Author Prestones
2015
3
Premium
Rank 23954

There are times when I'd prefer to talk out ideas for my blog, rather than having to sit at a keyboard. Somehow, trying to compose, spell check, watch my grammar, and all the rest of it doesn't play well with my being creative.

I've found that it's just less stressful if I can verbalize my thoughts - and it's certainly faster! It turns out I have an old version of Dragon Naturally Speaking on my computer, and that I can use it to take my spoken ideas and put them in a Word document, into Notepad, or even directly into my WordPress editor.

What's more, that capability is built into Windows 7, and probably into other versions of Windows as well. Those with Macs may be able to use Dictation to pull off the same trick. Go to the Apple menu, System Preferences, then from the View menu, choose Dictation & Speech to view Dictation preferences. Windows speech recognition works with English, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese, according to http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/set-speech-recognition#1TC=windows-7

I would have included some video or screenshots from Sandi's Mac, but she's working on a project, so I eased off. You get the idea though - Macs can make the magic happen too!

Take a few minutes out of your busy schedule to see if your computer can take notes for you, and save yourself the hassle and headache of typing out everything!

Dennis

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Geoff-n-Jane Premium
That was great Dennis, thanks.
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Prestones Premium
Hi Geoff-n-Jane -

A somewhat tangled train of thought brought to mind a movie I saw a long time ago, called "Congo", in which a gorilla was taught to speak with some computerized assistance.

I wonder what Bubbygirl would have to say?

Dennis
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Geoff-n-Jane Premium
No doubt - bark bark, meow meow - lol
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alleo Premium
I tried it a few months ago on windows 8.1, I went through all the training, but the number of errors in the end were too many.

Hope to see how others get on with it and get some tips.
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Prestones Premium
Yep, as I recall it was taking a while to train the Windows speech recognition system, and that was when I found I had an old version of Dragon Naturally Speaking - so I gave it a go. For the most part, it's working out well.

I suppose everyone's results will vary, based on the microphone used, the position of that microphone, the pitch, tone, & accent of the user's voice, ...

My version of Dragon Naturally Speaking is 10.1, and the current version is 13.0 - so hopefully there have been some improvements in the last couple of years.

Dennis
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Jenna7 Premium
I know you can search Google with voice, but never realized you can do writing with it...might be a good thing for people who can't type well or have arthritic hands etc...Thanks for sharing this :)
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Prestones Premium
Yep, there are those of us who type by hunting and pecking, with the tip of the tongue sticking out of the corner of the mouth.

I'll take any help I can get!

Dennis
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SridharRay Premium
Thanks, this is a great idea. Will try.
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Prestones Premium
It certainly provides a change of pace from the same-old, same-old.

Enjoy!

Dennis
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timsproducts Premium
Lazy bugger
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Prestones Premium
Busted. You got me Tim!

<chuckle>

Dennis
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Shawn Martin Premium
I wish, I am going to get the program soon.
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Prestones Premium
Greetings Shawn!

From what I can tell, several versions of Windows that have the capability built in already.
Windows Xp: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/306537
Windows Vista: https://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/windowsvista/speech.aspx
Windows 7: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/use-speech-recognition-operate-windows-programs#1TC=windows-7
Windows 8: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/using-speech-recognition

and the Mac has that same capability too! Check out https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202584

Knock yourself out!

Dennis
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Shawn Martin Premium
Thanks, Dennis! I will check this out tomorrow!
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