Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 12, English (Old Version)

I first tried using Dragon Naturally Speaking more than 10 years ago. Back then I received an earlier version of the program as part of a give away software bundle when I purchased a computer. I gave up trying to use the program because it did not function at all with my computer. For years after that experience I considered voice recognition programs as useless. Recently I experimented with the voice recognition features on my Android cell phone. The voice recognition features worked so well I did some checking to see who wrote the program. I learned the Android voice recognition program was from Nuance, the company that now owns Dragon. Because of the positive experence with my cell phone I decided to buy Dragon 12.0 a month ago. Well the hardware and software have obviously advanced and the Dragon 12.0 program really works on my dual core computer. In a short time the program has become an invaluable tool in the writing I do for my job. This program is a game changer for me and I highly recommend it.

You have to train the software to your voice and speech patterns. And, the software also trains you to say; period, paragraph, comma, numeral one, hyphen, etc. It was really a bit too much for me to use for anything other than somewhat short and quick notes. This isnt a learn it in a week type program. Its gonna be continuing education. It cant read your mind. If you are a writer, or doctor, this would be very worthwhile. The random and varied items that i have to type every day is just too broad of spectrum to be able to make good use of the this software. Also, any noise in the background can become an obstacle to its deciphering your speech properly. I am seldom in an environment where noise will not be an issue. I did get a voice recorder that does work well in transcribing my notes, but again, background noise obliterated many of my notes..

This seems like an unbelievable product but it does seem to work. Were having some problems getting it to recognize a voice with a decided Southern accent but am sure it will do well after we complete the process of training the cd to recognize Sarahs voice.

It takes quite a lot of time to train the software, but if you keep working at it you can get it to work well. Helps save the hands & wrists. I bought this version because it comes with a headset (mic & speakers) and Im glad I did.

Read reviews regarding instability with Windows 7 - I am seeing that some. Seems to freeze more inside Firefox. Headset a decent quality. The software took me about an hour to load including the latest update...that was a little concerning, but it did run perfectly. Took about 30 minutes to train and Im off to the races. I think control boxes and drop-downs are a little kludgy to navigate and I have a lot of those in our software at work.....but for just every day talking and typing - hands down better than ending up the day with sore, arthritic fingers and hands - give it a try - its certainly cheap enough! (and if you dont like it, send it to me!)

Summary: Great recognition accuracy if you get past the installation troubles, find a headset that works and train the software well. It is very good when you need a lot of technical or custom vocabulary. The software itself is horribly unstable and clunky, crashes too often. For casual texts such as regular emails or office text, the voice recognition that comes inbuilt with Android smartphones is way superior for the English language - it comes free (look for the microphone symbol on your onscreen keyboard), doesnt require training and is amazingly accurate for standard texts without special vocabulary. I use that for emails. In Detail: I am using the software on windows 7 (64 bit). After putting in some effort into the initial training, the voice recognition engine works very well and Im very happy with and positively surprised about the accuracy. The premium version has the advantage that custom words can be imported, which is convenient if you have a lot of custom vocabulary such as field names in a database. In regards to the recognition quality a couple of things turned out to be helpful: I tried a Logitech USB headset as well as a Plantronics 300 desktop microphone which Dragon both declined to use (insufficient voice quality). Finally I had more luck using a Plantronics Bluetooth headset with noise cancellation that I usually use with my cell phone. When I created my first user profile and started dictating, Dragon would not understand some common commands however hard I tried, which was very frustrating at first. At some point I simply deleted the profile and started from scratch, this time spending more time training the software to my voice. Besides the quick start training I read out an additional half hour of training text and also let it learn my writing style and vocabulary from my sent emails. After this it became very usable and the recognition accuracy now is great. However, the software has major drawbacks: the installation is a pain and during use Dragon is unstable and tends to crash occasionally. The usability in this regard is horrible and if I had found any feasible competitor for a Windows system, I would not be using Dragon. It is really that annoying. Installation: the installation process crashed, until I found the reasons by lenghty googling. Firstly, Data Execution Prevention had to be disabled for Dragon and its installer. Having Windows 7 on the market for so many years and this still being an issue for Dragon is surprising to me. Secondly, I had to disable User Account Control completely for the installation to succeed, afterwards I could re-enable it. Seriously? Training: the Dragon Dictation explicitly says it supports Windows Live Mail to train a user profile with ones sent emails, so I downloaded all my email via IMAP from the server into the current version of WLM. However no matter what I tried,Dragon crashed during the training process without giving any error or reason.Subsequently I tried it with Outlook 2010, which is supposedly supported by Dragon as well. It crashed here too !! Maybe it couldnt handle the fact that I was using three different email accounts, who knows. I resolved that after several hours of trying by copying my email from the three different (completely downloaded) sent folders in my IMAP accounts over into the one main Sent folder Outlooks has locally. It seems the software can only handle use scenarios from 1995. Daily use: while it is possible to directly dictate into Microsoft Word, with any other unsupported software a pop-up window comes up into which the text is dictated first (Dragons dictation box). Only when the transfer button is clicked, the text gets inserted into the current cursor position. Most software Im using is unsupported, so I have to deal with this dictation box most of the time. The dictation box is unstable and crashes too frequently for my liking. After having dictated a couple of paragraphs it occasionally crashes and with this it loses any dictated work that had not been transferred to the application. So I am trying to remember to transfer my dictated text every one or two paragraphs. These crashes are a big issue for me. After installation the default setting is that text will not be kept in the clipboard when one clicks the Transfer button. If the insertion process in the the application of use fails, the dictated text is lost as well. At least this can be prevented by selecting an option to keep transferred text in the clipboard after the dictation box is closed, But I only found out after googling around for a while. To sum it up: With some effort into the training, the voice recognition is superb. The software itself is buggy, sluggish, and loses dictated work in its regular crashes. The installation process requires sophisticated IT skills and plenty of googling to succeed. If I could avoid the software, I definitely would. For casual use such as emailing or writing simple text, the voice-recognition inbuilt into Android phones is much easier to use, doesnt crash, comes free and works very very well - without training. If you need a lot of custom vocabulary or deal with technical texts on Windows, I - unfortunately - havent found any alternative to Dragon.

this product has meant so much to me. I am now able to speak and the program puts everything I say in the places I need them to be. It is so easy to use and all the help in tutorials are fantastic. If you do a lot of emails, paperwork dictations, filling out forms or anything that uses printed words this is the program for you. I cannot say enough about Dragon Naturally Speaking. I am telling everyone about it and all that have invested in it have loved this software. It makes sending mail as fast as you can speak.

I have used Dragon for years, and each time the program improves. Well all end up like Kirk and Scotty, conversing with the computer. Dragons problem isnt their product, which is very good and learns as it goes, but that the firm has never really understood the concept of product support. I have never been able to properly get my user file (the data about my voice) to transfer from one version to the next, and product support is basically a chat room for other disgruntled purchasers and others sharing what they know. A real, live conversation with tech support would go a long way. BTW, if you buy Dragon, invest in a good mike. The one that comes with the program isnt good enough, and it will save you a lot of hassle as you try to build the user database that will serve you well until you upgrade versions.

I was stuck writing a 38,000 word technical document. The only thing worse than reading one of those things is writing one. I type every day of my life, but not like this. I decided my hand cramps needed to be addressed and so I bought this program, hoping to give the hands a break now and then. Ive used Dragon products in the past (version 10) and was already familiar with the learning concept of the program. The more time you spend with it, the better it gets. I had to train version 10 for about 2 hours before it was usable in my opinion. With this one, after the initial setup (which has you read a few paragraphs to it), it was accurate to about 98%. I use a great number of complicated words in my dictation and it picked up every single one. I would highly recommend this to anyone looking to be more productive!!!

After a lot of research, this seems to be the best thing out there for the price. It was hard to get started and not simple to use. Took quite a while to get used to it. But it does work and it beats writing down every word. The users manual could be improved on.