New, NaturallySpeaking Version 10 Full List of Features
Click for Dragon NaturallySpeaking Version 10 order form: Pricing & Order form
Dragon NaturallySpeaking has added numerous advances in Voice Recognition. The following is a detailed listing of these new changes.
More Accurate
NaturallySpeaking is now 20% more accurate than version 9. The new version 10 Medical is up to 33% more accurate than non-medical versions of Dragon. We have been testing the Professional version, which has already been released, and the increase in accuracy is simply amazing.
New Profiles for non native accents
When you create a profile, you can choose from General English accent, English with a Spanish accent, southeast Asia, Indian Region accent, British, Australian, as well as Great Lakes US (This accent model covers Upstate New York through the Chicago area), and southern US accent (This accent model covers most of the Southern United States, including Texas).
Your transcribed dictation appears faster
The engineers have completely reworked the system, so your words appear on the screen and your commands are carried out in half the time of previous versions. That makes it much easier to edit your transcription as you dictate, and increases your productivity.
Quick Voice Formatting
In this new version 10, Dragon has added enhanced voice formatting that allows you to format text as you go. For example, you could say “bold this is important” to bold “this is important”. Or say, "Bold <text> through <text>", (or Bold <text> to <text>) to select a section of text and format it at the same time. There are similar commands for quickly, underlining, italicizing, copying, cutting, and deleting text within a single spoken voice command.
Quick File Searching Commands
Dragon 10 now supports the search software programs, Google Desktop, (a free download), and Microsoft Vista Search (comes with Vista). New NaturallySpeaking Version 10 voice shortcuts allow you to search your computer, using commands such as:
"Search the computer for budget spreadsheets" That command would display all the indexed files on your computer, that contain the file keywords "budget spreadsheets".
“Search email for the budget", would displays all your indexed email with the keyword "budget "
"Search documents for budget", would search though your documents for the word "budget" within the document.
“Find an e-mail about vacation” would search through your e-mails for a message that includes the word “vacation”
Quick Web Searching Commands
The commands would open your web browser, if it's not already opened, and perform these searches, all in one command. Here are some examples:
"Search the web for Italian restaurants in San Diego" would load your web browser, inputs the search string you said, and shows you the results.
"Search eBay for waffle irons” would open your default browser and search a specific website for whatever you were asking.
This feature is supported for AOL, AltaVista, Ask, eBay, About, Answers, Creative Commons, Google, MSN, Wikipedia, Yahoo, and YouTube.
Special Google Searches
Version 10 also includes special searches within Google's abilities.
The command, "find a website about solar energy” would open your default web browser, and display the Google top-ranked page for the phrase “solar energy”
The command “search video for Eagles” would open your default web browser, and search for what you ask within that category. The available categories are, images, video, news, shops, and maps.
Voice Shortcuts for Email and Calendar
Version 10 adds single commands for sending e-mail to specific contacts, for example:
"Send e-mail to John Doe and Jane Smith", would open a new e-mail, and place the names you specify into the "To:" field.
"Send e-mail about noon meeting", would open a new e-mail, insert "noon meeting" in the subject line, and place you in the "To:" field ready to address your e-mail.
For calendaring, only Microsoft Outlook is supported for creating these new single calendar commands.
Saying, "Schedule a meeting with John Doe and Jane Smith", would open a new appointment with the names you dictated as the attendees
Formatting settings
The formatting menu, now has a separate entry under the DragonBar menu of “Tools”. Many new options have been added, as you see on this screen shot:
One of the hardest things to learn, is having to say "numeral" before saying a single digit number, such as saying "numeral three”, to get “3”. In this new version 10, you can adjust how numbers are transcribed with the setting "Numbers, if greater than or equal to" (which is shown set to “0”). When this setting is set to 0, when you say one, Dragon will type 1. The context of what you are saying will help the program decide if you are dictating 2 or to, plus 4 or for.
You can also set this Numbers setting to 2, 10, or 100, to change how numbers are automatically formatted.
Another new formatting function, is the ability of setting formatting for a Social Security number. When you check this box, any time you dictate a 9 digit number, it will be properly formatted with hyphens to display a Social Security number.
Another change is the ability to select how many spaces will be added after dictating a “period”. With proportional fonts that type every letter at a different width (the letter “i”, takes up less width than the letter "x”), it is now common practice to only place one space after typing the period. This new setting allows you to choose how many spaces you prefer.
The “street address” format is new. It changes the formatting, when dictating an address. If you were to say an address, as “7955 Raytheon Road San Diego California 92111”. By turning on this formatting, Dragon would now transcribe, 7955 Raytheon Rd., San Diego, CA 92111. As shown, it would automatically put commas between the segments of the address, and changes the state into its two letter capitalized code.
“Abbreviate Titles”, when placed on, would give you the normal abbreviations as you dictate, such as transcribing “Mr.” instead of “Mister”.
The “Dates” drop down, allows you to change how dates you dictate, are transcribed. If you pick "Dates as spoken", Dragon will transcribe the month spelled out and the date formatted. If you pick any of these formats, when you say a date, it will be formatted according to your choice.
Examples:
Set to Dates as Spoken: August 20, 2008
Set to mm/dd/yy, August 20, 2008, becomes: 08/20/08
Set to D Month, YYYY, August 20, 2008 becomes: 20 August, 2008
The “Common Abbreviations”, forces a transcription of common abbreviations instead of the full word. Examples: vs. instead of versus, Dept. for Department, and Corp. for Corporation.
"Expanded contractions", is a very interesting new formatting feature. When set, instead of typing out a contraction you dictate, it will type the two words. So if you say “Don’t do that”, Dragon will transcribe “Do not do that”. There are problems with this. For example the contraction, “It’s always” could be “it is always” or “it has always”. If Dragon finds the contraction to be ambiguous, it will transcribe the word as a contraction, no matter how this option was set.
The switch “Prefer 5 million over 5,000,000, is a helpful new feature. In the past, if you said 4 million, it would type 4 million. If you said 4 million twenty, it would type 4,000,020. Now in version 10, if you set this format option to off, when you say a number, so it will always be transcribed completely as numbers (4,000,000).
The "Times" selection, is a bit curious. If you turn it off, and say "six thirty p.m.” it will transcribe, 630 p.m. (leaving off the colon between the 6 and the 3). Leaving the time selection on, gives you the expected 6:30 p.m..
As with previous versions, Dragon had an option to automatically add commas and periods. we don't find this option to be helpful. The feature depends upon your proper pausing as you speak, to place these punctuation marks, and we don't feel it works effectively with normal speech.
A new selection is "allows pauses in formatted phrases". This is an interesting new option for dictating numbers. For example if I have this option switched off, and say 34 then I pause for a second, then say dollars, I get 34 dollars. If I turn the option on, and do the same sequence, I get $34.
I find this most useful for dictating one number after another. For example if I said 34 dollars paused for a second then said fifty cents, with this option turned on I get $34.50. But if I turn the switch off and do the same sequence, I get $34 $.50
Improved Auto-Transcription
Version 10 allows you to set up a subdirectory, into which you place recorded dictation from an approved digital recorder. Any digital file copied into the subdirectory is transcribed, and the resulting file is written to a subdirectory of your choice. The resulting text file can have the DRA file with the actual recording of the dictators voice, copied into that same directory. Having the two files together, allows you to edit the resulting document, listening to the voice behind any misrecognized words, which aides in their correction.
New training options for creating a user
There are now three training options for creating new users: no training, short training, and special training.
· No Training, allows the user to skip training entirely. With the No Training option, Dragon leads the user through several screens that adapts Dragon to the volume of the user's microphone and the quality of the user's sound system. The No Training option takes approximately one minute to complete.
· Short Training, Dragon guides the user through reading from one of several longer passages from books, news articles, or speeches. Short Training takes approximately 7 minutes to complete and offers better initial accuracy than the No Training option.
· Special Training, is a new option. The user reads from one of several longer prepared texts, without any prompting from Dragon. This is perfect for Users with speech impairments or other difficulties articulating words.
In Special training the user can read the text aloud and Dragon will signal the user when it has enough information to perform the training. Special Training usually takes about ten to fifteen minutes to complete, but since the Special Training is open-ended, the user can take as long as they need to complete the training, including their ability to pause during the training process.
Expanded Word Properties
Dragon 10 has added these set of properties, that can be added to any dictated word or phrase.
These controls will change such things as the number of characters that appear before and after the word you specify. It can add blank lines before or after. You can decide how the next word you dictate after this word appears, (normal capitalization, capitalized, all capitalized, not capitalized).
You can specify how a number will appear dictated before or after the word. You can force those numbers to be transcribed as all numerals, or the "normally" setting will transcribe them according to the defaults you have set.
Then you have two alternative forms, in which you can specify exactly how you wish the word to be displayed.
Automatic Microphone Time out
In a new feature, Dragon will automatically put the microphone into "sleep" mode, if it detects five continuous minutes of silence. This protects your programs and document from Dragon typing in response to room noise, if you forget to turn off the microphone before setting it down. It is the automatic equivalent of saying "Stop Listening." To reactivate the microphone, say "Listen To Me."
Administrative Setups
Within the Administrative Setups control area, you can disable a Dragon users' ability to modify the commands built with the tools Macro Recorder, Step-by-Step commands, and Advanced Scripting commands, but still allow them to run those commands.
Also within the administrative area, it fixes a very annoying problem from the effects on Dragon from Microsoft's Alternative User Input Text Input Processor (CTFMon). Having that process activated can cause conflicts with Dragon usage. With all previous Dragon versions, you had to follow a long procedure to disable CTFMon. Version 10 adds the ability to easily disable this setting from right within the Dragon administrative setup.
Click for Dragon NaturallySpeaking Version 10 order form: Pricing & Order form
