Customer Reviews

ScanSoft Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8 Preferred [Old Version]

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

Dragon Naturally Speaking is simply the best speech recognition software available. I've used Dragon NaturallySpeaking for many years as an author (JavaScript Concepts & Techniques: Programming Interactive Web Sites), a teacher, and before that a student. Why? Because Dragon records dictation much more quickly than I can type; and I'm not a slow typist by any means. Not only does this allow me to get my thoughts on paper more quickly and accurately before they disappear into the cosmos, but it also reduces the repetitive stress of typing - something my body appreciates profusely. There's nothing like kicking back in your chair in a relaxing position while working. It seems sinful almost.

One of the things I like best about Dragon NaturallySpeaking is its ability to learn quickly. The first speech recognition program I used didn't become super accurate until I'd used it regularly for a couple of weeks. The folks who wrote Dragon NaturallySpeaking, however, seem to have realized that time is money, so they've built a Vocabulary Optimizer tool into Dragon that helps it learn how you put words together, so to speak.
Here's how it works: after you set up your microphone and perform an initial dictation Dragon's New User Wizard will ask if you want to adapt the program to your writing style. If you accept, and I highly recommend that you do, Dragon will scan all of the text, Word, and WordPerfect documents in the My Documents folder on your hard drive to analyze your particular writing style. This process significantly, and I do mean significantly, increases Dragon NaturallySpeaking's overall recognition accuracy from the get-go. You can always run the Vocabulary Optimizer later, too.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking also includes lots of other tools that can help improve its accuracy. Occassionally, you may notice that Dragon has trouble transcribing a particular word or phrase. The most likely cause is that the troublesome word isn't in Dragon's vocabulary. Not only can you add the word to Dragon's vocabulary, but you can also train the pronunciation of it so the next time you use the word during dictation, Dragon can better recognize it.

If you do a lot of technical writing like I do, there are likely lots of words you use that Dragon doesn't have in its vocabulary. No problem. Just use its Add Words tool and have Dragon scan documents you've already written for words it doesn't know and improve its vocabulary in nothing flat. You can also type a list of words and phrases you want Dragon to learn, on separate lines in a plain text file, and have the program scan it with the "Add a list of words to your vocabulary" tool. Dragon NaturallySpeaking can also analyze your sent email and add names from your email address book.

If you've never dictated your thoughts before, it may feel awkward at first. It takes a little time for your brain to make the transition from typing your thoughts to dictating them. I had trouble with it at first: similar to the transition I went through when I switched from handwriting my thoughts to typing my thoughts. Give yourself some time to adjust to the process. It's well worth the effort in terms of time savings, thought recording accuracy, and less wear and tear on your body. Dragon NaturallySpeaking also makes the transition to dictation easier than other speech recognition programs. You don't have to talk like a robot to dictate successfully to your computer. With Dragon NaturallySpeaking, you just speak naturally.

UPDATE Feb. 27, 2006: The program is still working wonders. Every now and then, it forgets and needs to be retrained. I consider that a minon hassle for the convenience I have when I use the program. I still recomment it, and up it to 4.5 stars.


I read all the horror stories about Dragon Naturally Speaking version 7, and was reluctant to purchase the product. I also read reviews about IBM ViaVoice, and was reluctant to purchase that one as well. I subsequently decided to get Dragon Naturally Speaking version 7 based purely on features available. However, my local retailer out of the product and informed me that version 8 was soon to be released.

I bit the bullet last night and purchased Naturally Speaking Preferred version 8, and hoped that I would not have the same problems that many of the previous reviewers had with version 7. I opened the package, put in the CD-ROM and proceeded with the install wizard. My first attempt was a relative disaster, giving an error number 1335, explaining that there was a cab file that could not be found because: either there was a network error; or an error reading from the CD-ROM; or that there was actually a problem with the package from the vendor. I searched the CD-ROM and could not find the cab file that had been mentioned in the error message. So, I tried the installation one more time. This time it worked. My next step was to plug in the microphone and headset that came with the package. I went through the initial training of the microphone and setting sound levels, and got an indication that while the levels were not very good, they were understandable.

My next trials and tribulations occurred when I was actually trying to train the program for my voice. This is when my computer started freezing and I had to keep on rebooting the computer. And then I had a brainstorm! I decided to plug the microphone into the back of the computer rather than to the microphone jack on the front of my computer. Ever since I did that, the program has been working wonderfully!

The program is doing a fairly decent job of recognizing my voice after only 30 minutes of training. I did take the time to go through the 14 slide tutorial, and that may have given the program more opportunity to recognize my speech patterns. I have used it in Word Dragon Pad with success. I have had several problems with Internet Explorer since installing the program. I cannot confirm that these problems are because of Naturally Speaking since these problems were beginning after I installed service pack 2.
I will caution you to either put your microphone to sleep or to turn it off when the telephone rings. I forgot to do this and had a very interesting insertion in the file I was working on at the time. Nothing like humor to lighten your day!

I'm using voice recognition to create this review. Because I am new at this, I did correct errors made in voice-recognition. It was easy to do while I was dictating. Doing so gave me practice in learning how this program works, and in the voice commands available for correcting.

I'm running Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred version 8 on a Dell XPS (Pentium 4, 3Ghz, one gig of RAM), using Windows XP home for my operating system. I had previously installed Service Pack two. For now I'm using the microphone that came with the package and do not think I am experiencing adverse results.

When I initially had the installation problems, I did visit ScanSoft web site's technical support. As previous reviewers have noted, there is zilch for technical support. Fortunately, by plugging the microphone into the rear of the computer, I no longer have the computer-freeze problem; so I am not in a position where I need technical support. Let's hope I never actually DO need tech support.

With my limited one day's experience, I will give this product 4 stars, and will return at a later date to give an update on his review. If you are considering this product, I do say go cautiously, and heed the previous reviews which have been rated as useful by most readers of the reviews. They all have good and bad things to say about the product, and help with the overall decision-making process. But, maybe this Version 8 has fixed some of the major bugs. Keeping my fingers crossed (and hopefully my tongue NOT tied!).

I am writing this review using the Dragon naturally speaking 8 preferred software. I just started using it and I'm very happy.

I use a Compaq Presario x1000 laptop, Windows XP, 500 MB RAM, and an Andrea 750 microphone. Oh, and I do use Microsoft Office small business edition 2003. Because of prior reviews of Dragon software, I did some research before buying this product. (The first thing I did was throw out my old IBM ViaVoice disk. It's useless and per my research, not worth upgrading.)

Scansoft is also worthless for tech support or advice.

I contacted eMicrophones, their web site is eMicrophones.com, and got some great advice. They advised a minimum 500 MB RAM and a better microphone, the Andrea ANC-750. They also advised a USB soundcard as the sound card in most laptops is not shielded and noisy. I'm glad I took their advice. My laptop smokes, even using the voice software. No compatability problems at all. No crashes or slowdowns (and I do have XP SP2 installed).

I hope this helps you all. Kurt

*NEEDS A HEADSET*
To be honest perfect voice recognition comes at about $1000. ScanSoft Dragon NaturallySpeaking is the best semi-pro voice recognition package to use because of its speed of learning and accuracy. I find myself recommending this more over expensive pro packages. Let me list the reasons why.

1. It is quicker to load than the pro packages.
2. It has enough functions to understand most of the things I say. If you want it to understand legal or medical terms then get the add-ons for this.
3. It is easy to use.
4. The learning curve is not steep.
5. The package is smaller in hard drive size than pro packages.
6. It can do the vast majority of things that a pro package can do.

Pro packages even have a steeper learning curve but they are more accurate, this getting sometimes 100% for minutes on end, however how this depends on the type of work you are doing. I would recommend this just on the basis that you can get it working right out the box by just learning the basic interface, simply turn on and speak, but you will spend maybe a few hours the first day training it, and a few hours every week for the next month, but the more you use it the better it will be, in just over a month it should be almost perfect. Expect some degree of hand editing your speech to text, software can do text to speech also, but computer voice simulation, not what you trained, go pro if that is what you need.

Please pardon my terrible grammar. This short review is being dictated using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8.0 preferred edition. I currently have the accuracy settings set at 1.5 out of five.

I will honestly admit that I was a skeptic at first, but Dragon has made me a believer. Now please let me say that this program does take some training and getting used to.

One of the best things about Dragon NaturallySpeaking is that you never have to speak to it in monotone, or speak one word at a time, in fact, I highly advise against it, as Dragon NaturallySpeaking is less likely to misrecognize a word if you are speaking in complete, or partially complete sentences.

If you want Dragon NaturallySpeaking to understand you better, then you should perform additional training. But, I would advise you to wait a couple of days to get used to dictating to your computer. Dragon NaturallySpeaking can also learn from your dictation style. So every few weeks or so, I recommend using the acoustic optimizer. Please note that the acoustic optimizer is resource consuming and usually takes around one hour.

All in all, Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a great product, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an easy alternative to typing, dictating book reports, and much more.Also, instead of using the headset that comes with it, buy a better one. I recommend a Logitech headset, as they are more comfortable. And as for compatibility issues, try the "show dictation box" command when Dragon refuses to input the text you have spoken into the unsupported program you're trying to use.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking has not made a single mistake the entire time I've been dictating this review.

I installed this software two days ago, and have experienced NONE of the severe problems that some have written about. The program installed without a hitch; the tutorial was very helpful; the training went quickly and smoothly. I've dictated about twenty minutes of material, and the program has recognized it very accurately. It takes some time to get used to the various voice commands, and I'm still spending considerable time correcting minor errors of punctuation, the recognition of "the" instead of "a," etc., but that seems to be decreasing, even with the short length of time that I've used the program.

I have a concern that as the program gets more accurate, I might have to spend a lot of time proofreading for occasional non-obvious errors in the text. (It's annoying when a word in a document is obviously wrong -- it always seems like the writer was careless or ignorant.) I think that Dragon NaturallySpeaking will produce more than its share of these errors, but only time will tell.

So far, I'm very impressed, and I'm pleased that I bought the program.

Judging by the reviews, you either love this software or you hate it. Perhaps I've been lucky, but I have to say I am very impressed. If my experience is anything to go by, this really could become a killer app. But different people are inevitably going to have different experiences. Here's my story. I'm using an P4 3 Mhz HP Pavilion laptop with 512 megs of RAM and a Logitech USB headset/sound canceling microphone. I've done quite a bit of the supplied training. And I've done some of my own, reading from books that are closer to my own style and usual subject matter. The program has analyzed a chunk of my own work and e-mail which seems to have helped it recognize and spell correctly a lot of names it could not have been expected to get right otherwise. I write for a living but I have never been a particularly good typist. Since installing the software about 10 days ago, I have churned out several thousand words with it at a pace I never achieved with my fingers. I have found it extremely useful for transcribing notes. In my former life as a reporter, I had to dictate quite often to copy desks on a tight deadline, and this system is faster and a lot more accurate than any of the humans I ever had to deal with. But as this suggests, I have had some experience with dictation and that may be one of the reasons I seem to be enjoying success with DNS. How you speak to DNS must surely be an important variable in determining the results you get. I speak with an English English accent of which Henry Higgins would probably approve. My installation of DNS has an ear for American accents with occasionally comical results. But day by day it is coming around as Eliza Doolittle did. Be patient, read the instructions, don't expect miracles overnight, and speak consistently -- and you may find yourself as blown away by this product as I am.

LET THE BUYER BEWARE -- This product requires "activation" from Nuance and they don't tell you this until AFTER you bought the product AND installed it. It won't work until you activate it and you get FIVE installs and then after that your CD to install is worthless. This means if you change laptops, replace a hard drive, need to reinstall because Windows got corrupted or the copy protection fails, etc. you are screwed. Nuance / ScanSoft also charges $20 per "support incident" and they are only open Monday through Friday. Email support is onerous too and subject to a charge FIRST before they will answer questions, although they will take all your information down first for marketing purposes. "Individual users can interact with Nuance Technical Support through a pay per-incident email process. Incidents can be reported by completing the Problem Report Form at a cost of $9.95 per incident." You also can't contact them until you take out an account, and that includes anyone -- and your activation code too. This is a company that does not want to talk to the customer.

This is the worst, most reprehensible kind of consumer abuse. Look elsewhere and support other companies. Don't buy Omnipage, Textbridge,, Via Voice or Dragon NaturallySpeaking because Nuance / Scansoft have begun to take out copy protection issues on the customer. Now I'm having an impossible time returning it even though I didn't activate the software. DO NOT but this software - don't say you weren't warned.

This entire review was dictated into Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8 without a single correction - I have subsequently put corrections in ALL CAPS so that you can evaluate for yourself the quality of dictation. I said (SIT) in an open cube without doors so have coworkers on either side, yet Dragon captures my dictation without a problem.

This is truly an awesome product. The biggest problem with voice recognition software is the quality of the recognition, and I have found that this version provides nearly flawless voice-recognition. The software is easy to install, easy-to-use, and is a great time saver when writing long documents. While it can be used as a keyboard replacement and use (USED) for short messages, and to perform Windows and applications commands, that is essentially anything you do at the keyboard, where I find it most valuable is in writing long documents. For normal business users, the key benefit should come when writing documents, as any profession (PROFICIENT) typist would likely be faster using a keyboard and mouse for Windows and application navigation.

The biggest challenge with voice recognition software is that when errors are made they are typically not captured by a spellchecker because they are legitimate words, and therefore a lot of time is necessary to review and correct errors in a voice-transcribed document. All in all this is a highly recommended solution that will be sure to save you time.

They refused to enable the software to my disabled mother. I was told to fax the UPC code from the bottom of the box in order to get the software operational on my disabled mother's new computer. Although I successfully faxed the information to them according to the transmission report on the fax machine, they told me they never received it. Phone calls to them resulted in no action. Now my quadripalegic mother cannot access anything on her computer. Beware poor customer service!