly recommend a decent microphone headset. I used an Andrea headset and it was brilliant - best quality for the money. It also pays to remember that DNS is memory and processor hungry so for best results the more RAM (2GB+) and the faster the processor (core duo) the better.

I can type pretty quickly but when I was doing Honours (note that you can't get student discounts) I did most of my typing from late arvo to later in the night and by then of course my typing would go to $hit. That is where the benefit of DNS 9 came in for me. I also used to dictate into a voice recorder and later hook it up to DNS which would then transcribe it for me.

For what it's worth I bought two copies online from the USA (one for my mate) and it cost half what I would have paid in Australia. That's how I afforded the decent headset!

Cheers,

Cripesamighty