Nuance ScanSoft Dragon NaturallySpeaking - 13.0 End-User Workbook

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Version 13

End-User Workbook

Note: Closing all programs before installing is recommended.

For the latest documentation, please see www.nuance.com:

 The Quick Card includes important notes about installing

Dragon and connecting your microphone, as well as reference tables for punctuation and other special characters, numeric data, and commands.

 Another important resource is the User Guide, which

covers installation.

End-User Workbook (Revision 0 -- July 2014)

Unless indicated otherwise, the material in this workbook applies to all editions of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and the screenshots are from the Professional edition.

This workbook assumes that Dragon NaturallySpeaking 13 is now installed on your PC. For details on the installation process, please see the User Guide on www.nuance.com/dragon.

The card that comes in the Dragon NaturallySpeaking box includes important notes about

installing Dragon as well as reference tables for punctuation, numeric data and commands. (The latest electronic version is available on the Nuance website.)

We welcome comments or questions about this workbook and all aspects of the Help system (including User Guide, Help menu, Interactive Tutorial, Learning Center, Accuracy Center and Performance Assistant).

This workbook reflects the information available at the time of publishing. Nuance’s online Knowledge Base contains the latest information written by Technical Support. Also online are the latest printable documentation and listings of microphones, recorders, and other hardware tested for use with Dragon.

The Nuance website (www.nuance.com/dragon as well as australia.nuance.com/dragon, newzealand.nuance.com/dragon, and www.nuance.co.uk/dragon) offers many other resources including tips, videos, Customer Service information, and a feature matrix of editions.

The website also lists Value-Added Resellers who provide support, training and customization services in person or remotely. These Nuance partners can address your environment, equipment, goals and needs. This is particularly efficient for very busy people, for people new to computers, for children, and in case of issues with hearing, vision, mobility and dyslexia.

No part of this document may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without the express written consent of Nuance Communications, Inc.

Nuance, the Nuance logos, the Dragon logos, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, NaturallySpeaking, DragonBar and Select-and-Say are trademarks or registered trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other company names and product names referenced herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

Goals and Prerequisites

Dragon NaturallySpeaking lets you speak naturally to perform actions such as creating or editing documents, using e-mail, finding online maps, news, images, and more. By reducing keyboard and mouse usage, you can gain productivity AND avoid physical strain (on wrists, shoulders, neck, eyes…)

“Speaking to” your computer may feel strange at first. Be patient with yourself! This workbook aims to efficiently present what an end-user should know. Most importantly, this entails how to “type by voice” efficiently, which includes:

 Dictating anything: punctuation marks, prices, dates, URLs, phone license plate numbers, abbreviations,

acronyms, Roman numerals, etc.

 Personalizing the Vocabulary with custom words and phrases, pronunciations, capitalization properties

and more, so that Dragon can transcribe exactly what you want even if what you said could be written in different ways.

 Correcting Dragon’s errors so that it can learn from them.  Formatting, editing, and revising text (whether or not the text was created by voice).

 And creating custom commands to insert boilerplate text and/or graphics.

In addition, you can learn how to “command and control” your computer by voice, which includes:

 Saying commands to use the Internet and e-mail, search your computer, open programs, click menus and

buttons, close or minimize windows, switch between windows, etc.

 “Voice-pressing” a key (or key combination) on your keyboard.

To perform the exercises in this workbook, you should have basic familiarity with:

 Using Microsoft® Windows® to start or exit applications, open or save files, maximize windows, close

dialog boxes, copy or move items, browse to folders, cut and paste, etc.

 Simple word-processing concepts such as bullets, font size and font style, bolding and italicizing, right-

aligning and centering.

Efficiency and hands-free usage

We strongly recommend going through this workbook in order. (If you are familiar with Dragon, consider reading

the What’s New section first.)

When a lesson directs you to click an item (button, menu…), feel free to instead use your voice, or keyboard

shortcuts (underlined letters, Tab, spacebar…). If hands-free usage is important to you, start by reading the lesson Controlling the Operating System and Applications and see the Dragon’s Help about MouseGrid and commands for moving, clicking, and dragging the mouse.

IMPORTANT: Starting the Microphone Check or the Interactive Tutorial automatically turns off Dragon’s

microphone, which means a manual action is then needed to resume using Dragon. If this is a concern for you,

we recommend having someone present when you create or upgrade a profile, or use the Interactive Tutorial or the Microphone Check.

Table of Contents

Goals and Prerequisites ............................................................................................................................................. v

Efficiency and hands-free usage .............................................................................................................................. v

Table of Contents ...................................................................................................................................................... vi

Getting Started and Creating a User Profile ...............................................................................................................1

Positioning and connecting your microphone ......................................................................................................... 1

Upgrading one or more profiles ................................................................................................................................ 2

Creating your profile (or adding an audio source) ................................................................................................. 3

About the Dragon Remote Microphone app as source ......................................................................................... 5

About spoken recordings as source ......................................................................................................................... 5

Adding and managing sources ................................................................................................................................. 6

Before your profile opens — caution with desktop icons ...................................................................................... 7

Important options ........................................................................................................................................................ 8

Learning More and Getting Help ............................................................................................................................. 11

The Accuracy Center................................................................................................................................................ 11

The Help and the Performance Assistant ............................................................................................................. 11

The Learning Center ................................................................................................................................................ 12

The Interactive Tutorial ............................................................................................................................................ 12

The User's Guides .................................................................................................................................................... 13

Why Personalizing the Vocabulary is Essential ...................................................................................................... 14

Customizing the Vocabulary—Using the Vocabulary Editor ................................................................................... 15

Adding vocabulary entries ....................................................................................................................................... 15

The importance of spoken forms ............................................................................................................................ 17

Deleting “words” and modifying word properties .................................................................................................. 18

Importing Lists of Vocabulary Entries ...................................................................................................................... 21

Customizing the Vocabulary from Existing Documents ........................................................................................... 23

Customizing the Vocabulary from Your E-Mail ........................................................................................................ 26

Starting to Dictate: Controlling the Microphone ....................................................................................................... 28

The DragonBar and the microphone icon ............................................................................................................. 28

The microphone commands and sleep state....................................................................................................... 30

The Importance of Hot Keys, including Microphone On/Off ............................................................................... 31

Starting to Dictate: Your First Dictation ................................................................................................................... 33

Dictating text and punctuation marks ..................................................................................................................... 33

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New line and new paragraph .................................................................................................................................. 33

The Results Display and its options ....................................................................................................................... 34

Dictating Prices, Units, Dates, Times, Addresses… ............................................................................................... 36

Automatic text formatting during normal dictation ................................................................................................ 36

Numbers Mode ................................................................................................................................ .......................... 38

Spell Mode ................................................................................................................................................................. 38

The Spell Command: characters within Normal Mode ................................................................ ........................ 38

Correcting Dragon’s Errors in Your Dictated Text ................................................................................................... 40

Handling multiple matches in your text .................................................................................................................. 40

The Correction Menu: the default interface .......................................................................................................... 41

Correcting in the Spelling Window ......................................................................................................................... 41

Using playback to aid correction ................................................................................................ ............................. 44

Smart Format Rules ................................................................................................................................................. 45

Editing Text by Voice ............................................................................................................................................... 47

Navigation and selection .......................................................................................................................................... 47

Handling multiple matches in text ........................................................................................................................... 48

Full Text Control, “unknown” text fields and the Dictation Box .......................................................................... 49

Replacing and inserting ........................................................................................................................................... 51

Formatting Text by Voice ......................................................................................................................................... 54

The "X that" convention ........................................................................................................................................... 54

The "Format That" commands ................................................................................................................................ 55

Controlling the Operating System and Applications ................................................................................................ 58

Searching the computer ........................................................................................................................................... 58

Controlling programs and windows ........................................................................................................................ 59

Resizing and switching ............................................................................................................................................ 60

“Clicking” menus, buttons and other interface controls ....................................................................................... 61

“Natural Language Commands” and the Command Browser ............................................................................ 63

“Voice-pressing” keys ................................ ................................................................................................ ............... 64

Using Dragon NaturallySpeaking with the Internet .................................................................................................. 67

The Web shortcuts.................................................................................................................................................... 67

Social Media .............................................................................................................................................................. 68

Browser specifics ................................................................................................................................ ...................... 68

Navigating to and within a Web page (Internet Explorer) ................................................................................... 69

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Accessing a specific item on a Web page ............................................................................................................ 70

Using Dragon NaturallySpeaking for E-mail ............................................................................................................ 72

Shortcut commands.................................................................................................................................................. 72

Commands for your installed email program ........................................................................................................ 73

Web-based email and the Dragon extension ....................................................................................................... 75

Dragon NaturallySpeaking and Microsoft Word ...................................................................................................... 77

“Voice Notations” in Microsoft Word documents .................................................................................................. 77

Commands specific to Microsoft Word .................................................................................................................. 77

The Ribbon ................................................................................................................................................................ 78

Microsoft Word 2010 and 2013................................................................................................ ............................... 78

Dictating and editing in Microsoft Excel ................................................................................................................... 80

Boosting Productivity with Custom Commands ....................................................................................................... 83

Creating boilerplate commands (“Text-and-Graphics” type) .............................................................................. 83

“Cloning” commands and adding variables .......................................................................................................... 85

“DragonTemplates”: boilerplate commands with fields ....................................................................................... 85

Managing custom commands ................................................................................................................................. 86

Finding commands: the Keyword Filter ................................................................................................................. 87

Performing Audio Checks and Acoustic Training .................................................................................................... 89

The Microphone Check ............................................................................................................................................ 89

Training in isolation ................................................................................................................................................... 89

Reading text to train Dragon ................................................................................................................................... 90

Using Multiple Vocabularies (editions Professional and up) ................................................................................... 92

Opening a Vocabulary.............................................................................................................................................. 94

Acoustic and Language Model Optimization ........................................................................................................... 96

Launching the Acoustic and/or Language Model Optimization .......................................................................... 96

Scheduling optimization and Data Collection ....................................................................................................... 97

Renaming, Deleting, Copying or Transferring a Profile ......................................................................................... 101

Practice Exercise: Creating a Memo by Voice ...................................................................................................... 103

What’s New in Version 13.0? ................................................................................................................................ 104

What’s New in Version 12.0? ................................................................................................................................ 106

What’s New in Version 11.5? ................................................................................................................................ 112

What’s New in Version 11.0? ................................................................................................................................ 113

Index ...................................................................................................................................................................... 117

Positioning and connecting your microphone

If using a headset, adjust it so that it feels stable and comfortable on your head (it should not press your temple or glasses). The microphone’s listening side must

face the side of your mouth (not the front). It must not touch facial hair or catch breathing sounds. (On standard headsets, bend the “boom” if needed.)

Most headset models can be rotated, so you can place the microphone on either the left or the right side of your face.

You might experiment a bit to find what works best for you. Then, whenever you use Dragon, aim for consistency in your microphone position.

IMPORTANT:

 Noise-canceling microphones only listen on one side. The listening side is often

marked by a dot or the word TALK, which may not be visible unless you lift the foam cover slightly. Check that this side is parallel to your face, not tilted.

 If you want to bypass your computer’s sound system, you can use a USB

microphone, or plug your regular microphone into a USB adapter.

 If your computer has only one audio jack (socket) and you want to use a regular

two-plug microphone, you must use a USB adapter or a Y-shaped adapter.

Getting Started and Creating a Profile

Dragon NaturallySpeaking is speaker-dependent software. It relies on information specific to you, including what words and phrases you use often, how you sound, what audio device you use, and what software settings you have. It stores this data in a set of files, referred to collectively as your “user profile” or just “profile.”

Each person who uses Dragon must have his or her own profile. Your profile is very important. The more personalized it is, the better your experience will be. To have the best possible start, it’s worth creating your profile carefully (or upgrading it from a previous version of Dragon). As you will see later, there are many ways for your profile to be refined over time.

This lesson will cover creating (or upgrading) a user profile. But first, let’s address what Dragon needs in order to get good audio input from you. Here are important notes about placing your microphone and connecting it to your computer.

 When you plug a microphone or adapter into your PC, be sure to push all the way into the audio socket or

USB port.

 You may also wish to check the audio settings at the level of

Windows: see the “Recording devices” section of the Control Panel. (In the example illustrated here, both Bluetooth and USB are available.) This is accessible by right-clicking the loudspeaker icon on the System Tray.

 Some PCs, after you connect a microphone, automatically

bring up a small window associated with this “audio system

event”. (Its window may be hidden behind other windows.) Before closing this window, verify that what is highlighted on it is the Microphone item (and not the Line In item).

 If you want to test your microphone independently of Dragon, you can use Sound Recorder, a Windows

accessory (accessible from the Start menu in Windows 7, and the Start screen in Windows 8).

 If your microphone model has a mute switch, make sure it is in the ON position!  If you use a Bluetooth microphone: whenever you use Dragon, make sure that it is not just powered up, but

also active (that is, in “call mode”). On the Plantronics Calisto microphone, this is achieved by pressing the headset’s button. Please see your microphone’s user guide for details, including how to charge the headset

and how to pair it with the dongle if necessary.

Upgrading one or more profiles

Dragon 13 can upgrade profiles from Version 11 or 12. If you have such a profile, you should upgrade it and use it in Dragon 13; this allows you to benefit from refinements you had previously made (in terms of acoustics and language model, as well as options, plus custom commands if applicable).

Dragon’s Upgrade Wizard can automatically detect eligible profiles present on your computer. (This wizard is available any time from the Windows Start menu or Start screen, under Dragon NaturallySpeaking Tools.)

Use its Remove button as needed so that only the desired one(s) appear.

If a profile you want is not in the list (for example because it is on an external disk), use the Browse button to designate it.

Once the list contains only the profile(s) you wish to upgrade now, click Next.

IMPORTANT: After the upgrade completes, launch Accuracy Tuning to ensure that your profile can benefit

from all your previous acoustic data. (See the Audio menu and Help for details.)

Creating your profile (or adding an audio source)

Before you start Dragon, connect your microphone (see above). If you wish, test it by making a sample recording in Windows Sound Recorder.

The profile creation process includes indicating your microphone’s type and verifying your sound system.

 Consistency matters! For best results, create your profile in your “normal” environment, with the same

background noise and equipment as you will usually have when you use Dragon.

 If you already have a Dragon 13 profile and just want to use another type of audio input device, add a

source to your profile instead of creating a separate profile. (Details below.)

 For Bluetooth wireless headsets, see the Help and the manufacturer’s documentation. Familiarize

yourself with how to charge your microphone, power it up, turn it on (put it in “call mode”), and ensure it is

paired to its USB dongle. Step 1: Launch Dragon (you can double-click its desktop icon or pick it from the Start menu). If Dragon has

never been used before on this PC, the Profile Creation Wizard will then open automatically. Otherwise,

choose New User Profile in the DragonBar’s Profile menu, then click New. Step 2: Answer the questions presented by the wizard’s screens.

The wizard will ask you to specify a “region”. Dragon will use that information to choose your profile’s

underlying Auto-Formatting options and Vocabulary. For instance, this will affect whether Dragon uses

the spelling “colour” instead of “color” as well as how it writes currencies or units such as lbs, $, USD and

Note for Canadian users: Dragon 13 offers a Vocabulary specifically for Canada.

AUD (ISO currency codes).

TIP: Once your profile is created, you will be free to customize it, including modifying Auto-Formatting

Options and Word Properties (as described in this workbook and the Help).

The wizard gives you an opportunity to choose from a number of broad accents. If unsure which accent to pick, see the Help. Note: Dragon will later adapt to the sound of your voice, as you dictate more and more and run the Accuracy Tuning process.

Step 3: On the next screen, indicate which type of audio source you are about to use. Note: even in editions that

support transcribing recordings (Premium and higher), we suggest starting with a microphone source

type. By dictating directly to your PC, you get used to speaking in a way that gives best results and you

can personalize the vocabulary, which means that once you do begin to make recordings and have

Dragon transcribe them you will get better accuracy in those transcriptions.

The default type is a microphone plugged into the Mic-In jack (audio input socket). If you use a USB

adapter on a standard headset, be sure to pick the USB option here.

Note:

 If your PC has only one audio socket (like on mobile phones), you must use a USB adapter (or

USB microphone) or a Y-shaped adapter (“splitter”).

 In editions Home and higher, you can use as a microphone a supported iOS or Android

smartphone (or other supported device) on which you have downloaded the Dragon Remote Microphone app (see our web page: www.nuance.com/dragon/remote-microphone).

 The lower editions of Dragon do not support all the source types.

The Help and the Nuance website contain details for special audio sources such as Bluetooth wireless or the Dragon Remote Microphone app for iOS and Android devices (source available in editions Home and higher in Dragon 13).

The Hardware Compatibility List on the Nuance website contains specifics such as the recommended

settings for a particular model of microphone or recorder.

About the Dragon Remote Microphone app as source

The smartphone (or other device on which you downloaded the app) must be connected to the same WiFi network as the PC on which you use it with Dragon.

When you set up the Remote Microphone app on a supported Android or iOS device, Dragon offers a barcode (QR code), so you can just point your device’s camera at the computer screen to capture the information needed. (Later on, you can use the DragonBar’s Tools menu to bring up this screen.)

Note: In public locations such as restaurant or coffeehouse chains which require that you logon or accept the terms of service, the typical security configuration does not allow the mobile device to communicate with the computer, therefore the Remote Microphone app feature is not supported.

For details about setting up and using the app, please see the KnowledgeBase article on the Support section of the Nuance website: http://nuance.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/6294 (this includes a link to Technote 6825: "Information on testing the connection between Dragon NaturallySpeaking and the Dragon Remote Microphone application".)

About spoken recordings as source

Please see our website (www.nuance.com/dragon/transcription-solutions) for illustrations and details,

including Nuance’s free Dragon Recorder app for smartphones and related devices.

Note: Dragon works with one voice at a time, so it cannot transcribe interviews or meetings directly.

Note: If you are using a Bluetooth microphone, make sure that it is not only powered up, but also active

(that is, in “call mode”). Please see your microphone’s user guide for details, including how to charge the

headset and how to pair it with its dongle if necessary.

Dragon’s transcription feature (available in editions Premium and higher) can be particularly useful to

exploit what you dictate while observing something (such as during a field inspection) or after an event

(such as a meeting or a class). Once you have set up your profile for transcription use, you can use

Dragon to transcribe your spoken recordings.

TIP: If your recording was very “rough” or if it contained voices other than yours, consider the practice of

“echoing” or “re-speaking” rather than (or in addition to) transcribing the recording: while listening to the

recording and pausing it as needed, you dictate to Dragon what you hear. Among other advantages, this

gives you the opportunity to improve upon the original words, or add to them, including adding

punctuation that had not been spoken.

Before recording files for Dragon to transcribe, note:

 We recommend first using Dragon for real-time transcription (dictating directly to your PC)

because this gives you a chance to practice speaking clearly, in long phrases, and with punctuation. From what you see Dragon transcribe as you dictate, you get feedback on how clearly you are dictating. You also get ideas as to how to personalize your profile’s vocabulary, for instance by noticing jargon or phrases you should add to the vocabulary so that Dragon will be able to write them with the spelling, capitalization, and spacing you desire. (In addition to adding words and phrases, be sure to designate to Dragon representative text documents so it can learn what words and phrases you often use.) As explained further in this workbook, vocabulary personalization is very important; it prevents many recognition errors!

 Learn the essential operations of your digital recorder or the recorder app on your smartphone

(starting and stopping recordings, for instance). Also, verify that the recorder is set to the correct time and date as well as optimal settings for speech recognition (see details on individual models tested by Nuance at http://support.nuance.com/compatibility).

 Some digital recording devices come with special software to manage recordings (including

transferring them to a computer and converting their format if necessary). Check your device’s documentation and take the steps required to set up your device, including installing the software it may require.

 Setting up a recorder source requires reading a training text into your recording device for a

minimum of four minutes. (Note: making your training recording longer than four minutes is a good idea, since it will provide Dragon with a bigger acoustic sample from which to adapt to the sound of your recorded voice.)

Adding and managing sources

If you already have a Dragon profile and want to use another type of audio input device, add a source to

your profile instead of creating a separate profile: open the DragonBar’s Profile menu and choose

“Manage Dictation Sources.” This opens the dialog box where you can pick the desired source.

Remember that personalizing the Vocabulary is one of the keys to getting Dragon’s full benefits! Having

multiple sources within a profile means that, no matter which audio input device you use, the same

Vocabulary will be used — and refined — each time you use Dragon. For example, the phrases and

capitalization properties you taught Dragon while using a smartphone as a source will also be available

when you use a USB microphone.

Step 4: The next step is the

microphone check. Read the boxed text in a clear voice, the way you plan to speak when working with Dragon. Here, punctuation is recommended but not required.

When Dragon lets you know it has heard enough, click Next.

It’s best to read the boxed text exactly as it is written. However, if you cannot read it, feel free to speak

some sentences of your choice for about 30 seconds.

Dragon then verifies that your sound system is acceptable for speech recognition. (For details, see Help and, if needed, the Knowledgebase at support.nuance.com.) Note:

 If you chose as source the Dragon Remote Mic app, Dragon’s wizard will present a screen to help

ensure that your smartphone (or other Wi-Fi-enabled device) “finds” your profile on your computer. Also, instead of the microphone check, it will present a short sentence to read aloud for calibration.

 Some computers offer several places for you to plug in your microphone. If you get poor results with

one, consider the other(s) -- and if you use a docking station, you may get better results if you connect the microphone to a port on your laptop itself, not on the station. Once you’ve identified which port works best, aim to always use that port for your microphone. (You may wish to mark it with a piece of tape.)

Step 5: The wizard will give you the opportunity to schedule periodic data collection, which helps improve

future update of Dragon by collecting usage data anonymously. See the Help for details.

Before your profile opens — caution with desktop icons

After you exit the profile creation wizard, Dragon will automatically bring up its Interactive Tutorial, which contains short progressive simulations on important aspects of Dragon usage. We recommend that all users take advantage of it.

After you exit the Interactive Tutorial, the Learning Center (formerly called Learning Center) will open.

IMPORTANT : By default, the Learning Center (a thin resizable window that presents commands and tips)

is set to open automatically when a profile opens. In Dragon 13, it is set to “Floating” by default (in Dragon 12.0, it was set to dock to the right). If you typically keep desktop items on the right side of your screen, the Learning Center can move them, like other Windows Learning Centers would. For this reason, you may wish to rearrange your desktop items before the Learning Center opens, or set your desktop to Auto-arrange. (See the Learning Center’s Help about its options including Auto-Hide.) The automatic opening of the Learning Center can be disabled from the Miscellaneous tab of Dragon’s Options dialog.

Now that your profile is created, we encourage you to explore Dragon’s options to suit your preferences, including changing numeric keypad hotkeys. (This is particularly relevant to laptop users, and people who like to use their numeric keypad for data entry.) This workbook’s lessons will progressively introduce you to options that most users should consider. Below are two of them.

Important options

After you create your profile, Dragon presents a special message if it determined that your computer’s characteristics wouldn’t allow optimal performance. This message informs you that Dragon has adjusted the

defaults for two of its options as follows:

 The Speed versus Accuracy slider was moved toward speed.  The Natural Language Commands for Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Corel WordPerfect

were disabled. (The lesson “Controlling your Desktop and Applications” addresses these large sets of

flexible commands. Note: not all editions and languages of Dragon contain these commands.) Later, you can reverse these changes through Dragon’s Options dialog, depending on your particular needs: you

can enable or disable the Natural Language Commands for any of these four applications individually, and you can experiment with various settings of the Speed-versus-Accuracy slider.

Note: Other options on the Miscellaneous tab include having Dragon start in its sleep state (useful for persons who cannot use their hands), as well as disabling the “tracking” of menus, buttons and other interface elements or disabling the automatic opening of the Dictation Box where Dragon does not have Full Text Control (for example in PowerPoint or Emacs). Details about these important concepts are accessible from the DragonBar’s Help menu.

The Help includes suggestions for optimizing Dragon’s performance on your computer. For instance, you can

choose to disable the ability to open items from the Start menu or the desktop at any time, even if they are not visible. You can also choose to disable the shortcut commands for Facebook and Twitter, and shortcut commands to create new emails, tasks or appointments.

Now that your profile is created, you could start dictating, but before you do, we recommend you take a look at the Help menu. Also, it’s a good idea to begin personalizing the Vocabulary as soon as

possible, since this plays a crucial role in accuracy and efficiency. Note: If you’ve used a previous version of Dragon, we suggest you read the What’s New.

Key points about getting started with Dragon

 Each person who wants to use Dragon must have his or her own profile. Creating one is a short process

guided by a series of screens. Profiles from versions 11 and 10 can be upgraded with the Upgrade

Wizard. (Important: After upgrading, launch Accuracy Tuning from the Audio menu).

 Make sure your microphone is properly connected and positioned, and the appropriate audio source is

selected. See our website for details on special sources like recorders and wireless microphones, as well

as the use of the Dragon Remote Microphone app or the Dragon recorder app with Dragon.

 In editions Premium and up, you can add a source to an existing profile (for instance, if after using

Dragon with your USB microphone you wish to also dictate using your smartphone as a wireless

microphone). Whatever source is used, you will access the same vocabulary and optional settings (as

well as custom commands, if applicable).

 Even if your edition supports the transcription of spoken recordings, we recommend starting out with a

microphone source as opposed to a recorder source.

 When reading a training text, speak clearly but naturally using the same volume, pitch and pace you are

likely to use day-to-day. Try to read what is prompted as if you were dictating your own words. Use the

Redo and Skip buttons as needed, as use the Pause button if you need to clear your throat or speak to

someone.

 During profile creation, Dragon offers to perform a basic adaptation of your profile’s vocabulary based on

text in your Documents folder as well as on sent e-mails. Feel free to skip that step but be sure to use

Dragon’s powerful personalization tools as soon as possible after profile creation finishes.

 Dragon's scheduled tasks are designed to help improve accuracy over time. Be sure to schedule them

for a time when your computer will be on but Dragon will not be running.

 By default, the Learning Center opens automatically when a user profile opens. By default, it is set to

“Floating.” If you’d prefer it docked, keep in mind the possible impact on Desktop items. Note: If you are

using a Bluetooth microphone, make sure that it is not only powered up, but also active (that is, in “call

mode”). On the Plantronics Calisto microphone, this is achieved by pressing the headset’s button. Please

see your microphone’s user guide for details, including how to charge the headset and how to pair it with

the dongle if necessary.

Learning More and Getting Help

Dragon NaturallySpeaking offers so many tools, commands, and features that it would be impossible to cover them all in detail in this workbook. This lesson presents several ways to find more information as you start using the software—be sure to take advantage of the available resources!

Please see the card that comes in the Dragon NaturallySpeaking box. It includes important notes about installing Dragon as well as sample lists of commands and what you can say to dictate special characters, times, dates, postal codes and more. (The latest version of this quick reference guide is available for download on the Nuance

website.)

The Accuracy Center

The most important features of Dragon are accessible directly from the DragonBar's menus. The Accuracy Center offers a central location to access many of them and get guidance on which one to use when.

Step 1: Say Open Accuracy Center. You can also click the DragonBar’s Help menu (or say Switch to DragonBar then say Click Help) then Improve my Accuracy.

Step 2: Click the link that interests you. You can also say its name immediately preceded by the word "click”.

("Require 'click' for HTML" is an option enabled by default, to help prevent unintended recognitions. See the Commands tab of the Options dialog.)

TIP: You can activate links without saying their whole name: for instance, instead of “click add a list of words to

your vocabulary”, you could say just “click add a list”.

The Help and the Performance Assistant

The DragonBar’s Help menu gives you access to the on-screen Help topics (articles) and the Performance Assistant (a collection of suggestions for what you can do to increase Dragon’s speed).

Another way to open the Help iby saying give me help. You can use the Help window’s Table of Contents, Index, and Search tabs. For instance, entering the word “punctuation” in the Search field brings up topics including “Dictating punctuation and symbols” and “Selecting characters and words.” Note: like in search engines, you can indicate phrases by putting quotation marks around them.

From the Help window, you can also print articles of your choice or mark them as favorites. To launch a Help search at any time (no matter what is active on your screen), you can use the shortcut

command “search Help for…” naming the word(s) you wish to search for. For instance, you could say “search Help for Firefox”. Note that the search keywords you name in this command will be considered individually unless you put them in quotes: for instance, “Search Help for open-quote Dictation box close-quote.”

Note: Dragon also provides contextual help: from its dialog boxes, the Help button (or question-mark icon) or links take you directly to the relevant article in the Help.

The Learning Center

At any time, you can ask Dragon to display its Learning Center, a resizable vertical window meant to help users discover and remember important tips and commands. (It can be made very thin.)

If a major application such as Microsoft Word is active, the Learning Center’s first tab will show commands for that application. Otherwise, it will show a list of commands that are not specific to one application (Global commands).

CAUTION: By default, the Learning Center is set to floating. Note that when Floating, the Learning Center

may cover part of the currently-active window. If you’d prefer to Dock it, know that doing so would move any desktop items located under it. You may wish to rearrange those desktop items before the Learning Center opens, or set your desktop to Auto-arrange.

Step 1: Open the Dragon Learning Center. Voice commands for this include open Dragon Learning Center,

show Dragon Learning Center, and what can I say. You can also use the DragonBar’s Help menu. Step 2: Explore the Learning Center and adjust it to suit your preferences. You can make its font size Small,

Medium, or Large. By clicking on its border and dragging it horizontally, you can make the Learning

Center very thin.

Note: One way to access details about the Learning Center is to use its question mark icon (in the top

right corner). You can also say a search-keyword command such as search Help for Learning Center

commands. Step 3: Practice activating the Learning Center’s tabs and accordion panels: for each, say “click” followed by its

label. Step 4: Right-click the Dragon Learning Center. This opens its menu. Note what is available there, including

activating Auto-Hide and printing the content.

The Interactive Tutorial

Available from the DragonBar’s Help menu, the Interactive Tutorial contains short progressive simulations and aims to make you practice important habits for efficient dictating, correcting Dragon’s errors, editing text, using the Web and personalizing Dragon. It includes important editing-related commands such as “go back,” Dictation

Commands such as “cap,” “all caps,” and “numeral…” as well an example of modifying an entry in the Spelling

Window and accepting a Smart Format Rule. We recommend that all users take advantage of it.

Note: When the Interactive Tutorial opens, Dragon automatically turns off its microphone. In each lesson, you practice an important habit: turning the microphone on and off.

While going through the simulations, you must speak just the current prompt and do so in one breath (without pausing within it).

The User's Guides

The latest User's Guide is available as a PDF on the Nuance website alongside the Quick Start Guide, the Bluetooth User Guide, and other resources. The DragonBar’s Help menu gives direct access to the website’s User Documentation page.

When viewing the PDF file, you can click chapter headings to jump to specific topics, and you can print out sections as well as the entire file.

Note: If you are using a Bluetooth microphone, be sure to read its User Guide. Before using the microphone with

Dragon, charge the headset, and make sure that it is not only powered up, but also active (that is, in “call mode”).

On the Plantronics Calisto microphone, this is achieved by pressing the headset’s button. Please see your

microphone’s user guide for details, including how to charge the headset and how to pair it with the dongle if

necessary.

Key points about learning more and getting help

 This workbook is meant to get you started efficiently and cover essential concepts and tips. Other

resources include the Help, the Learning Center, the Accuracy Center, the Performance Assistant, as well

as the Nuance website, which includes tips, FAQs, video demonstrations and the Knowledge Base of

“TechNotes”.

 Be sure to explore Dragon’s Help menu. You can open the Help at any time with generic commands

(give me help…) or “shortcut” commands that include the word(s) to search for, such as search Help for

Roman numerals.

 The Learning Center is a thin vertical window which displays many commands and tips. You can open it

by voice commands or through the Help menu. Its right-click menu gives access to options including font

size and printing. To see all its commands, use the Command Browser.

Beyond these resources, consulting an experienced Dragon trainer for specific guidance and customizations can be particularly efficient for users who have special environments, workflows, equipment, or challenges (for instance, challenges related to motion, vision, or speech fluency.)

Now that you know how to access many resources, let’s learn the most important aspects of using Dragon, starting with an often-overlooked but crucial one: personalizing your profile’s Vocabulary.

Why Personalizing the Vocabulary is Essential

Transcribing a person’s speech presents acoustic challenges, such as accent and ambient noise. There is also a lexical challenge: for the transcription to be precisely accurate, familiarity with the terms used is necessary. For instance, even an experienced medical secretary would have trouble transcribing for an attorney’s office! And a newly-hired transcriptionist would have to not only get used to the voices of the various speakers, but also to learn what spellings and formatting they want, including acronyms, abbreviations, special phrases, names of people, places, products, etc.

An unusual name may seem commonplace to you because you use it frequently, but a person who hears it for the first time may not be able to spell it: that name is not yet a part of this person’s vocabulary. Similarly, if a word or phrase is not in Dragon’s active vocabulary, the software cannot transcribe it correctly without a little instruction.

When you created your User profile, you provided information which Dragon incorporated into its acoustic model. To get optimal accuracy, you should also help the software adapt its language model and Vocabulary. Lexical customization ensures that what you dictate is transcribed with the desired spelling, spacing, and even capitalization; Dragon provides many powerful tools for it, so this important investment need not take much time. The Help contains much information about personalizing the Vocabulary—including how you can even benefit from the customizations done by others.

Key points about Vocabulary customization

 As soon as you have created a profile, you can start dictating, but note that taking a moment to start

customizing the Vocabulary for you is a good investment to make right away, since it helps Dragon “get it

right the first time” (including spelling, capitalization, and spacing) and it needn’t take much of your time.

Personalizing the Vocabulary early and often is strongly recommended. The following pages will

show you how.

 Dragon offers many simple and powerful Vocabulary tools to allow you to make your dictations faster and

more convenient.

Customizing the Vocabulary—Using the Vocabulary Editor

Dragon’s Vocabulary Editor lets you view what can be transcribed from the computer’s active memory; it also allows you to add new entries, as well as edit existing entries—including their Spoken Forms and Properties.

Let’s explore the Vocabulary Editor’s interface: Step 1: Say Edit Vocabulary (you can also use the DragonBar’s Vocabulary menu or the Accuracy Center). The

Vocabulary Editor opens; its scrollable window lists the entries currently in Dragon’s active Vocabulary.

Take a moment to scroll through the list. You will see names of people, places, institutions and products,

as well as common words, phrases, and abbreviations. Step 2: Open the Display drop-down list (located at the bottom) and choose Words Containing Spaces. Other

Vocabulary displays include Words Containing Digits, Words Containing Capitalization, and Words with Special Properties. By browsing these, you can learn more about what the software uses to transcribe your dictation. You also get ideas about what entries you might add or edit.

Adding vocabulary entries

You can quickly search for a particular Vocabulary entry by entering it in the Search field. If it appears in the scrollable list, it is already in the active layer of the Vocabulary. If not, click Add to bring it in.

CAUTION When adding an entry to the Vocabulary, be sure to spell and capitalize it correctly! Otherwise, it will

appear misspelled in your documents every time you dictate it. Some of the "words" in the Vocabulary Editor aren't single words. Of course is listed. So is as well as. There are

also names of people, places, products, and institutions: Mother Teresa, Madison Square Garden, KitchenAid,

Brigham and Women's Hospital, Marine Corps, Library of Congress, Babe Ruth, Accounts Payable, George Washington, Johnson & Johnson, Division I, LAN Server…

These help the software resolve spelling and capitalization ambiguities: if the Vocabulary didn’t contain the phrase Mother Teresa, dictating it would probably produce the transcription "mother Theresa"—because the word mother is usually not capitalized and Theresa is the more common spelling of the name. Having the phrase in its Vocabulary helps Dragon know that the words “Mother” and “Teresa” are likely to occur together, and hence helps Dragon choose the desired capitalization and spelling.

Also, recognizing long sounds is easier than very short sounds. A and the are acoustically very similar, as are in and an. Longer words, like chrysanthemum, contain more acoustic information.

We strongly recommend adding personal phrases; this will later save you time since you will not have to adjust their spelling and capitalization after transcription.

Exercise 1: In the Vocabulary Editor, search for a few familiar names such as your own first and last names, your

town, company, colleagues or relatives; if necessary, add them using the Add button.

TIP: When adding names of people, consider nicknames and diminutives as well as formal names, particularly

for names that are very short or that can be spelled different ways: for instance, one might add Liz Jansen, Lizzie Jansen, Elizabeth McGee Jansen, Jennifer B. Wolff, Jennifer Wolff, Jenny Wolff, Jenn Wolff, Judge Wolff, Scooter Wolff…

This idea applies to more than just names. Whenever you add an item to the Vocabulary, think of its possible

variations: singular/plural for nouns, conjugated forms for verbs… Remember, if something is not in the Vocabulary, the software cannot recognize it, so don’t hesitate to add items even if you think you will not dictate

them very often!

Exercise 2: Open a word processor (such as DragonPad, available from the DragonBar’s Tools menu or from the

command “open DragonPad”) and start a list of Vocabulary entries relevant to you; some suggestions are

below. (Soon you will learn how to import these entries all at once.)

 jargon and phrases specific to your profession (such as distro, site visit and non-State)  names of places, facilities or organizations (such as Building 52, or County Adoption Center)  names of products (such as MicroPore tape or Latex Exterior Semi-Gloss)  acronyms, part numbers, codes (such as FICA, 501c(3) or RX-70y)  names of people (coworkers, clients, friends, relatives…) including full combinations for names

that could be spelled differently (Kristin, Gene, Steven, McGregor, Wolfe…) or are very short (Kip, Kit, Dee…) since this helps Dragon resolve acoustic ambiguities.

TIP: If you are using Dragon for work, your employer may be able to give you some lists that could save you

time, particularly if they are already in electronic form: lists of staff or clients, departments, units or divisions,

products, trademarks, building names, as well as glossaries of terms and acronyms. Starting from such lists doesn’t just save time; it may also help add these items with their official, correct spelling!

The importance of spoken forms

Radio programs often tell their listeners “let us know how to pronounce your name” because some names could be pronounced in several ways and some are not pronounced “the way they are written” (due to silent letters, for instance). This is true for more than just names. Acronyms are often pronounced letter by letter, but not always: ASAP is pronounced "ay sap" by many people. These facts are addressed by an important Dragon feature: the Spoken Form.

From the Display drop-down list of the Vocabulary Editor, choose “Words with spoken forms only.” Take a moment to scroll through and look at existing spoken forms; you will get ideas for what kinds of entries warrant them and how they can be written.

You may add spoken forms to custom entries as well as to existing entries, in order to be able to dictate them as

comes naturally to you: for example, to enter the symbol ©, you might like to say “circle see” instead of the

existing spoken form “copyright sign.”

Note that entries containing symbols, digits, or unusual spacing are particularly likely to warrant a Spoken Form. If the written form of a word contains any punctuation, consider providing a spoken form so that there is no doubt as to how the item will be pronounced.

If you add e-mail addresses to the Vocabulary, giving them a Spoken Form can make them quicker to dictate: for instance, “Amy and John at yahoo dot com” or even just “Amy and John at yahoo” for AmyT&JohnB@yahoo.com.

Note: Spoken forms must not include punctuation, abbreviations, or symbols. Below are a few examples.

Written Form: The Man from U.N.C.L.E

Spoken Form: the man from uncle

Written Form: St. Clement's Hospital

Spoken Form: Saint Clements Hospital

Written Form: Soddy-Daisy, TN.

Spoken Form: Soddy Daisy Tennessee

Written Form: Trenton-Mercer Airport

Spoken Form: Trenton Mercer Airport

Adding Spoken Forms allows you to dictate in the way that is most natural, but also quickest for you. In addition to indicating pronunciation, Spoken Forms can be used for “vocal shorthand” and automatic substitution: you say something short and easy, and Dragon types something longer or “trickier” to say (or to remember). This capability can be used to give consistency and clarity to your writings; groups can take advantage of it to help everyone comply with recommendations like avoiding abbreviations and other confusable items.

Deleting “words” and modifying word properties

If you encounter a word or phrase that Dragon does not transcribe as you would like, remember that it might warrant a spoken form or longer entry in the Vocabulary and Dragon may need to learn about how and how frequently you use it therefore you want to have Dragon analyze relevant text and run Accuracy Tuning (see the Accuracy Center). Also, particularly if the pronunciation contains non-English sounds, you may want to provide some acoustic “training”—see "Training Words".

You may also run into cases where a word you need is consistently transcribed as another word. If that other word is not important to you, deleting it from your profile’s active Vocabulary will solve the conflict by removing your desired word’s “competition.” For instance: the names Schaeffer, Shaefer, Schaefer and Shafer all sound alike, so if you want Dragon to write “Schaefer” but it typically writes “Shafer” even though you have already corrected the error, you may want to delete “Shafer” from the Vocabulary.

You can do this by finding and deleting the word in the Vocabulary Editor, or you can do it by bringing up the Correction menu over the undesired word after Dragon transcribed it.

Note: Dragon’s active Vocabulary comes with literally thousands of entries. As you browse the Vocabulary Editor, you will see many you are very unlikely to ever about what you are dictate, but don’t spend time deleting them unless they actually cause a conflict!

There’s more you can do in the Vocabulary Editor! For instance, by clicking its Properties button, you open the Word Properties dialog, where you can view or change the capitalization, spacing and numeral properties of an entry.

IMPORTANT: Use the Word Properties dialog to modify the Dictation Command “new line” if you want it to

trigger capitalization of the following word. Similarly, you can set the ellipsis (dot dot dot) to NOT trigger capitalization of the next word.

In the Word Properties dialog box, you can also choose one or even two

alternate written forms.

For example, you may want:

the spelling “organise” instead of “organize”,

the spelling “email” instead of the

hyphenated “e-mail”, the abbreviation “fig.” instead of the

word “figure” just before numbers, as in “fig. 3”,

the title Professor instead of its abbreviation.

Note: in the Vocabulary Editor, entries whose properties were modified are marked with a “P” icon.

Key points about the Vocabulary Editor and Properties

 You can access the Vocabulary Editor with a command like edit vocabulary, through the Accuracy

Center, or through the Vocabulary menu of the DragonBar.

 In the Vocabulary Editor, custom-added entries are marked with a red plus sign; choosing Custom

Words Only from the Display drop-down list allows you to see just the custom entries.

 You can locate an item by entering it in the Search field (enter either the Written form or the Spoken

form). By using the Display drop-down list, you can also browse subsets like “Custom words only” and

“Words containing punctuation.”

 Spoken Forms are an efficient way to help Dragon transcribe “special words.” You can view many

examples of Spoken Forms in the Vocabulary Editor. In addition to clarifying pronunciation (particularly

useful for items that contain digits, symbols, or silent letters), Spoken Forms can be used to allow the

speaker to say something quite different, and much shorter and easier, than their associated written form:

you say just “E O B stat”, for instance, and Dragon types “Explanation of Benefit (EOB) statement.”

 If a Vocabulary entry you don’t need “competes” for recognition with something you do need to dictate,

you can delete that entry from the Vocabulary Editor (for instance, Cassidy and Cassity). To see the

words that have been deleted from the vocabulary, you can choose “Deleted words only” from the Display

drop-down list.

 You can view or change the special Properties of Vocabulary entries, including spacing and

capitalization. For instance, you may wish to change whether Dragon uses the spelling “travelled” or

“traveled”, whether the ellipsis (dot dot dot) and the Dictation Command “new line” trigger capitalization of

the next word…

Importing Lists of Vocabulary Entries

You now know how to add words and phrases one by one in the Vocabulary Editor. If you have many entries to add, this is not the most efficient method, particularly if you already have some relevant lists in electronic form. If available in your edition, you can use the import feature to add many Vocabulary entries at once, even if they have Spoken Forms.

Observe the sample import list in the illustration below, and identify the motivation behind each entry. You can then make and import one or more lists of your own, as described below.

To create and import lists of “words”: Step 1: Create a document (or edit an existing document) listing entries you want to add to the Vocabulary. You

can do it in any word processor as long as you can save this document as plain text.

 Have each entry on a separate line.  Make sure everything is spelled, capitalized and spaced correctly.  To include a Spoken Form, follow the Written Form with a backslash character then the Spoken Form:

for example, Grb II\grab two.

Step 2: Save this document as a .txt file (from the File menu, choose Save As and, depending on the word

processor, choose Text Document, Text Only, or Plain Text), then close the file.

Repeat as necessary with other lists. (You may find it convenient to make several lists, such as a list of

friends and relatives, a list of professional contacts, a list of product names, a list of local landmarks, etc.)

Step 4: On the resulting dialog box, click

the Add File button.

The Add File window appears. Locate the file containing your list and click Open; the name of the file you designated is now displayed in the File List.

If you have other lists to import, add their files in the same way.

Step 5: Click Next. The software will

import the listed items into the Vocabulary.

Step 3: Say import custom words, or use the DragonBar’s Vocabulary menu to pick “Import list of words or

phrases.”

The imported entries will be viewable in the Vocabulary Editor, where a red plus-sign appears next to them (like for entries that were added by means other than an import list).

From the Vocabulary menu, you can also export all custom-added words into one txt file. This is useful for safekeeping or for import in other user profiles.

Note:

 In Dragon’s edition Professional and above, you can choose .xml as an export format so that Word

Properties will be captured.

 For the file that results from the export in Dragon 11, 12, or 13, there are two items of note: a first line (the

header @Version=Plato) is added automatically and spoken forms, if any, are separated by two

backslashes instead of one. If you want to import such as file (as opposed to importing a file you made

yourself), do not remove the header line and do not replace “\\” with “\”.

 Exported word lists do not include trained pronunciations.

Key points about importing Vocabulary lists:

 If your edition allows it, you can add whole lists of Vocabulary entries at once. Prepare the list(s), then

open Dragon’s list import dialog (you can say import words, or choose from the Accuracy Center or the

DragonBar’s Vocabulary menu).

 Word lists must be saved as plain text, and closed, before they can be imported.  Each word list entry must be on its own line.  To specify a spoken form in a word list, use a backslash (\) to separate it from the written form.  You can also export all custom-added words into one file (in .txt or .xml format). This is useful for safe-

keeping or for import in other user profiles.

Checking the box “Adapt to writing style” will make Dragon learn frequency information, which increases accuracy since it helps differentiate between homophones like “world” and “whirled”.

Leave this box checked unless you only want to “harvest” potential custom words—for instance, if the text is very different from your normal style, or contains a foreign language.

Customizing the Vocabulary from Existing Documents

You now know about importing lists of entries into the Vocabulary. Another efficient way to boost your accuracy is to let Dragon analyze text that is similar to what you are likely to dictate: the Add Words From Documents tool use many documents at once to “harvest” potential words to add to the Vocabulary, as well as to “adapt to the writing style” (i.e., learn frequency information). The greater the amount of relevant text Dragon gets to analyze, the better it can adapt its Vocabulary to what you usually need to dictate. (This is similar to giving a just-hired transcriptionist many documents in which to observe the terms used, their spellings, the words that often appear before or after, etc.; doing so would help the transcriptionist get ready to transcribe your dictations most accurately, right from the start.)

Dragon can perform its text analysis on files of the following types: .txt (plain text), .rtf (Rich Text), .doc(x) (Microsoft Word), .wpd (Corel WordPerfect), and HTML formats.

TIP: If significant text exists only in an application that doesn’t normally produce files of these types

(PowerPoint is an example), see whether this application lets you copy text so you can paste it in the DragonPad and save it from there, or whether it offers a way to extract plain text (it could be called “export” or “save as outline” for instance.) Also, if essential text only exists as PDF or in paper form, consider using Optical Character Recognition software such as OmniPage to convert into one of the accepted formats.

Step 1: Locate some electronic documents you have written—think of reports, letters, memos, proposals... (As

long as they are similar to what you intend to dictate, you can also use documents written by someone

else.) The more closely these documents match the dictation you will usually be doing, the better. Step 2: Spell-check the documents if necessary (since Dragon would detect misspellings as unknown words.) In

addition, remove any foreign-language sections that might be present. Then, make sure the documents

are closed. The Help contains more details on this tool, including how to best prepare documents for

analysis.

Now that you have texts similar to your intended dictations, let’s designate them for analysis. (If you

obtain more documents later, you can designate them to Dragon at that time.) Step 3: Say "switch to DragonBar", then "vocabulary" to open the menu, then "learn from specific

documents."(There are other ways to do, by voice or by hand.)

Note: You can select multiple files at once by holding down the Ctrl key or by pressing Ctrl A (the Windows keyboard shortcut for “select all”).

Step 4: On the Add Documents box, click Add Document. On the resulting window, locate and select the relevant

document(s), then click Open.

Dragon will now analyze the text contained in the designated documents. This may take a moment—if

there is a lot of text to analyze, you should run this tool when you do NOT need to use Dragon for

something else. Once Dragon indicates that the analysis is complete, click Next.

Dragon will then present you with a list of the “unknown” words it found, with a checkbox next to each

one, and the number of times each word was encountered (the words found most frequently are

presented at the top since they are most likely to be relevant, unlike those that only occurred a few times.) Step 5: Uncheck items you do NOT wish to add. (If the list is long, using the Uncheck All button will save you

time.)

Note: this list may include capitalized forms of common words (such as ‘Trainer’); these are usually better

left out of the Vocabulary since you can always say “cap” before a word (or capitalize after the fact,

thanks to “capitalize <xyz>”), but you may want to add to the vocabulary phrases that contain them, such

as ‘Senior Technical Trainer’ (remember, it’s a good idea to add to the Vocabulary the phrases you

usually want capitalized). Step 6: Edit items as warranted: if you wish to modify an item (to make it lowercase, or expand on it, for

instance) or to give a spoken form to an item, make sure it’s highlighted then click Edit.

This opens the Edit Word window, which also presents a little context for the item.

Once you click Next, Dragon gives you the option to provide acoustic training for the selected words. Feel free to take this opportunity to pronounce them, but know that you can skip this step and provide training later just for those words that seem to need it, as explained in this workbook and the Help.

Finally, Dragon will adapt its word-frequency and context information based on the text analyzed (unless you unchecked the box “Adapt to writing style” on the first screen of this tool); this will allow it to better choose between words that sound alike.

Key points about customizing the Vocabulary from documents:

 The analysis of specific documents is accessible from the Vocabulary menu and the Accuracy Center.  This tool can analyze existing documents to learn about the “writing style” you plan to use—meaning,

which words are used with what frequency, and which words appear near each other. It’s OK to use as

input text written by someone else, if it’s reasonably similar to what you plan to dictate.

 To be used in this tool, files must be text files (see the type list in the Add Document window).  The tool can process many files at a time. You may wish to re-run it whenever you create or find suitable

text. The more (relevant) text is processed, the more refined your profile can become.

 When presented with the unknown words the tool found, you can choose which ones to add. Thanks to

the Edit button, you can modify their spelling as well as give them a Spoken Form if warranted.

 After adding to the Vocabulary items you are likely to dictate, letting Dragon analyze text that contains

them helps pre-empt recognition errors.

 Analyzing specific documents is only one of the ways Dragon can adapt; you can learn other ways in this

workbook as well as in the Help.

The checkbox option to “Improve from my e-mail writing style” will adapt the statistical language model; it is recommended except if

what you sent in that email program contains another language.

The analysis may keep Dragon busy for a while, especially the first time. Later on, it will go much faster if you choose the option button

“Consider e-mail written since my last scan.”

Customizing the Vocabulary from Your E-Mail

As you learned, Dragon can adapt its Vocabulary based on designated documents. It also has the ability to quickly learn from your usage of several e-mail programs: Lotus Notes, Microsoft Outlook, and Windows Mail, as well as Web-based email including Gmail, Outlook.com and Yahoo. By “studying” the e-mails you sent as well as the recipient names, Dragon can identify potentially useful contact names to add to the Vocabulary, as well as adapt its statistical information on word usage (frequency and context). This will help it transcribe your dictations more accurately.

You should take advantage of this tool as soon as possible after creating your User profile. (If you want Dragon to analyze Web-based email, make sure your computer is connected to the Internet for the duration of the email analysis.)

Step 1: Say open Accuracy Center, then say or click the link Increase accuracy from e-mail. Step 2: The tool will detect supported e-mail programs installed on your computer and display their names (this

may take a moment). Check the checkbox of the program(s) you want Dragon to analyze.

Note: If you want to use as a source a Web-based email program that is not listed here, select the

checkbox labeled IMAP (you will then be asked to enter configuration information including server name

and port number). Step 3: Use the checkboxes to indicate whether you want Dragon to only look for contact names to potentially

add to the Vocabulary, or whether you also want Dragon to adapt its statistics based on your sent mail.

Note: When you start this process, your e-mail program may bring up a message box for you to allow

Dragon to access it. If you have several windows open, this message may be hidden under another

window. Note also that the process may take quite a while if there are many emails to analyze. Step 4: After its analysis, the tool will display what it identified as potentially useful additions.

The rest of the process is similar to the analysis of specific documents: you can uncheck items

(individually or all at once), edit items, and train items acoustically if you wish, then Dragon adds to the

Vocabulary the checked items -- plus it adapts its language model to the “writing style” (word frequencies

and word sequences observed), if you opted for that.

Key points about customizing the Vocabulary from e-mail:

 Dragon can quickly adapt its Vocabulary from your use of e-mail in Lotus Notes, Microsoft Outlook, ,

Windows Mail, or Web-based email thanks to a tool available in its Vocabulary menu and Accuracy

Center.

 This tool performs two functions: it finds and lists potentially useful contact names to add, and it also

analyzes your sent e-mails to “adapt to the writing style”, i.e. to refine the word usage information in the

Vocabulary’s Language Model.

 As for document-analysis, when presented with the list of potential items to add, you can choose to check

all, uncheck all, and edit any of the items: click the item, click the Edit button, then modify as needed.

 Use this tool as soon as possible after creating a profile, then every few weeks so that Dragon can adapt

your profile from the emails you most recently sent. (After the first time, the process will be quick.)

 Remember that Dragon needs to “know about” your contacts in order to transcribe their name correctly—

this is particularly important for shortcut commands such as “email the selection to…” and “schedule

meeting with…” (supported in Microsoft Outlook).

 If you want Dragon to analyze Web-based email, make sure your computer is connected to the Internet

for the duration of the email analysis.

Starting to Dictate: Controlling the Microphone

When ready to dictate, you must ensure that Dragon NaturallySpeaking is able to hear you. Your microphone must be connected and positioned correctly, and Dragon also needs to know whether to “listen.” This lesson shows ways to turn Dragon’s microphone or on off and introduces the DragonBar.

Note: If you are using a Bluetooth microphone, make sure that it is not only powered up, but also active (that is, in “call mode”). Please see your microphone’s user guide for details.

The DragonBar and the microphone icon

In Version 13, the New DragonBar is docked to the top of the screen and collapsed by default. If you move your mouse over it, it expands. (If you wish to disable this auto-collapse, see the DragonBar menu.)

Be sure to explore, in the Options dialog’s View tab, the ways you can modify the DragonBar’s appearance to suit your preferences, including switching back to the Classic DragonBar from version 12.

If you are already familiar with Dragon and you wish to save space on your screen, set the DragonBar to Tray Icon only.

For more information, including using voice commands to switch the DragonBar in and out of “Tray Icon only”, see the Help. Remember that you can quickly search Dragon’s Help by voice by naming one or more search words or phrases, for example: “search Help for DragonBar display.”

The DragonBar includes several menus, a message area, and a microphone icon that you click to turn on and off. The microphone icon is also available in the system tray (on the Windows Taskbar, usually in the lower-right near the time display).

TIP: You may want to check that your operating system does not hide Dragon’s tray icon among other icons.

(The illustration below is from the Notification Area Icons section of the Control Panel in Windows 7.)

Note: If you like to keep the DragonBar minimized as a Tray Icon only, Dragon lets you display its content by voice command as well by right-clicking the icon: say "open Dragon’s tray menu.”

The microphone commands and sleep state

You can turn off the microphone by saying the command microphone off. There is no command to turn the microphone on given that, when the microphone is off, it can't “hear” anything! There are, however, commands to put the microphone in and out of a “sleeping” state where it doesn’t transcribe your words but it is still listening. To try this, turn the microphone on by clicking on its icon, then say stop listening or go to sleep.

IMPORTANT : For these and all voice commands, there should be a brief silence before and after, but

none in the middle, otherwise Dragon cannot recognize the command and instead transcribes the words. For example, make sure you say the words “go to sleep” together in a natural flow, not “go… to… sleep”.

Step 2: Click the button Microphone On/Off. A window

entitled Set Hot Key appears.

Step 3: Press the desired key (or key combination), then

press Enter. F10 is typically a good choice. (If the hot key you pressed is already assigned in

another application, Dragon will let you know.)

Step 4: Back in the Options dialog box, click Apply, then OK.

Putting the microphone to sleep is useful when you need to put Dragon “on hold" for a moment. However, leaving it in that state for a long time is not recommended, so do turn the microphone off if you will not be dictating for a while (and are physically able to turn on the microphone manually.)

Note: You can set Dragon to have the microphone asleep when your profile opens, waiting for your command to

“wake up”, so that no manual action is needed to turn the microphone on. To set this option by voice, say “open Dragon options” then “click Miscellaneous” then “click Have the microphone on but asleep."

The Importance of Hot Keys, including Microphone On/Off

Pressing a key or two is usually quicker than moving and clicking the mouse (and physically easier, too)—

software programs, including operating systems, typically contain keyboard shortcuts, or ‘hot keys’. Dragon provides hot keys for various useful tasks, including controlling the state of its listening.

If your computer has a full-sized keyboard, press the plus (+) key on the numeric keypad (on the far right of the keyboard). Pressing this hot key turns Dragon’s microphone on, and then pressing it again turns it off.

If your computer does not have a numeric keypad, or you wish to keep the plus key for other use, designate a new key to serve as the microphone on/off hot key. This is done through Dragon’s Options dialog box:

Step 1: On the DragonBar, click Tools, then Options (you can also say open options dialog). Click the tab

labeled Hot Keys (you can also say click Hot Keys).

Note: Dragon also offers a hot key to toggle the microphone between sleep and listening.

IMPORTANT: When using the Remote Microphone app as your source, you cannot use Dragon’s

microphone button on the DragonBar or the tray icon, or the microphone hotkey. You must tap the app’s microphone icon, or use the sleep commands. Also, you may want to disable your device’s auto-lock feature (or set it to a longer time).

Key points about controlling whether Dragon “listens”

 Dragon “listens” whenever its microphone is on. Remember to turn the microphone off (or put it into its

sleeping state if appropriate) when you are not dictating, like before answering the phone, speaking to

someone, or clearing your throat; this is a simple but important habit you should develop quickly.

 Pressing its hot key is usually the fastest and most convenient way to turn the microphone on and off; you

can also click the microphone icon on the DragonBar or in the System Tray.

 You can change any of Dragon’s default hot keys, including the microphone’s, in its Options dialog (say

open options dialog, then click hot keys).

 You can turn the microphone off by saying microphone off, but then the mouse or keyboard need to be

used to turn it back on. You can say go to sleep or stop listening to put the microphone into a sleeping

state and then say wake up or listen to me when you wish to dictate again.

 Microphone off, stop listening, go to sleep, listen to me and wake up are voice commands. In order

for Dragon to recognize and execute the desired action, you must pause slightly before and after but not

in the middle of the command.

 When using the Remote Microphone app as your source, you cannot use Dragon’s microphone button on

the DragonBar or the tray icon, or the microphone hotkey.

. period (or full stop) , comma ? question mark

! exclamation point or exclamation mark : colon ; semi-colon

Starting to Dictate: Your First Dictation

You can use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to dictate into virtually any Windows application. Further in this workbook, you will learn how to start programs by voice (but one doesn’t need to have started a program by voice in order to dictate into it.)

What you dictate will be inserted wherever your insertion point (cursor) is located in your document. There are many ways of moving the insertion point by voice, but know that you can also re-position it by hand (clicking the mouse where you want it, or using your keyboard’s arrow keys) just as you normally would.

TIP Before dictating, make sure the desired window is active (its title bar should not be dimmed), and the

insertion point (vertical bar) is where you want your dictation to appear. (Your operating system can make such visual elements easier to see.)

Dictating text and punctuation marks

Here are the most common punctuation marks, followed by what you say to “voice-type” them:

For these exercises, start a word processor (for example, you can say start DragonPad). Exercise 1: Look at the following sample, dictate it, then say microphone off. (If any word is misrecognized,

ignore it for now.) The very first words may take a moment to appear on the screen; this is normal.

How is this different from dictating to a person? I should try to provide clean input: speaking naturally,

but without mumbling or trailing off! Do turn off your microphone when you finish dictating! If your last sentence reads something like “trailing off!

Microphone off", you probably forgot to pause briefly before giving the command. (If you cannot use your hands, say “go to sleep” or “stop listening” instead of “microphone off.”)

New line and new paragraph

With Dragon active, you can press your Enter key, but you can also simply say the commands new line and new paragraph.

Note: When you start dictating your new paragraph, Dragon will capitalize its first letter automatically, just like it automatically capitalizes after a period, an exclamation point, or a question mark. By default, Dragon does NOT capitalize the first word after new line or colon.

TIP If you prefer new line to trigger capitalization, you can change its default via the Vocabulary Editor, since

new line belongs to a special group of commands accessible there; these so-called Dictation Commands, such

as “cap”, “caps on” and “numeral”, appear near the very top of the Vocabulary Editor’s list, with a blank Written Form field. To find them quickly, change the Display drop-down list to “Word with spoken forms only”. Once you’ve highlighted new line in the Vocabulary Editor, say or click Properties, then choose “capitalized” from the drop-down list “Format the next word”.

The Results Display and its options

Exercise 2: Study the following text sample then dictate it in a blank document. (Ignore any errors for now.)

The more I use it, the software will adapt to the way I sound and the words I use. At the same time, I

will also acquire good habits like pausing optimally, keeping silent when hesitating, and turning the

microphone off, or putting it into its sleep state, when necessary!

As you dictate, a small “rolling” Dragon icon appears, indicating that recognition is in progress. If the option “show preliminary results” is enabled (on the View tab of the Options dialog), you will instead see the

following as in version 10 and prior:

 Your words first appear in a small horizontal rectangle. This is called the Results Box.  Words accumulate in the Results Box until you pause, at which point they appear in your document. If

many words are dictated without a pause, the Results box automatically stretches out.

 The contents of the Results Box sometimes change as you speak; what first appears there may not be

what is inserted in your document, since Dragon sometimes revises its original guess based on

subsequent words. Dragon uses the everything it hears between two pauses to best choose what exactly it should transcribe; this is

particularly important for words that can be spelled in different ways, like “to” and “too”. If you speak single words, or a few words at a time, the software has few or no contextual clues. For this reason, long continuous “utterances” can be recognized more accurately than short ones (and long words better than short ones).

IMPORTANT : Try to formulate your sentences and commands before you start dictating them. This can be

challenging at first, particularly for those who have been “thinking through their fingers” for years, but you’ll develop the habit once you see what a difference it makes.

Note: Especially if you tend to forget punctuation, or if you are writing informally, consider Dragon’s option to

automatically insert commas and periods as you dictate (see Auto-Formatting under the DragonBar’s Tools menu). The Help contains details about this “Natural Punctuation” option and the commands to turn it on and off.

The location and behavior of the Results indicator can be customized from the Options dialog’s View tab. Many

users find it most convenient to “anchor” the indicator to a place where it’s unlikely to hide anything, such as the

bottom right corner of their screen; to do that, just check the “Anchor” checkbox, close the Options dialog, then

drag the indicator to the desired place.

Exercise 3: Dictate a paragraph of some four sentences on today’s weather. (For now, ignore any errors.) Did you forget to dictate punctuation in this paragraph? It can be harder to remember when we are “composing out loud” but, with practice, it will become second nature.

Below are other frequent punctuation marks—you may want to say them out loud once before the next exercise. Note in particular the ellipsis and the difference between dash and hyphen.

Remember that you can use the Vocabulary Editor to see punctuation and symbols with their existing spoken forms, as well as to add your own spoken forms, and to modify properties (such as “having no following space” like the open quote.)

“ open quote ” close quote

( open paren or open parenthesis ) close paren or close parenthesis

… ellipsis or dot dot dot & ampersand or and sign

-- dash

- hyphen

TIP: You don’t always have to say hyphens: thanks to its built-in Vocabulary, Dragon can automatically include

hyphens in items such as 3-year-old, above-mentioned, after-tax, ad-libbed, ankle-length, anti-infective, as well as famous hyphenated names like Abdul-Jabbar. (To see many, you can choose “Words containing punctuation” in the Vocabulary Editor’s dropdown list “Display”.)

You can prevent Dragon from entering a hyphen by pausing or saying “spacebar” where the hyphen would be.

Exercise 4: Dictate the following sample. (If any recognition errors occur, ignore them for now.)

These lessons remind me that "practice makes perfect." (Who said this, Confucius?)

When it comes to speech-recognition software, truer words were never spoken… Note: At the moment one turns off its microphone off, Dragon may still be working on the last sounds it heard.

Key points for your first dictation:

 What you dictate is transcribed at the insertion point (the blinking vertical bar), the place where characters

would appear if you started to type. Before you dictate, make sure that the desired window is not just

visible, but also has the focus.

 To modify how Dragon indicates that recognition is in progress, use the View tab of the Options dialog (to

bring up this dialog, you can say open Dragon options). To avoid situations where the Results

indicator’s icon or box prevents you from seeing something on your screen, you can "anchor" it (check the

“Anchor” checkbox, then close the Options dialog and drag the indicator to the desired place). You can

also change how long it remains on the screen.

 Speaking in longer, continuous phrases provides contextual clues and thus helps Dragon choose

between homophones like “right” and “write” or “to” and “two”.

 Punctuation is part of the dictation context—it has an impact on recognition accuracy.  Two very frequent Dictation Commands are new paragraph (which creates a blank line) and new line.  By default, new line does NOT trigger capitalization of the following word; you can change that through

the Vocabulary Editor’s Properties dialog.

 Your very first dictated words may take a moment to appear on the screen. This is normal.

- Transcribe numbers greater

than two as numerals. (By default, Dragon follows the rule that small integers should be written as words unless in contexts such as a unit or address.) Use the drop-down list on this dialog.

- Expand contractions (such as “won’t” and “didn’t”).

- Insert two spaces after periods.

The Vocabulary Editor’s Word Properties dialog offers related capabilities. It lets you obtain contextual formatting: you can ask that numerals always be used after a particular word (as in “version 4”) and you can set alternate written forms (for instance, if you prefer “figure” to be written “Fig.” before numbers, as in “Fig. 3”).

Note: The Vocabulary Editor also lets you change the properties of Dictation Commands (for instance, you may wish

“new line” to trigger capitalization, as “new paragraph” does).

Please see Vocabulary Customization.

Dictating Prices, Units, Dates, Times, Addresses…

Dragon NaturallySpeaking follows spacing and capitalization rules: for example, it inserts a space after comma but none before, and it capitalizes at the beginning of sentences and paragraphs.

In this lesson, you learn about contextual automatic formatting that allows you to naturally dictate prices, times, dates, abbreviations, contractions, units of measure, street addresses, e-mail addresses, URLs, ISO currency codes and other special text. You also learn about Spell Mode and other recognition modes.

Automatic text formatting during normal dictation

On the Auto-Formatting Options dialog (available from the Tools menu), you can turn Dragon’s rules of automatic formatting off and on, as desired. For example, you can choose to have Dragon:

Exercise 1: Dictate some phone numbers with and without area code. (No need to say "hyphen".)

Please call 607-585-3926 instead of 587-1239. Toll free directory: 1-800-555-1212

TIP By default, Dragon applies its automatic formatting rules even if you pause within the segment (the option

“Allow pauses in formatted phrases” lets you turn this off.) If you need to dictate sequences of 7, 10 or 11 digits and do NOT want them formatted as phone numbers, one trick is to say “numeral” just before.

Exercise 2: Dictate the following address. For the line containing the zip code, just say Oakland California 9 1 2 3 5; Dragon automatically uses the postal abbreviation for the state and precedes it with a comma.

127 Evergreen Terrace Oakland, CA 91235

Exercise 3: Dictate the following dates. (Dragon automatically formats when you say, for instance, “Monday July sixteenth 2009”.

TIP: You can change the default date format to one of those offered on the Auto-Formatting options dialog.

Monday, July 16, 2009 10/15/09 (say slash) 12-7-2013 (say hyphen)

Exercise 4: Dictate a few sentences containing prices, including the one here. (Say four dollars and ninety cents; Dragon will automatically format it with the dollar sign and dot.)

Suggested retail price: $4.90

Exercise 5: Dictate the following sentence, or a similar one containing a URL. Pronounce the URL w w w dot the best business dot com. Dragon will automatically remove the spaces between words.

Please visit www.thebestbusiness.com for more information.

Exercise 6: Dictate the following e-mail addresses. (Remember: for e-mail addresses you frequently dictate, adding them to your vocabulary will ensure that you can dictate them quickly and with high accuracy.)

Laura_Miller@domain.com (say “Laura underscore Miller” and “at” or “at sign”) customerservice@electricalexperts.com (“customer service at sign electrical experts dot com”)

The restricted Recognition Modes

There may be times when you want Dragon to recognize less than it normally does. You may want to speak only commands, or enter many numbers or characters in a row—when inputting figures or product codes into a database, for instance.

Take a moment to explore Dragon’s restricted recognition modes, which include Numbers Mode, Spell Mode, Command Mode and Dictation Mode. (Please see the Help for details beyond the ones below.) Note: Dragon includes a persistent indication of the current recognition mode on the DragonBar (next to the Full Text Control checkmark).

TIP Dictation Mode can be helpful if you want to dictate as quickly as possible.

Numbers Mode

When you are about to dictate a sequence of numeric data, consider switching to Numbers Mode. When in this mode, the software tries to recognize everything it hears as number-related (or as a command).

Step 1: Say numbers mode on or choose Numbers Mode from the DragonBar’s Modes menu. (Notice the

status message in the DragonBar.) Now that Dragon is in Numbers mode, you can:

 dictate numbers and punctuation (hyphen, dollar sign…). For decimal point, say dot or point.  say new line, new paragraph and space  say move up|down|left|right <number> to move the focus to another line, cell, or item.

Step 2: To resume regular dictation, you can say a command such as switch to normal mode, or use the Modes

menu.

Spell Mode

The Spell Mode is useful for dictating character sequences which don’t form pronounceable words, as is often the case for part numbers, license plate numbers, codes, usernames and passwords… It’s also useful for spelling out terms which you anticipate Dragon won’t know, such as words in a foreign language or unusual product names. Of course, if you plan to use these words or phrases more than once, you should add them to the Vocabulary, with spoken form if warranted.

Step 1: Say Spell Mode on or Switch to Spell Mode. The DragonBar will indicate that Spell Mode is on.

You can now dictate characters, including letters, digits, and symbols, as well as spacebar.

 To capitalize a letter, say cap immediately followed by the letter.  As in Numbers Mode, you can use the move <direction> <number> commands to navigate. You can

also say space. (Dragon will not automatically handle spacing as it usually does.)

 You cannot use new line or new paragraph, but you can say press Enter.

Step 2: You can return to normal dictating by voice (Spell Mode off…) or by hand (Modes menu> Normal Mode).

TIP: The Help topic “Spelling Characters” contains the list of possible pronunciations, including the alpha-

bravo-charlie alphabet and accented characters like “n tilde” and “alpha umlaut”. When spelling out, you can

also say “oh” instead of “zero”.

The Spell Command: characters within Normal Mode

If you need to dictate a sequence of characters in the middle of normal dictation, the Spell command is usually faster than switching in and out of Spell mode: while in Normal Mode, you can say “spell” immediately followed by a sequence of characters (digits, letters, symbols, and space or spacebar). See the Help for details.

This can also be useful in cases where you want to put on the screen a word that would normally be interpreted

as a symbol or a command. For instance, if you wanted to be sure that Dragon types the word “comma” instead of

the character comma, you could say “spell space C O M M A”. This is also useful for the word “cap” which is also a Dictation Command (to trigger capitalization of the following word): say “spell space C A P.”

Exercise 7: Dictate “access code: 75Zq/7”, then practice with character sequences of your choice. (Pause briefly after the colon, then say “spell 7 5 cap zee cue slash 7”. Try to not pause at all during the sequence; if you paused, just resume by saying “spell” immediately followed by the rest of your sequence.)

Key points about dictating numbers and special text

 Dragon can format dates, times, prices, street addresses, phone numbers, Web addresses, units of

measure, and other special text automatically. The Auto-Formatting options dialog (from the Tools menu) lets you turn these built-in rules off or on as desired. Also, the Word Properties dialog lets you adjust spacing, capitalization, abbreviations (such as Gen. for General) and other alternate written forms (such as “honour” and other spellings used in Canada). In version 12, Dragon reaches out to you through its Smart Format Rules box when it detects that you made a change that might warrant adjusting one of its format-related settings.

 The restricted recognition modes can make dictating special text more efficient. They are accessible by

voice commands (“Numbers Mode on”, “switch to Normal Mode”) and through the DragonBar’s Modes menu.

 Dictation Mode can be helpful if you want to dictate as quickly as possible.  If you will be dictating only numbers and punctuation, consider turning Numbers Mode on.  If dictating a long sequence of characters (letters, digits, punctuation, symbols), consider Spell Mode. The

Spell command is good for short sequences which you can say all at once, without pausing, such as “spell space T W O”.

 When spelling out, you can use alternate pronunciations for the letters (such as alpha, bravo, etc.) and

insert a capital letter by saying cap just before the letter. You can also say space or spacebar. (In Spell Mode, Dragon doesn’t handle spacing as it usually does.)

Correcting Dragon’s Errors in Your Dictated Text

Human beings sometimes can’t recognize words correctly—especially if the speaker and the listener come from different regions, if the speaker is discussing an unfamiliar subject, or if the words are not well articulated. In addition, when we hear a word for the first time, we may not know how to spell it. Some people’s first or last names can be spelled different ways (like Gene/Jean, Hansen/Hanson).

This is also true for Dragon! The software uses contextual clues and statistical information to guess what to transcribe, but sometimes cannot guess correctly. In particular, it may not recognize uncommon words on the first try, and instead types something that was likely according to its statistics. It cannot recognize and transcribe a word it has never seen.

Fortunately, in addition to optimizing acoustic factors, taking advantage of the vocabulary customization tools and using proper correction techniques will significantly reduce the number of errors. Dragon’s Help contains many details about the different ways to perform it, including by keyboard.

You can choose when to perform corrections. If you look at your screen while dictating and you notice that Dragon just got a word wrong, it's usually best to finish your train of thought before you correct that misrecognition: you may want to at least finish your paragraph. That being said, if the misrecognition affects a word which is likely to appear many times in your document, it's a good idea to correct it as soon as possible.

Handling multiple matches in your text

Dragon lets you directly address a specific word or phrase in your text. When you give a command such as “correct <xyz>” or “bold <xyz>” or “delete <xyz>” or “capitalize <xyz>”(<xyz> being the word or phrase to address) and Dragon finds several matches, Dragon places a number next to each match.

You can then say the number of the desired one. If you wish to affect all matches at once, you can say “choose all”. (If you want the numbers to disappear, say

“cancel”, click your mouse, or just keep dictating.) Saying “undo that” undoes the change for just the last instance of <xyz>. To undo the change to all instances, say

“undo all".

Note: “Choose all” cannot work for “select” or for “insert before/after”. If you wish to replace several instances, you may want to explore your application’s capabilities for replacing, including specific capitalization (the illustration below is from Microsoft Word 2010).

 If what you had said is in the list, you can

pick it by voice (say "choose" and its number) or by hand (click the desired choice or use the down arrow and Enter key).

 If it is not, you can click or say "spell that"

which opens the Spelling Window. There, you can indicate the correct transcription using voice, keyboard, mouse, or a combination (see below).

IMPORTANT: In Dragon’s commands, <xyz> represents the relevant segment on the screen (which could

be more than one word and could include numbers or punctuation marks). When you give the ‘correct <xyz>’ command, be sure to say what appears on the screen, not what you had intended.

Note that it can be useful to provide some context for the word(s) you intend to change: for instance, to correct "a" in the phrase "Carol sent a request," you may want to say “correct sent a” or "correct sent a request."

The Correction Menu: the default interface

By default, when you say a command starting with the word "correct,” Dragon brings up the Correction Menu, which lists alternative transcriptions as well as a few of the commands you may wish to say. In the example illustrated below, the speaker said “correct Madison.”

Note that the last item on the Correction menu gives you direct access to the Options dialog’s Correction tab. (As seen on that tab, another default setting you can modify is Dragon’s opening the Correction menu also when you use the command “select <xyz>”.)

Correcting in the Spelling Window

Some users prefer the Spelling Window to be the default interface for Correction, so they can act directly when

Dragon’s choice list doesn’t show their desired transcription (instead of having to use “spell that” from the

Correction menu to get to the Spelling Window).

This requires changing one of the options on the Correction tab of Dragon’s Options dialog. Here is one way to do this: say “open Dragon options”, then say “click Correct commands bring up Spelling Window” (or click that option’s checkbox).

With this option set, saying commands that start with

“correct” opens the Spelling Window. So does using the

Correction button on the expanded DragonBar, or pressing the Correction hotkey (the numeric minus by default, as seen in the Options dialog).

As you will see, there are many ways to indicate in the Spelling Window what should have been recognized—including typing, or spelling out individual characters, hence the name “Spelling Window.”

Here is an example. Imagine you dictated "contact colon Madyssen" (note the unusual spelling of this name) but Dragon wrote “medicine” instead of “Madyssen”. To correct Dragon’s error, you can say “correct medicine”. The Spelling Window then opens.

At its top is what was transcribed, and below is a list of alternate transcriptions, each preceded by a number.

Here is what you can do:

If what Dragon should have transcribed is listed: say choose n (the number of the correct line). You can also pick the correct choice by double-clicking it or using down arrow and Enter key.

If no choice is quite correct but one is close, you can save time by modifying it instead of entering it yourself: click it, or say modify n or edit n. In our illustration, you could say “edit 1” to bring up “Madison”, then “backspace 4” then “Y S S E N”.

If what Dragon should have transcribed is NOT listed:

enter it, then say click OK or press Enter. In our

example, you could say “cap M A D Y S S E N” then “click OK”.

The Spelling Window then closes and, in your text, Dragon replaces the misrecognized segment with what you indicated was the correct transcription.

Note: In addition to adjusting your document, Dragon also learned a bit of information to refine your profile, and if you entered in the Spelling Window a word that was not in its active vocabulary, Dragon has now added that word to its active vocabulary (you could now see that word in the Vocabulary Editor).

Remember that Dragon allows the use of voice and does not prohibit manual action; at different times one may be quicker or easier than the other. In the edit line of the Spelling Window, it can be faster to make modifications with mouse or keyboard, although you can perform correction entirely by voice.

You cannot dictate words in the Spelling Window. However, you can dictate:

 Individual characters: letters, digits, space, symbols (see your documentation for details)  Commands like “backspace 5”, “move right 4 characters”, “delete next word”, “select line”

Note: In the Spelling Window, Backspace and Delete commands should be used instead of scratch that, especially if Press Key commands are used.

As you enter characters in the Spelling window, Dragon presents new choices in the list, so you may not have to enter all characters! Here are tips for spelling out:

 To spell a capital letter, just say “cap” followed by the letter.  You can use alternate pronunciations to spell letters: “alpha”, “letter alpha”, “letter a”, “bravo”,

“charlie”, “delta”, “echo”, “foxtrot”, etc. (see the Help for the full list)

 To insert a space, say “space” or "spacebar".  If one of the choices listed is close, you can save time by modifying it: say modify and its number,

which brings it to the top of the Spelling window.

Exercise 1: Look at the following sample, dictate it, then use the correct <xyz> command to fix any errors. (This sample was designed to create errors! All the names here could be spelled in different ways.)

Until further notice, the BHDP meeting will be held in room B31 (not B40). Special invitees this week: Stephen Hess, Anne Petersen, and Gene Wood.

TIP: If several consecutive words are incorrect, correct them together. For instance, if "B40” were recognized

as "before tea,” you would say correct before tea.

Exercise 2: Dictate a few sentences containing uncommon words, such as names and nicknames or product

names, until a few misrecognitions appear. For each misrecognition, bring up the Spelling Window and practice spelling out what you actually said, as well as editing one of the choices from the list.

Using playback to aid correction

Sometimes, especially if you dictate a significant amount of text before correcting, you may not remember exactly what you actually said. Dragon’s playback feature is very helpful in these instances. You can take advantage of it in several ways.

If you see that a certain word or phrase appears incorrectly, use the correct command to open the Spelling Window. Once it appears, click or say Play Back to hear the recording of your voice as you dictated that text. It may be that in fact you had misspoken or mumbled; this happens to everyone, particularly near the end of the day! In that case, close the Spelling window (you can say click cancel) and dictate the word(s) again.

TIP: You can have playback occur automatically with Correction. On the Correction tab of the Options dialog,

check Automatic Playback on Correction. This is particularly helpful as you first learn to use Dragon; you may want to turn it off after a few weeks of practice.

If your edition supports it, you can also use Playback to hear sections of dictation in the document itself. To do this, select the editable text you would like to hear played back. Then, say play that back, or use the DragonBar’s Audio menu. If you find a misrecognition, you can stop playback by clicking the mouse (or using the Correction hotkey or button -- see below). Because speech input cannot be received during playback, you cannot stop playback by voice. If clicking the mouse is problematic for you, play small selections at a time.

Note: You may wish to explore the Playback attributes in the Options dialog.

The Classic DragonBar can be expanded (in supported editions): click its chevron or say view extras bar. To hide the extras bar, say hide extras or click the chevron again. Its extras bar gives access to several items, depending on your edition:

 The Correction button opens the correction interface (as do the Correction commands and hot key).

 The playback icons, similar to those on a music player, allow you to begin playback, speed up playback

(useful for large sections of text), stop playback, and skip backwards or forward.

 The Transcribe button launches the transcription of recorded dictations (for details, see the video, FAQs,

and other resources on our website, as well as the Help topics, including the Auto-Transcribe Folder Agent).

 The Extras toolbar is supported in the Classic DragonBar. There is no Extras toolbar in the New

DragonBar.

Exercise 3: Dictate a detailed paragraph about people you know. Then select it and play it back. If you find any misrecognitions, use the Correction button, hotkey, or commands to correct them.

Note: As you use Dragon more, experiment with how to correct, and when to correct. (We recommend finishing at least your current paragraph before making a correction, so that you preserve your train of thought.) Notice what seems more convenient and efficient for you.

Smart Format Rules

When you make a correction related to formatting, such as abbreviations, titles, units of measure, or alternate forms, Dragon may display its Smart Format Rules box, offering to change one of its Auto-Formatting options or Word Properties settings. You can then either accept one of the adjustments offered, or dismiss the box.

If you wish to, you can change settings yourself from the Auto-Formatting Options dialog box or the Vocabulary Editor, as in previous versions. The Smart Format Rules feature simply "reaches out" to you, making it quick and easy for you to adjust the settings you care about.

For example: When you dictate “five kilograms,” Dragon writes “5 kg” and if you then change “kilograms” to “kg” (by overtyping, or using the Correction menu or Spelling window) Dragon presents the Smart Format Rules box pictured here.

Take a moment to read what the box offers. Then, if you want one of the proposed adjustments to be made, say

“choose” followed by the desired number.

If you don’t want any of the choices proposed, you can say “cancel” or just move on to whatever you would have

done if the box had not come up.

Key points about correcting recognition errors

 Refining your profile using the features gathered in the Accuracy Center can prevent many errors,

because it helps Dragon become familiar with how you sound and what words and phrases you use often. Be sure to explore the Vocabulary Editor and add words and phrases (with Spoken Forms and/or Word Properties such as alternate forms, as warranted). Beyond that, it’s important to let Dragon see your custom-added words and phrases in context, for instance by letting it analyze relevant documents.

 Although correcting misrecognitions may seem time-consuming at first, it will result in increased

accuracy, which in turn means that there will be fewer and fewer misrecognitions to address.

 To have the Spelling window as the default correction interface, the option "Correct" Commands

Bring Up Spelling Window must be enabled.

 Flow is important: commands require a brief pause before and after. Do not pause at all between the

word ‘correct’ and the misrecognized word(s). (At first, you may want to “rehearse” the whole command in your head before speaking it.)

 When the Spelling Window is open, you can say choose n to pick the correct choice from the list. If

no choice is quite correct but one is close, you can quickly modify it: click it once or say edit and its number (for instance edit 5). This brings it to the top of the Spelling Window, where you can edit it by hand or by voice.

 You can use the Spelling window’s edit field to type or spell out words. Note: In the Spelling Window,

you can dictate individual characters (including using pronunciations such as alpha, letter alpha, etc.) but you cannot dictate words directly.

 To be sure of what exactly was said for the text segment you are correcting, use the Playback

feature. (Another advantage of using playback is that it gives you feedback on how clearly you

dictated.)

 To proofread using Playback, highlight the relevant text then say play that back, or use the

DragonBar’s Audio menu, or click the Playback icon on the DragonBar’s Extras bar. (Not available in the lower editions or on the New DragonBar in Dragon 13.)

Editing Text by Voice

Dragon NaturallySpeaking lets you use your voice to move around within a document and edit the contents— whether or not that document was originally created by voice. As you learned, the software transcribes your dictation wherever the insertion point is. (The insertion point is usually shown as a blinking vertical bar some call the cursor.)

This lesson presents some of the commands to select text and move the insertion point. Mouse and keyboard can still be used, of course. Don’t try to do everything by voice unless you have to. At first, focus on getting optimal accuracy in your dictations — speaking clearly, adapting the vocabulary, performing corrections as needed, reading a text for acoustic training…

Navigation and selection

Note: Navigation commands use the words go and move interchangeably, and a space counts as one character.

Some commands move the insertion point regardless of its starting location:

move to top, or go to start of document –- moves to the beginning of the document move to bottom –- moves to the end of the document

Other commands move the insertion point relative to its present location:

move to end of line (the current line, the one containing the insertion point)

move up(down) 1-20 line(s) or paragraph(s) –- e.g. move up 3 lines move left(back) 1-20 word(s) or character(s) –- e.g. move left 7 words move right(forward) 1-20 word(s) or character(s) –- e.g. move forward 3 characters

Note: A space counts as one character.

The insert before/after commands position the insertion point just before or after a specific word or punctuation mark in the text:

insert before your office –- moves the insertion point to just before the phrase "your office" insert after Joe comma -– moves to just after the comma following the word “Joe”

The select commands let you “highlight” editable text visible on the screen. Below are just some of them.

You can say select followed by what you wish to highlight (include punctuation as needed):

select let me know select comma obviously comma

Very useful for longer phrases, you can specify a range by naming its beginning and ending word(s):

select do let THROUGH please – "do let me know at your earliest convenience please"

You can select one or more characters, words, lines or paragraphs at a time:

select line, select next 3 paragraphs, select previous 5 words, select next character… as well as select rest of line.

Note: You can use similar commands to delete (delete line, delete next three words…) and copy (copy line, copy rest of line…)

You can also select the entire content of the field or document with the command select all.

You can “unselect” a selection by saying unselect that or deselect that. (Another way is to move the insertion point with a move right command, for instance.)

TIP: Say commands as a continuous phrase, with a brief pause before and after. For commands that

quote words from your screen, choose your target words before you start to say the command. Otherwise, any hesitation will cause the words of the command to be typed on the screen. (If this happens, just say scratch that and give your command again, without pausing this.

One should always strive to dictate in complete phrases, since context helps the recognition of text. When

it comes to commands, formulating the whole phrase and dictating it without pauses isn’t just helpful, it’s

essential. The exercises below will provide plenty of practice.

Handling multiple matches in text

When you give a command that quotes from your text(such as “insert before <xyz>” or “bold <xyz>”) and Dragon finds multiple matches for <xyz> (including homophones), Dragon lets you resolve that ambiguity and even take advantage of it. A number will appear next to each visible match. You can then:

 say the number of the desired instance, or  say “choose all” (for commands that can apply it)

Note: This match-handling can be disabled from the Commands tab of the Options dialog.

Dragon lets you perform frequent editing tasks quickly: like you can quote from editable text in the commands

select <xyz> and select <start> thru <end>, you can say the verbs bold, underline, italicize as well as capitalize, immediately followed by the desired word(s). This also applies to copy, as well as delete and cut—

note that these three can be disabled, as explained below.

Note: If these commands are enabled, Dragon will try to recognize as one of them any phrase starting with one of

these verbs followed by a word (or words) present in the text: e.g. “bold

measures” or “cut corners.” Since

Dragon recognizes commands only if they are spoken as one flow between two pauses, this could happen if the phrase is said in isolation—for instance, if the speaker is creating a list or had just hesitated as one often does when composing out loud. (If this does happen, one can say undo that.)

Remember in particular the possibility of unintended recognition of cut

<xyz> and delete <xyz>, especially if you dictate without looking at the screen. If you prefer to avoid this risk,

disable these commands by clearing their checkbox on the Commands tab of Dragon’s Options dialog.

Full Text Control, “unknown” text fields and the Dictation Box

Commands such as ‘correct <xyz>’ and ‘insert after <xyz>’ (where <xyz> is a word or phrase in the active text field) work thanks to a Dragon functionality called Full Text Control (formerly “Select-and-Say”). This functionality requires the text field to let Dragon be aware of its content—such as where words and sentences begin and end.

Many popular applications build their text fields (or at least most of their fields) in a standard way, and as a result Dragon has Full Text Control in these fields. However, you may sometimes encounter a text field for which Dragon cannot have awareness—and therefore Dragon cannot always apply all its normal capabilities. (For instance, it may not capitalize the first word you dictate in that field.) You may not notice anything unusual if you just dictate a flow of words, especially if you start with a word that is always capitalized, such as a name or the subject pronoun “I”. However, if you take actions on the text (such as correcting a misrecognition or inserting text within a sentence), Dragon may not be able to execute its “<verb> <xyz>” commands, or adjust spacing as it usually does.

When the insertion point is in such an “unknown” field, the DragonBar’s Full Text Control indicator is dimmed. Even in “unknown” text fields, one can use Dragon efficiently—knowing the following:

When the text is ready, use the Transfer button: Dragon closes the Dictation Box and transfers your text to where you had the insertion point.

Note: by default, you must say

“click Transfer,” not just “Transfer.”

To open the Dictation Box, you can:

 Say a command such as

‘Open Dictation Box’

 Use the DragonBar’s Tools

 Use its hot key: Ctrl+Shift+d

1. If dictating short entries, you may want to just use what does work in all text fields: dictate normally (most applications allow this) and, if and when necessary, say ‘spacebar’ (or press the spacebar), say ‘cap’ before a word to force its capitalization (you can also address capitalization after the fact), say ‘move <left|right|up|down>’ commands or reposition the insertion point by hand, etc.

2. If you want to dictate something substantial, consider using Dragon’s Dictation Box, an intermediary containing a text field in which you can create, modify, and correct text. (If your edition supports them, you can even use boilerplate custom commands to paste text.)

Note: The Dictation Box comes up automatically if you speak where Dragon doesn’t have Full Text Control. This default can be changed on the Miscellaneous tab of the options dialog.

There is a lot of flexibility around the Dictation Box. In addition to changing its hot key in the Options dialog, you can:

 Give its command one or more alternate names (from the Command Browser: to find the command, you

can filter for the word ‘box’, with ‘Global Commands’ selected in the Context list).

 Modify its appearance and behavior, via its Settings button: default font size, positioning (anchored, or

near the cursor), whether it shows how many characters it contains…

 Have different settings for different applications. Also, you can have multiple Dictation Boxes open at one

time. See the Help for details.

Replacing and inserting

The select commands are very useful when you wish to change some of the text on your screen. As you would with mouse or keyboard, you select the relevant segment then you overwrite it by dictating or typing.

For instance, if your text reads "100 Main Street" but you wish to change it to "500 Washington Street", say select

100 Main (pause) 500 Washington.

TIP: For larger passages, take advantage of select line, select <start> through <end>, select paragraph…

The command “resume with…” can also be very efficient as an equivalent of selecting then deleting what you

have just dictated up to a particular word; be sure to read about it in the Help and try it out.

Exercise 1: Practice “overwriting” by voice. Examine then dictate the following paragraph.

I will be in the Boston area for a few days the week after next, and would love to get together for lunch. We could meet at your office at noon. I’ll be staying at the Madison downtown.

Talk to you soon!

1) Say select lunch  The word “lunch” is now selected.

Say an early dinner  The sentence should now read “get together for an early dinner.”

2) Say select noon

Say six o’clock  The sentence should now read “We could meet at your office at 6:00.”

3) Say select in through next  The segment “in the Boston area for a few days the week after next” is

highlighted. Say in your area on Tuesday July fifteenth

Let’s say we now want to add a few words inside this paragraph.

4) Notice the insertion point’s current position. Say insert after dinner, then say if you have time.

5) Say insert before exclamation mark (observe the move), then say comma I hope.

TIP: If, after doing some editing in your text, you need to remove trailing white space, you can use commands

such as backspace or delete next character for a single space. You can even say backspace combined with a number: for example, backspace 5 is like pressing the backspace key 5 times.

Dragon’s many selection and navigation commands can help you quickly edit text—whether or not this text was created by voice. The exercise below is to be performed entirely by voice, but remember that for optimal

productivity in daily work you may use a combination of voice and keyboard/mouse. Exercise 2: Look at the following text, dictate it, then edit it by voice as described below.

Dear Ms. Cooper, It was nice meeting you Tuesday. I think you have some good ideas about the Johnson project! Let’s get the

team focused on this project by February. When you have time, could you write up your comments and email them to me? I would really appreciate it.

 Edit the first sentence so it reads "meeting with you last Tuesday".  Edit the second sentence so it reads "You have some great ideas".  Edit the third sentence so it reads "on this important project".  Edit the third sentence so it reads "by early February", and insert a blank line after it.  Change the fourth sentence to “Could you please write up your notes and email them to me ASAP?”  Edit the salutation, changing "Ms. Cooper" to "Allison".  Edit the last sentence, removing "really", and add a closing line of "Sincerely, Susan Martin-Smith".

Which commands did you find most useful in each situation?

Key points about editing text

 You can use Dragon to edit a document by voice whether the document was dictated or typed.  The editing commands can address small or large amounts of text, even several paragraphs or the entire

document (select all).

 At first, uttering the whole command can be tricky for commands that quote words from your text, such as

select… through… and insert before <xyz>. As usual, deciding what you are going to say before starting to speak is recommended. If you paused mid-command, just say scratch that, pause, and give the complete command again.

 The commands that quote your text (select <xyz>, bold <xyz>, correct <xyz>, insert after <xyz>…)

work thanks to a functionality called Full Text Control, which depends on Dragon’s ability to constantly obtain information from the text field—for instance, where words and sentences begin and end, so Dragon can apply spacing between words and capitalization at the beginning of a sentence.

 If the text field in which you are dictating is “unknown”, remember that if needed you can say Cap to start

a sentence and spacebar to create a space, as well as use the Dictation Box—an intermediary window which has Full Text Control: when ready, use its Transfer button.

 In Dragon 13, the Dictation box opens automatically where Dragon doesn’t have Full Text Control. You

can disable this in the Options dialog.

 You can modify the Dictation Box’s appearance and behavior from its Settings button; in addition, you

can modify its hot key in the Options dialog and give its command one or more alternate names.

 You can set the Dictation Box to behave differently depending on the application from which you opened

it.

Formatting Text by Voice

Whether text was originally dictated or typed, Dragon NaturallySpeaking lets you use your voice to control font (Arial, Courier…), font style (bold, underline…), font size, alignment (center, right-align…), color, and more.

Note: In order to preserve your train of thought, it’s a good idea to prioritize dictation over formatting: first dictate

your document (or at least finish dictating your paragraph, list, or idea), then revise your words if needed, and only then apply formatting.

The "X that" convention

Dragon has many commands to tell the computer to perform a certain action on a certain item. Many are phrased as "X that", with X being a verb for the desired action: for instance, italicize that and delete that.

Remember, for commands to be recognized, you must pause before and after the command but not within it. When Dragon hears an "X that" command, it decides what “that” is as follows:

1) If anything on the screen is highlighted (whether by voice or by hand), Dragon performs the action on that

selection. (It can be one or more characters or words.)

2) If nothing is highlighted, Dragon performs the action on whatever you dictated since you last paused—in

n other words, the contents of the Results box, the last utterance.

Note: In Dragon’s commands, you can say “the selection” instead of “that”—as well as “it” or “this.”

Dragon's "X that" editing commands include:

Cap That – capitalizes the first letter of words, e.g. Water Management

(Dragon also has “capitalize <xyz>” as seen in the section on direct editing commands)

ALL CAPS THAT – capitalizes all letters, e.g. EXTREMELY IMPORTANT no caps that – puts in lowercase all words, e.g. american express delete that (Dragon also has “delete <xyz>” as seen in the section on direct editing)

TIP To delete your few last utterances, you can repeat scratch that or specify a number of times (for

instance, scratch that 5 times) but the command “resume with…” can be most efficient.

bold that, italicize that, underline that (Dragon also has “<verb> <xyz>”) restore that – removes all bold/italics/underline formatting from the segment left-align that, right-align that, center that, justify that copy that and cut that (you can also use the direct editing commands “<verb> <xyz>”) paste that hyphenate that – puts hyphens in the spaces within the segment compound that – removes spaces between words in the segment bullet/unbullet that (make sure you are familiar with how your particular application handles bullets) quote that - puts quotation marks around the selection or last utterance bracket that (note: in UK English, this inserts rounded characters, not square brackets)

Dragon also has two special commands for quotes and brackets: you can say "Empty Quotes," or "Empty Brackets" to have Dragon insert a pair of quotation marks or brackets so you can dictate something within

them.

TIP: The Command Browser’s Keyword Filter lets you explore additional command wordings for the

application(s) you frequently use, as seen in this screenshot. For instance, in Word and WordPerfect, you can say

“turn bullets on” and “turn bullets off” as well as “format that bulleted and bold.”

The "Format That" commands

Not all formatting commands are worded as "X that", but all follow the same rules about what text the action is performed on: the selection if there is one, otherwise the last utterance (what was said since the last pause.)

As seen in the Command Browser, the many formatting commands include:

format that bullet style –- bullets the designated text (you can also say set that to or make that bullet style) format that centered format that regular format that strikeout –- places a line through the selection (for example, January 19)

Note that formatting commands can combine several indications, as in: format that Garamond, format that Arial 12, etc. –- gives the selection the font name/size specified

format that 20 point, format that 12 point, etc. –- gives the selection to the point size specified format that bold italics format that caps bold format that bulleted and plain

Exercise: Dictate the following to experiment with giving format commands as you dictate and afterwards.

I’m pleased to say I finally read The Grapes of Wrath. It was TERRIFIC! Although it is quite long, I read it surprisingly quickly.

TIP To undo the last action, say undo that. This is equivalent to Undo in the Edit menu, or the keyboard

shortcut Ctrl z.

Key points about formatting documents

 The “X that” commands apply to the current selection or, if there is no selection, to the last utterance

(what was dictated since the speaker last paused).

 Remember to pause briefly before and after saying these commands.  You can repeat delete that or scratch that up to 10 times to delete the last things you said—you can

also say scratch that 3 times, scratch that 7 times… For deleting from the end of your dictation back to a particular word, the command “resume with…” can be very efficient; we strongly recommend it.

 To undo the last action, you can say undo that (which is equivalent to “press control z”).  For efficiency, it’s a good idea to prioritize dictation over formatting: first finish dictating (or at least finish

dictating your idea), then revise or correct the text if needed, and only then apply formatting.

Controlling the Operating System and Applications

Dragon NaturallySpeaking can do much more than type and format your dictated text: it lets you use your voice to find information, open a specific website, start programs, open desktop items, switch between open windows, maximize or minimize windows, choose menu and submenu items, navigate dialog boxes, click buttons, press keys, move or drag the mouse pointer, and more.

Note: If your operating system is Windows 8, keep in mind that Dragon is designed to work primarily in this

system’s “desktop” (“classic”) interface, and that Windows 8 replaced the Start menu with the Start screen and

Charms bar.

IMPORTANT : When Dragon is running, it does not inhibit the use of your mouse and keyboard. Mouse,

keyboard, and voice are just three input options. Use whatever is fastest and easiest for you for a given task.

Let’s start with a frequent task made fast and easy thanks to Dragon: searching your computer.

Searching the computer

Available in the higher editions, the “Dragon Voice Shortcuts for Desktop Search” help speed up a process many of us go through often: finding information that is somewhere on our computer!

At any time, no matter what application is currently active on your screen, these commands let you launch a search for items containing the keyword(s) you specify. They use indexing software such as Google Desktop (freely downloadable from Google’s website).

They have flexible wordings (the Command Browser lets you see all the possible ways to say them) and can be general (“search computer for <xyz>”-- <xyz> being any word or words) or specific, as follows:

• Search emails for <xyz>: searches for the keyword(s) <xyz> in just the e-mails indexed on your computer

• Search [the] documents for <xyz>: searches just the indexed files

• Search [the] history for <xyz>: searches just the indexed Web pages visited

Note: These Desktop search shortcuts, like the Web search shortcuts, can be disabled or enabled on the Commands tab of Dragon’s Options dialog. Their option also controls the Help search

shortcut (“search Dragon Help for…”)

Controlling programs and windows

You can use your voice to open any item present on your desktop (including files, folders, and shortcuts): just say

open followed by the item’s name. (You can also use the verbs start, launch or show.) For instance, to open an item called “winter projects”, you could say open winter projects. (It’s helpful to have names that are easy to

speak!)

Note: This works at any time, even if the desktop is not visible. This is a powerful feature, but if you don’t need it, consider disabling it. (See the checkbox on the Commands tab of the Options dialog.)

Dragon has a similar option for Start menu items: you can start a program or other item that is in the Start menu by its name. For instance, start DragonPad, open Internet Explorer, start Notepad, start Paint, or start Windows Explorer. This works at any time, even if the Windows Start menu is not open. Consider disabling this powerful feature if you don’t need it. (See the Commands tab of the Options dialog.)

TIP: Do you need to say "start Word", "start Microsoft Word" or "start Microsoft Office Word 2007"? In the Start

Menu (on your Windows taskbar), look under Programs. Whatever the final submenu is called is the name Dragon may expect--except for popular applications listed in the Help; for these, shorter names are supported. If you find the listed name inconvenient, you can create a shortcut to the application and rename that shortcut to something easy; once you have done that, you can also use the easier name to open the application.

To open the Start menu, say click Start or click Start menu. This menu and other menus can be navigated by voice, as you will see.

To close the active window, you can say click close, close window or press F4.

Resizing and switching

To minimize an active window, say click minimize or minimize window (the window remains on your screen, minimized as a taskbar icon). To maximize (enlarge to fit the screen) an active window, say click maximize.

If several windows are open on your computer, you can change which one is active and in the foreground in several ways:

 Say “switch to” followed immediately by the name of the desired application, folder, or document: e.g.,

switch to DragonPad, switch to Lotus Notes, switch to My Computer, switch to DragonBar, switch to winter projects.

 Say switch to next window as many times as necessary to cycle through all the open windows (this is

equivalent to pressing Alt +Tab).

 Say switch to previous window to go back to the previously active window.  Say list all windows then say (or press) the number of the desired window.

Note: particularly if many windows are open, you may wish to specify an application: say list windows for <application>, for instance: list windows for Dragon or list windows for Internet Explorer.

“Clicking” menus, buttons and other interface controls

To "click" on an application menu or submenu, just say its name preceded by the word “click” (or not depending on the option for menus—see below). For instance, for a menu labeled Insert, say Click Insert. (The application must have the focus, which you can usually tell by the appearance of its title bar.)

When accessing a submenu, pause briefly after the name of the menu. For instance, in applications like Word 2003: to see the available toolbars, you can say click View (pause) click Toolbars, and to save a file under a certain name, you can say click File (pause) Save As.

TIP: To close an open menu, you can just say cancel or press Escape (equivalent to pressing the Esc key at

the top left of your keyboard).

Note: With Office 2010, Microsoft introduced some changes to the applications interface—in particular, it introduced the File Tab. The other tabs can be accessed by voice by just saying their name, but for the File Tab you must say “file tab” or “click file tab”. With Office 2013, Microsoft also made some interface modifications. For details on support for Office 2010 and 2013, please see the resources on www.nuance.com and the Help. (Remember that you can search Dragon’s Help directly by naming search keywords in a command such as “search help for open quote office 2010 close quote.”)

TIP: By default, some Microsoft applications show only the most used menu items. For optimal voice usage,

consider changing this default. (This may be located in the application’s Tools menu: open the Customize dialog and check the box “Always show full menus.”)

In addition to menus, Windows program interfaces may contain controls such as buttons, checkboxes, tabs, and radio buttons. How do you access these by voice? You guessed it: “say what you see” (preceded by “click” if required). Please note:

 Dragon lets you require the word “click” before the names of menus independently from buttons and other

interface controls.

 By default, Dragon requires the word ‘click’ before the name of menus as well as buttons and other controls:

for instance, for a button labeled OK, you would say click OK. (This can be useful to prevent unintended actions such as the voice-clicking of Send in email.) Dragon offers a similar “Require ‘Click’” option for HTML links, which applies to hyperlinks in supported Web browsers, Learning Center, and Accuracy Center. See the Commands tab of the Options dialog.

This workbook presents several of Dragon’s dialog boxes, which often contain controls labeled Cancel, Yes, No, or OK. As you follow the instructions and perform the exercises in each chapter, you may wish to take the opportunity to practice accessing the controls by voice.

Exercise 1: Previous lessons introduced you to the Options dialog box; we will use this dialog box to practice accessing buttons, tabs, and other interface controls.

1. Open Dragon’s Options dialog, then its View tab.

2. Select and unselect the radio buttons and checkboxes for the DragonBar.

3. Restore the defaults.

IMPORTANT : Dragon lets you disable its ability to “track” the name of interface controls, in all programs or

just in programs of your choice: see the checkbox and drop-down list “Voice-enable menus, buttons and other controls” on the Miscellaneous tab of the Options dialog.

“Natural Language Commands” and the Command Browser

Dragon comes with large sets of commands that let you order actions directly and in a natural manner, instead of going through menus, submenus, and dialog boxes: for instance, saying “Insert Page Break” in Microsoft Word 2003 instead of opening the “Insert” menu, then choosing the submenu “Break”, then the option “Page Break.”

Dragon’s Learning Center contains a sampling of these commands when they are available (and if your edition supports them). As you will notice, command names tend to describe the action, starting with the verb then the object.

 To read about the commands for a specific application, open the Help (you can say give me help or

show Help topics) or launch a Help search directly with a command such as “search Dragon Help for Internet Explorer commands.” You can also jump to relevant Help topics directly from the Learning

Center’s hyperlinks.

 To see all the commands and their variations (optional words, alternate words, etc.), open the Command

Browser and use its Context list and Keyword Filter box to display just the commands that contain a

particular word or words and are active in a particular application. When you see in the list a command

that looks interesting, make sure it’s highlighted in the list then use the links on the Command Browser’s menu to show all its wordings (for instance, to include all optional words or to expand ellipses).

IMPORTANT: If it detected that your PC’s resources would not allow it to perform with both speed and

accuracy, Dragon may have disabled its Natural Language Command sets for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and WordPerfect. If speed is not a priority for you and you wish to use Natural Language Commands in one or all of these applications, enable them via the Option dialog’s Commands tab. (See the More Commands button near the bottom.)

Note that if you enable the Natural Language Commands for Microsoft Word, for instance, Dragon’s speed may decrease within Microsoft Word (or Microsoft Outlook using Word as its editor).

“Voice-pressing” keys

At times, you may wish to use your voice to press a key or key combination on your keyboard. Common accelerator keys for Windows operating systems include: Esc to close a window, Enter to active the

item which has the focus, Tab to move the focus forward, and Shift Tab to move the focus backward. Most buttons, menus and checkboxes have an underlined letter in their label: you can activate them by pressing the underlined letter (if underlines are not visible, press Alt first.) For keyboard shortcuts specific to a particular

application, search the application’s Help or the Internet. Dragon lets you “voice-type” keys on your keyboard. Just say press or type followed by the name of the key(s):

any letter or number, but also Page Up, Home, Enter, Tab, Caps Lock, F2, Control, Alt, Shift, Windows... For instance:

Say press spacebar to select or unselect a checkbox. Say press F5 or press Function 5 to refresh the view. Say press Alt e to “click” a control labeled with an underlined ‘e’. Say press Control f to open the Find field in most applications. Say press Escape to “escape” out of a window. Say press Alt Down to open a drop-down list. Say press Windows D to show the desktop

Note: To undo a keystroke, you can say undo that.

Exercise 2: Observe the Find and Replace dialog box below and its controls: tabs, drop-down lists, checkboxes,

and buttons. Answer the following questions (think of “voice-typing” as well as “voice-clicking” options), then open a similar dialog in your word processor and practice navigating it by voice.

 How could you place the insertion point in the Find field? How could you go to the other tabs?  Which control currently has the focus? How could you move the focus to the Find Next button?  How could you close this dialog box?

Special considerations for Windows 8

In Windows 8, Microsoft introduced major changes for end-users compared to previous operating systems, but it offers an interface similar to the familiar desktop (minus its Start menu button). Applications such as Microsoft

Word and Excel open in that “classic” interface.

The Start menu of previous operating systems doesn’t exist in Windows 8, but equivalent functionality is provided

by the Charms bar and the Start screen. You can use the commands “open Charms bar” and “open Start screen.” (To see the expanded view of the Start screen, you can give commands including “show all applications.”)

To perform actions in Windows 8, you can take advantage of Dragon’s ability to press keys. For example, you can

give the commands “press down arrow”, “press Windows h” (this accesses Windows 8’s Share feature) and “press Windows key.”

Dragon is designed to be used primarily in the desktop environment, the “classic” interface.

For the latest details on using Dragon in Windows 8, please see the Dragon support page and Knowledgebase on the Nuance website (http://www.nuance.com/support/dragon-naturallyspeaking).

Key points about controlling your computer by voice

 At any time, no matter what is visible, you can open a Start menu or desktop item by saying start, launch,

show or open immediately followed by the name of the item. These two powerful capabilities can each be

disabled or enabled from the Options dialog.

 You can switch between windows with commands like switch to WordPad and list windows for Dragon.  To click menus, buttons, and other controls, you can “say what you see” (you can choose to say “click” right

before, or not).

 By default, Dragon requires the word ‘click’ just before the name of menus as well as the name of buttons

and other controls: for instance, for a button labeled “OK”, you would say click OK. This can be useful to prevent unintended actions such as voice-clicking Send in an email. Dragon offers a similar “Require ‘Click’” option for HTML links. See the Commands tab of the Options dialog.

 You can “voice-press” one or more keys by saying press or type followed by the name of the key(s).  Dragon offers “shortcut commands” to search your computer for items containing the keyword(s) you specify.

(These commands take advantage of indexing software which must be running on your computer). For instance, to find all indexed e-mails containing the words “Canada” and “budget”, you could say search email for Canada budget.

 If it detected that your PC’s resources would not allow it to perform with both speed and accuracy, Dragon

may have disabled its Natural Language Command sets for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and WordPerfect. If speed is not a priority for you and you wish to use Natural Language Commands in one or all of these

applications, enable them via the Option dialog’s Commands tab. (See the More Commands button near the

bottom.)

A key advantage of

these “Web search

shortcuts” is that they

can be used anytime,

no matter what program is currently active on your screen.

No need to first switch to your browser. These

commands don’t even

require your Web browser to be open!

Using Dragon NaturallySpeaking with the Internet

What you can do on the Web with Dragon depends on what Web browser you are using. Some commands that are supported in Internet Explorer are not supported in Google Chrome. See the Command Browser for supported commands for each browser.

This lesson introduces commands for typical Web-related actions, including shortcut commands. The Command Browser lists many more. Be sure to see the Help for details about using your voice on the Web and about Webrelated Dragon options.

The Web shortcuts

Dragon includes commands you can say anytime to perform general Web searches, as well as searches in specific categories (maps, news, products, images, videos) or specific websites, such as Wikipedia. You could

say for instance ‘search images for purple chrysanthemum.’ Dragon will then present, in your default Web browser, the results your default search engine found for those words in its image category.

TIP: These commands let you take advantage of capabilities of specific search engines. For example:

conversions and calculations, as in ‘search Google for 61 percent of 1400’ and ‘search Bing for 77 euros in dollars’.

These shortcut commands can be disabled or enabled on the Commands tab of Dragon’s Options dialog. Controlled by the same option is a different type of Web shortcut command: open top [web] site… Instead of presenting search results, this command directly opens the website corresponding to the top result of the keywords you included in the command. Using such a command can be the quickest way to open the website for

an institution or Web-based application: for example, you could say “open top site for Facebook” or “open top site for Nuance Communications.”

Before these shortcut commands are executed, Dragon gives you a chance to edit the search string: it opens a small dialog box which lets you revise, replace, or augment your keywords. This lets you make your search commands very precise, which means you will find more quickly what you wanted.

This Edit box* is controlled by an option, enabled by default for Web and Desktop shortcut commands. Note: If you turn this option off, you may not see any action right away after giving one of these commands; this is normal since the search engine itself needs a moment to complete the requested action.

Social Media

Dragon offers commands to quickly post to Facebook or Twitter. You can disable these from the Commands tab of the Options dialog, under the button “More commands.”

There are two ways to create your post:

 You can select some text you dictated or some text in an editable document, then say "Post that to

Facebook" or "Post that to Twitter."

 You can also append dictation directly in your command, as in the Web search shortcuts: say "Post to

Facebook" or "Post to Twitter" immediately followed by the text you want to post. For example, “post to Twitter anyone know a great dentist in Burlington Vermont question mark.”

Dragon then brings up a dialog box where you can verify, complete or modify your text. Once you click OK, Dragon will make the post for you.

Note: What Dragon executes with these commands is just making the post, as opposed to opening the Facebook or Twitter websites. Showing you the post itself in its website if not part of the command’s execution. If you wish to see your new post using just voice commands, you could for instance say “open top site for Facebook” and then say “refresh page.”

Browser specifics

The following sections cover actions often performed in HTML pages. (There are many more commands; see the Help and Command Browser.)

Whenever you use Dragon on the Web (whether for email or for something else), your experience will depend on several factors, including:

 the particular settings in your browser and in the Web-based application,  the design of the particular web page,  the browser (and what version of that browser) you use.

Be sure to see the Help for details including browser specifics. What Dragon can do differs significantly among browsers. For example, in Google Chrome, Dragon doesn’t support some browser commands, like “Go to Address Bar”.

Here is an illustration of Learning Center content for Internet Explorer, including commands specific to this Web browser.

Navigating to and within a Web page (Internet Explorer)

Say go to address to go to the address bar; after entering a URL, say go there or press Enter. Say go back or go forward to click the Back or Forward buttons; say go home to access the homepage. Say add to favorites to add the current site to the Favorites list. Say refresh page or reload page. (To stop a page load, you can say stop loading.) Say page down or start scrolling down to see more of the web page. (You can then say stop

scrolling.) Say add a new tab, open new tab, switch to previous tab, close tab… Say next frame, previous frame, next pane… Say click close or press Escape to close a popup window.

Accessing a specific item on a Web page

These commands require the setting "Enable commands in HTML windows," which is on by default and can be found on the Commands tab of the Options dialog.

IMPORTANT: Dragon is always looking to match what it hears to possible commands. For HTML windows,

you can choose to require ‘click’, because saying a word or phrase in isolation may activate a link instead of being transcribed—see the Commands tab of the Options dialog. This option is on by default.

For all these commands, if what you said matches multiple items on the screen, Dragon will display numbered arrows next to the items; to indicate the desired item, say choose 3 or whatever number corresponds to your choice. (If you need the numbers to go away, just say hide numbers.)

To click a hyperlink, say its name or just part of it, preceded by the word ‘click’ or not. (If an arrow appears next to it, say click that.)

Say click text field or edit box to move the insertion point to the first text field on the screen. If you want to dictate into the next text field, you can say next control.

Say click image to click on an image. (Note: on the Web, some items may be designed to look like text but are actually images.)

Say click check box to select (or unselect) a check box.

Say click radio button to select a radio button (round option button).

Say click list box to select a list box, then drop list or show choices to display the list. (To highlight list items, you can use the move up n and move down n commands.)

Say click combo box (combination of a drop-down list and a single-line textbox)

Key points about Dragon and the Web

 Dragon includes commands you can say anytime to perform general Web searches, as well as searches

in specific categories (maps, news, products, images, videos) or specific websites, such as Wikipedia.

 The shortcut command “open top site for…” can be the quickest way to open the website of an institution

or service.

 The Web shortcut commands can be disabled or enabled on the Commands tab of Dragon’s Options

dialog.

 Before executing these shortcut commands, Dragon opens a small box which lets you revise, replace, or

augment your keywords. If you wish to disable this Edit box, use the Commands tab of Dragon’s Options dialog.

 Dragon offers commands to quickly post to Facebook or Twitter. You can disable these from the

Commands tab of the Options dialog, under the button “More commands.”

 Dragon is always looking to match what it hears to possible commands. For HTML links, by default,

Dragon requires you to say ‘click’, because by saying a word or phrase in isolation you could activate a link inadvertently. (This requirement can be changed on the Commands tab of the Options dialog.)

 You’ll need to install Dragon extension for the browser you’re using to use commands like Click Text Box

to click objects on the screen.

 What Dragon can do differs among Web browsers. For more information, see the Help or the Command

Browser.

These shortcut commands can be disabled or enabled from the checkbox "Enable E-mail and Calendar commands" on the Commands tab of the Options dialog.

Using Dragon NaturallySpeaking for E-mail

“Voice-typing” in itself is a great benefit for e-mail usage, but for certain e-mail applications, Dragon lets you do much more. This lesson introduces important commands and tips for using Dragon with e-mail, including shortcut commands and popular Web-based email programs.

IMPORTANT: Although Dragon can automatically format email addresses and URLs as you dictate them, it

can be efficient to add to the Vocabulary e-mail addresses and domains you use frequently (be sure to specify Spoken Forms as needed). Take advantage of Dragon’s tool for adapting the Vocabulary based on sent emails and finding Contact names to add. (See the Help menu’s Improve My Accuracy.)

Shortcut commands

Dragon has many commands for use in Microsoft Outlook, including in the Inbox (you can forward, move, or flag messages, for instance) and in the Calendar.

For quickly creating messages, appointments, meetings, and tasks, Dragon offers “shortcut” commands that work

no matter what is currently active on your screen. At any time, you can say for instance create email to Jane Miller and Payroll, schedule meeting with Joe Keller and Jane Brown, create appointment at noon, schedule appointment on August fifteenth, create task about office supply inventory, or email the selection to Jane Miller (“the selection” being the selected text or file).

You can see all wordings for these commands in the Command Browser (choose “Dragon – Shortcuts for E-mail” in its Context list). Note: for the shortcut for emailing the selection, “email the selection to…” is the only possible wording.

Note: Before using these commands, make sure Dragon is able to recognize unusual words such as the names you plan to mention (use the Accuracy Center).

To see more commands, you can explore the Command Browser’s “Context” list and take advantage of the Learning Center as well as the Help: for instance, you could say “search Dragon help for Outlook calendar.”

Commands for your installed email program

You can start your default e-mail program by saying Start mail. With the program’s inbox open, you can say:

new mail – creates a new mail message open mail – opens the mail message highlighted in the list close mail – closes the open mail message forward mail / this– forwards the highlighted or open mail message reply to mail / this – replies to the highlighted or open mail message delete mail – deletes the highlighted or open mail message check for new mail – checks for new mail/opens your Inbox Note: In e-mail commands, you can substitute message, e-mail, or memo for the word mail.

TIP: In lists (of messages, of folders…), you can use navigation commands like move down 3, move up 9, as

well as go to top and page down…

When in a message, you can move between its fields by saying Tab or Tab key, or by saying the following commands naming the desired field:

move to To [field] move to CC | BCC [field] move to Subject | Body [field]

Note: In these commands, the word “field” is optional, and you can substitute “go” for “move.”)

Dragon has hundreds of mail-related commands. To find wordings for an action that interests you in a particular mail program, use the Command Browser: in its Browse mode, use the “Context” drop-down list to pick the

program, then use “Keyword Filter” to enter one or more words related to that action. The example below

illustrates a search for Outlook 2010 commands containing the word “sort.”

In Outlook, you can also use your voice to move the selected email to a particular folder. For example, if you have an Outlook folder called “ideas” and want to move the selected email to it, you could say “move selection to ideas

folder”. (You can use the Command Browser to see more wordings; in the “Context” list, pick “Dragon – Shortcuts for MS Outlook.”)

Web-based email and the Dragon extension

Whenever you use Dragon on the Web (whether for email or for something else), your experience will depend on several factors, including:

 The design of the particular web page at that time  The particular settings in your browser and in the Web-based application  What browser (and what version of that browser) you use. For example, you cannot use commands like

“Go to Address Bar” with Google Chrome.

In three popular browsers, Dragon 13 has additional functionality to help you use web-based email applications. To use them, you’ll need to install the Dragon extension or add-on for your browser.This feature applies to Internet Explorer (version 9,10, and 11, 32-bit and 64-bit), and the latest supported version of Firefox and Chrome. Please see the KnowledgeBase at support.nuance.com for the latest details on supported versions. (The makers of Firefox and Chrome frequently release new versions.)

For the full Web functionality to be active, your browser presents a message (either full screen or just in a small part of your screen) asking for authorization to install. Examples are illustrated below.

Full Text Control and the Dictation Box

On most web pages and in popular web applications, you have Full Text Control even in Firefox and Chrome:

Dragon capitalizes the first word, adjusts spacing when you insert a word, lets you give commands like

“insert before launch meeting”... In places where Full Text Control is not supported, you can still dictate content using the Dictation Box.

Notes:

 If the Dictation Box opens with text in it (as it would from the Address bar), you can take advantage of

commands like “delete line”.

 If you disable the Dictation Box option (see the Miscellaneous tab of Options dialog), you can work

around the text control limitations. Examples:

o Say “cap” before the first word (or, after the fact: “cap that”, or “capitalize <word>”) o If you need to insert within existing text, say “spacebar” to add a space.

Navigate fields in any order

In a new email, commands enable you to navigate the fields in any order (as opposed to tabbing from one field to the next).

TIP: Regardless of this feature and Dragon, it’s prudent to leave the To field blank until you’re ready to send!

(Also prudent is setting up some other protection, such as an automatic delay before the program actually sends.) Note: In addition to keyboard shortcuts of the Web browser itself, you may wish to take advantage of keyboard

shortcuts your particular Web-based email provides (as in “press control enter” for sending a message in Gmail or Outlook.com). Lists are available on the Web, including on the websites of Google and Microsoft.

Key points about Dragon and e-mail

 In supported e-mail programs, the higher editions of Dragon provide many voice commands to perform

tasks related to creating and managing e-mails, such as open message, delete memo, go to Subject…

 In e-mail commands, you can use the words message, e-mail, memo, or mail interchangeably.  For Outlook, higher editions of Dragon let you use shortcut commands like book meeting with

<contact(s)>, create message to <contact(s)>, create email about <subject>, and create task about <subject>, at any time, no matter what application has the focus (there is no need to first switch to

Outlook). These shortcut command help you quickly act on thoughts, with minimal interruption to your overall flow of activity.

 You can see more e-mail commands in the Command Browser and the Learning Center; in addition, the

Help contains many details about using Dragon with e-mail. Remember that Dragon contains a command that lets you name keywords to search for in the Help: for instance, you could say “search help for Outlook calendar.”

 Thanks to its add-on for Internet Explorer (version 9 10 and 11, 32-bit and 64-bit), Firefox, and Chrome,

Dragon 13 has added functionality in addition to Dragon’s existing capabilities for the particular browser.

 For this feature to be active, you’ll need to close and re-open your browser after installing Dragon 13.

(Note: If you install Internet Explorer after Dragon 13, you may need to re-launch Dragon’s installation.)

Dragon NaturallySpeaking and Microsoft Word

In “Controlling the Operating System and Applications”, you learned about Natural Language Commands. Since Microsoft Word is an application many people use, this chapter lists built-in commands for this word processor.

Remember that if your system resources are low, enabling Natural Language Commands could decrease Dragon’s speed. (Also, if an application’s set is disabled, the Learning Center will not show special content for that application; instead, it will show Global commands).

In addition to commands, this chapter covers a special point of interest regarding Microsoft Word: the Voice Notation feature.

“Voice Notations” in Microsoft Word documents

The higher editions of Dragon let you add “Voice Notations” in Word: text that can later be used with Word's Accept/Reject Change functionality. A Notation could be anything you do not want permanently in your document or you do not want transcribed, e.g. instructions you speak for the benefit of your assistant. Voice Notations are not used by the Acoustic and Language Model Optimizer.

To add a Voice Notation, press the Esc key while dictating. Voice Notations are highlighted in green and formatted as red italic text.

Commands specific to Microsoft Word

For applications like Word, Dragon has so many commands (and many different wordings for most commands), that we couldn’t possibly list them all here or in the Learning Center.

If you are working in a supported application and you encounter an action you’d like to perform by voice, use the

Command Browser’s Context list to pick that application and use its Filter to see just the commands that contain a particular word or words. If you see a command that looks interesting, make sure it’s highlighted in the

list, then use the Browse menu to uncover its full wordings (for instance, to include all optional words or expand ellipses.)

TIP: If you say what you think is a command but Dragon takes no action or just transcribes the words on the

screen, look for the Results indicator (see the View tab of the Options dialog). If it does not show your command (with a thick border around it), Dragon did not recognize what you said as a valid command for the current situation: for instance, if you say "Insert a 2 by 2 table" when the insertion point is inside a table, nothing happens because Word does not allow inserting a table inside a table.

Many of Dragon’s commands work for Word 2010 and 2013, such as:

 New file  Save the file. Save file as.  Create a 3 by 7 table  Add page numbers [at bottom left| center | right]  Delete next sentence

 Find a word. Find and replace.  Set page orientation to Landscape  Print pages 3 to 7. Print the selection. Print [this] page  View page layout. Change view to print layout.  Zoom to 50 percent. Zoom to full page. Change zoom to page width  Set page width to 8 inches  Show|Hide paragraph marks  Double-space the document. Single-space this paragraph  Set the font color to green in this line  Set background to yellow  Show word count

The Ribbon

In addition to the Ribbon Interface (which organizes items by tabs instead of menus), recent Word versions introduced capabilities for which Dragon offers Natural Language Commands, including the ones below.

Page Layout menu

 Create/add/insert a watermark  Set the page color  For themes :

o View themes; Set colors of theme o Change the font of [that/the/this] theme

 For line numbering :

o Create/add line numbering continuously o Delete/remove line numbering

Reference menu

 Previous footnote/endnote  Create/add/insert [a] citation/caption  Create/add/insert index  Add [this/it/that] in the index

Review menu

 Show/view/open/hide/close [the] research pane  Translate the first sentence/word. Translate the entire page  For comments:

o Create/insert/add [a] new comment o Erase/delete/clear all comments shown o Go to next/previous comment

 Hide/close [the] review pane  Accept/reject change and go to next

Microsoft Word 2010 and 2013

With Office 2010, Microsoft introduced some changes to the application interface – in particular, the File tab. The other tabs can be accessed by voice by just saying their name, but for the File tab you must say “file tab” (or “click file tab”.)

For details on support for Office 2010 and 2013, please see Dragon’s Help and website resources.

Note for WordPad users: In Windows 7, WordPad has an unnamed button instead of a File menu. To click it, you can say “click application

menu”.

Dictating and editing in Microsoft Excel

You can use Dragon to dictate and edit content into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. Many Excel-specific commands are built into the higher editions; the Learning Center shows some, and the Command Browser lets you discover the full set. In addition, the Help describes commands to fill or hide rows or columns, sort, sum or average values, widen columns, and more (see Help example below.)

Remember that the Natural Language Commands for Excel may be disabled or enabled from the Options dialog. In this lesson, sample steps guide you to practice tasks such as entering text, moving between cells, editing

existing cells, and correcting recognition errors inside cells.

IMPORTANT: If you want to mention a cell in a command (such as “move to cell D5”, or “select cell B3

through cell H3”), be sure to say the word “cell”. Note that, instead of the letters, you can say alpha, bravo,

Charlie, etc.

There are two editing modes in Excel: Quick and Full. Make sure you are familiar with how your version of Excel functions, especially for editing content in cells; notice when the Status Bar (bottom left corner) indicates “Edit” and when it indicates “Enter” -- as well as when the mouse pointer changes.

 Quick Edit: To enter new content into a cell, overwrite the current content of a cell, or format the entire

content of a cell. When you select a cell and begin dictating, a yellow background appears; if the cell currently contains text, the dictated text will overwrite it.

Step 1: Open Excel, say open document and locate

the relevant .xls file – or use a blank file.

Step 2: Say move to cell C7 (or Charlie seven.) Step 3: Dictate your full name into the cell.

As you dictate, the cell background turns pale yellow, indicating that Dragon is doing a Quick Edit.

 Full Edit: To edit the existing contents of a cell. Select the cell and say "Edit Cell" or "Press F2" to open

the cell for editing; the insertion point is automatically placed at the end of the cell. As you dictate, the background changes to blue. Commands such as "New Line" operate within the cell.

TIP: To quickly enter a predictable series of values, such as days or months, you can use commands such as

“Monday through Friday across” or “July through December down.”

Full Text Control in Quick Edits

You will want to practice entering data into a spreadsheet and navigate around the spreadsheet and within cells, as well as dictate and correct text using commands like “correct <xyz>” (see Full Text Control, called Select- and-Say in previous versions).

For the exercise below, the content of the spreadsheet is not important.

Let’s practice correcting recognition errors so Dragon can learn from them: Step 1: Say move to cell C 13 (or Charlie 13). Dictate some text that is likely to contain unknown words, such

as: “Travel to Ashtabula to provide support for Sporkatron, Inc.”

Step 2: Correct one of the recognition errors. (Leave the remaining errors as they are, so you can practice

coming back to this cell and correcting them later.)

Step 3: Say move down one to go to cell C14. Dictate some additional text that is likely to contain new words,

such as: “related to last week’s trip to Kenmawr—training Moosehart Insurance”

Now that you are out of the cell, practice going back to it and correcting the error(s) in it. Step 1: Say move up one to move back to cell C13. Say a “correct <xyz>” command to correct another of the

errors Dragon made. Notice that the cell again turns yellow. Continue correcting the text until it is accurate.

Step 2: Say apply. You are no longer in Quick Edit mode; the cell you were editing is still selected.

Now let’s practice entering numeric data rapidly into a row.

Step 1: Say move to cell B16 or move to cell Bravo 16 to move to the Breakfast row. Dictate a numeric value

such as six dollars and fifty cents.

Step 2: Say move right one to move to the next Breakfast entry. Fill in the rest of the row.

Key points about editing cells in Excel

 You can navigate between cells using absolute commands such as move to cell A1 or relative

movement commands such as move up one, move right two, etc.

 If you want to mention a cell in a command (such as move to cell D5 or select cell B3 through cell H3),

be sure to say the word “cell”. You can speak the letters as alpha bravo Charlie, etc. instead of A B C.

 If you wish to modify and add to the existing content of a cell, move to that cell, then say Edit Cell or

Press F2; the insertion point will appear at the end of the cell’s content and the cell will now have a blue

background. If you say commands like New Line and New Paragraph, these commands are executed within the cell.

 If you just move to a cell and start to dictate, what you dictate will overwrite the existing content.  You can use Dragon commands like select <xyz>, correct <xyz>, and insert before <xyz> to edit and

correct text in a cell.

 To complete entry and move down one cell, say press Enter. To cancel entry and remain in the cell, say

cancel or press Escape.

 Saying apply completes entry into a cell, and leaves the focus on that cell (exiting Quick Edit mode).

Step 1: Open the MyCommands Editor—you can say add new command or choose Add New Command in

the Tools menu.

Step 2: Think of a name for your command and enter it in the MyCommand Name field.

Creating custom commands groups can later allow you to locate and manage many commands quickly. Aim to name your groups meaningfully: for instance, the name of the application or task for which you are creating the command(s).

Once a command Group is defined, you can add more commands to that group (Dragon will now include it in the “Group” drop-down list).

Boosting Productivity with Custom Commands

In previous lessons, you learned various built-in voice commands to perform actions such as formatting text, searching the Internet, creating a new e-mail, creating a new appointment… The higher editions of Dragon also allow the creation of custom commands.

There are several types of custom commands; this workbook presents the “Text-and-Graphics” type, which allows you to define boilerplate for Dragon to paste wherever you utter the command. As the name indicates, this boilerplate can contain graphics, such as logos, scanned signatures, maps… Quick and easy to create, Text-andGraphics commands provide considerable time savings and convenience. In editions Professional and Legal, you can even include fields in them—a very easy way to create templates that can be both created AND navigated by voice.

Creating boilerplate commands (“Text-and-Graphics” type)

The command's name is the phrase you will say to cause the command to execute. Choose it well! It should be easy to remember and easy to say, like Paste Signature Block and Enter Home Directions.

 Choose a descriptive, meaningful name (as opposed to a name like “macro 3”.)  Make it neither long nor short (between 2 and 5 words is usually best). Avoid single words, and phrases

you may need to dictate.

 Use words that are easily pronounced and recognized (all words in the command name should be in the

Vocabulary), and avoid symbols—for instance, use “number” instead of “#”, otherwise Dragon would expect to hear “number sign” or “pound sign” when you say the command.

Step 3: In the Description field, enter some information about your command. This is optional, but it helps

remember any important details about the command (its intent, when and where you might use it…).

The following step applies only to the higher editions of Dragon.

Step 4: Optionally, choose a group. In the Group field, you can highlight and overwrite the default.

IMPORTANT: If desired, you can always assign the command to another group later. Since the Learning

Center’s MyCommands tab only shows custom commands that are in the User-Defined group, you can choose

which commands to display there by making a “clone” of the desired command and assigning it to the UserDefined group. (See this lesson’s section on cloning.)

Step 5: In the Content field, enter what you want Dragon to paste when you say your command. (You may find it

helpful to enlarge or even maximize the Editor’s window so that a larger Content field is visible.)

TIP: If the text you want already exists in electronic form, you can save time: highlight the desired

segment in the original document, then say “make that a command”. Dragon will automatically open the

Editor and paste the selection in the Content field. All you have to do now is specify the command’s name

and attributes, and edit the Content as needed.

As its name suggests, this type of custom command lets you include graphics as well as text: you can paste images from another application into the Content field—many people include maps, logos, or scanned signatures, for instance.

The variables can be synonyms, or they can be different values, such as numbers

from 1 to 10. <1to10> is one of the pre-filled lists

available through the Name Editor, but you can also make your own (as was

done for <hq_nuance> in this lesson’s

illustrations). See the Help for details.

Optional: If desired, format the text entered in the Content field: you can use the buttons (bold, left-align, center…) below it. Clicking the Aa button opens the Font window, where you can choose the desired font style, size, color, etc.

TIP: In cases where you want the content to match the formatting of what preceded it in your document,

check the Plain Text checkbox (see the bottom right of the MyCommands Editor).

Step 6: Once the command is named, edited, described, grouped, and formatted as you want it, click Save.

Now let’s test your command. Say start DragonPad, then say your command’s name. (Commands you create yourself follow the usual rule: you must pause before and after, but not in the middle!)

You may realize now that you could make your command even more convenient: for instance, by adding a blank line before the content so your pasted content automatically starts as a new paragraph. A section below explains how to edit a custom command.

“Cloning” commands and adding variables

Instead of making a command from scratch, you can create a new command based on the “clone” of an existing

one, by clicking New Copy on the Command Browser (or the Create New button on the Command Editor.) In addition, the MyCommands Editor’s Name Editor allows the inclusion of <variables> in your command

names. Variable names provide flexibility (so you can use synonyms instead of just one wording) and can make your custom commands even more useful, by letting them perform variations on the same action.

“DragonTemplates”: boilerplate commands with fields

(Higher editions only) Dragon 10 added to the Text-and-Graphics command type a new capability which gives a very simple way to paste a “voice template” containing fillable fields.

Step 2: On the Mode section of its Task

Pane, click Manage (or choose it from the Mode menu.)

Step 3: Open the Group drop-down list.

If you created a separate group as suggested earlier, its name will appear here; choose it. Otherwise, the commands you made will be under User-

defined.

Step 4: The Command Browser now

displays only the commands in the specified group, listing them by availability. You can use the + symbol to expand the display.

Step 5: Check the box next to the

desired command, then click To Script (which at that point will be available in the Task pane.)

To create a field in a command’s Content box, click the Variable button at the bottom of the MyCommands Editor. By default, each field appears between square brackets as "[default value]". (If you prefer delimiters other than square brackets, you can indicate that in the Commands tab of the Options dialog.)

After saying the command name, which pastes the “DragonTemplate”, you can:

 type or dictate a specific value in each placeholder —> The placeholder is overwritten, and delimiters

are removed.

 accept the default value —> Delimiters are NOT automatically removed; you can say "clear variable

delimiters".

To navigate a DragonTemplate’s Fields, you can select the desired Field with the mouse, or use the voice commands "Next Field" or "Previous Field." (These commands only work where all of Dragon's functionality is supported—where the DragonBar’s Full Text Control indicator is green).

Managing custom commands

After you create commands, you may wish to edit them. If your phone number changes, for instance, you may want to edit commands containing it. You may also want to rename, delete, or copy commands.

A tool called the Command Browser lets you search for commands as well as manage your custom commands. In the Professional and Legal editions, deleting, renaming, modifying, exporting and importing custom commands can be done through its Manage “mode”, as follows. (In the Premium edition, see the Script “mode”.)

Step 1: Say open Command Browser. (You can also use the link in the Tools menu.)

This takes you to the Command Browser’s Script display, which shows all the modifiable commands.

Step 6: With your command

highlighted, click Edit in the Task pane (or use the Script menu). The MyCommands Editor will open, displaying the command’s attributes and content; you can now edit the command as desired.

Remember: the Description field is useful for entering comments such as where and when the command should be used, or reminders like

“make variations of this ASAP” or

“change this after we move”. Your

notes may seem obvious at the time, but they really help later!

You can delete commands visible through the Script or Manage displays: check the box next to the desired command(s) then choose

Delete (from the menu).

Finding commands: the Keyword Filter

One of the ways you can find commands in the Command Browser is by using the ability to filter the display to show only the commands whose name contains a particular word or words: choose Filter from the Command Browser’s toolbar (visible in the upper-right corner when in Browse Mode) to specify one or more words. The Filter button is useful for finding custom commands (particularly if they were not filed under a Group name), and also for finding built-in commands, since Dragon contains far too many to list even in the online Help.

TIP: It’s a good idea to explore the Command Browser for commands related to items you might like to address

by voice: you might filter for words like border, indent, double space, table, row, column…

The Command Browser’s display may seem strange at first, because instead of full words some lines may contain ellipses (dot dot dot), parentheses, and <angle brackets>, in order to fit in the space and represent the many optional and alternate elements, like “the” and “a”. You can view the full wordings by using the Browse menu’s items—Refine and Undo All are particularly useful.

To practice, pick your usual word processor in the Context drop-down list, and use the Filter to find commands on items you often use in this application.

Key points about custom commands

 In the higher editions, you can quickly create custom commands to insert blocks of text and/or graphics in

your documents. This is done in the tool MyCommands Editor, which you can bring up by saying add new command.

 If the boilerplate text already exists in an electronic document, you can copy and paste it into the

MyCommands Editor’s Content box, or say make that a shortcut.

 It’s a very good idea to use the Description field to note a comment, a reminder…  Names for custom commands should be memorable, intuitive, easy-to-pronounce phrases. Avoid names

that could be used as dictation, such as single words.

 The Name Editor lets you add <variables> in command names, to provide synonyms or variations (using

lists you define yourself, or existing lists such as <1to10>).

 In the Professional and Legal editions, you can add fillable [Fields] to your boilerplate commands to

create “DragonTemplates” which can be navigated and filled out by voice.

 In the Professional and Legal editions, the Command Browser allows you to rename, modify, “clone”,

delete, export and import custom commands.

Performing Audio Checks and Acoustic Training

As described earlier, personalizing Dragon’s vocabulary is a small investment of time that makes a big difference in how accurately the software can work for you. In addition, when misrecognitions do happen, using proper correction technique allows Dragon to learn from its mistakes.

In certain cases, you may also want to perform acoustic training to improve accuracy. This lesson presents how to train individual words or phrases and how to bring up a training text to read aloud, as well as how to use the Microphone Check, a short but important process.

IMPORTANT: When providing Dragon with acoustic training, be sure to use your natural dictation voice:

relax, and speak clearly but not louder or slower than you would when dictating normally. Otherwise, you give the software acoustic data that is not representative of how you usually dictate. Remember, when you are training software to accurately recognize your speech, you must represent your speech accurately!

The Microphone Check

Use Dragon’s audio check if something in your environment has changed: new computer, new microphone, new room, different ambient noise, etc. Also, if your overall accuracy is lower than expected, you want to verify that your audio hardware is functioning correctly.

Opening this Wizard automatically turns off the microphone. Step 1: From the DragonBar’s Audio menu, click or say Check Microphone, which opens the microphone check

wizard (formerly called the Audio Setup Wizard). You can also bring it up directly by saying check

microphone or check audio.

Step 2: Follow the Wizard’s screens as when you first created your Dragon profile: click the Start button and read

the content of the gray box. Dragon will indicate whether the check passed.

 If it failed, verify that your microphone is plugged in correctly and that its listening side is facing your

mouth. (On many microphone models, the listening side is marked by a dot or the word TALK, which may be under the foam cover.) If your microphone is properly connected and positioned, there may be a problem with background noise (including “subtle” noises such as your building’s temperature-control system) or with your audio hardware. Click the Help button and see the Knowledgebase of Technotes if needed.

 If it passed, click Finish. (If, once you resume dictating, accuracy is still lower than expected, see Improve

my accuracy from the DragonBar’s Help menu.)

Training in isolation

You have learned to add new words and phrases to the vocabulary, as well as to create Spoken Forms for items pronounced differently from the way they are written. Spoken Forms are often the most efficient way to ensure accurate recognition.

If you suspect that Dragon needs help recognizing a tricky word (particularly if it contains one or more sounds you cannot represent in a Spoken Form, such as a rolled r), you can acoustically “train” that word.

Step 3: You may have to wait a second for this

acoustic information to be incorporated -- be patient! Then you can say or click Done to close the Train Words window.

Step 1: In the Vocabulary Editor, locate the word you wish to train by entering it in the Written Form field. (If you

have just added the word, this will not be necessary, as the word will already be displayed at the top of the list.)

Step 2: Click the word in the list so it is highlighted, then say or click Train. The Train Words window opens. Are

you ready? (If you need to clear you throat, do it first!) Click Go, and read the prompt in your normal speaking voice, as if you were saying this word in the middle of a sentence.

Reading text to train Dragon

Consider providing some acoustic training after the first few days of practicing dictation: by then, speaking clearly into the microphone should be familiar, and reading aloud text presented by Dragon should better reflect how you actually dictate.

If your speech presents a particular challenge for speech recognition (due to a lisp or a strong accent for instance), you should perform a reading for acoustic training as soon as possible.

Step 1: From the DragonBar’s Audio menu, click or say Read a text to improve accuracy. (You can also use

the link in the Accuracy Center.)

Step 2: When the Select Text window opens, choose a text to read, then click OK.

TIP: Try to speak clearly but naturally and read exactly what is on the screen. Pause if you need to.

Key points about acoustic training

 In general, the best thing you can do to make Dragon recognize your speech even better is to use the

software regularly, personalizing the Vocabulary (editing Spoken Forms or Word Properties as warranted, designating specific documents for Dragon to analyze, running or scheduling the Accuracy Tuning process…) and correcting misrecognitions as warranted.

 In certain cases (if a certain word is consistently misrecognized, or if overall accuracy is lower than you

expected), you will want to provide Dragon some additional acoustic data.

 You can train Vocabulary entries from the Vocabulary Editor (either one at time or several at once).  When providing acoustic training, remember to speak as you typically do when you dictate to Dragon. It’s

important to avoid the temptation to over-enunciate or speak loudly when training a word or phrase in isolation.

 At any time, if you feel that the accuracy is not as high as usual, you can access Dragon’s Microphone

Check—through DragonBar’s Audio menu or the Accuracy Center, or by saying a command such as Check Audio.

 You can improve the overall accuracy of your dictations by reading aloud one of Dragon’s acoustic

training texts. Consider reading at least one training text as soon as possible.

The process starts in the Manage Vocabularies dialog box.

Step 1: Say Manage Vocabularies or use the

DragonBar’s Vocabulary menu. Click New. (Note: this dialog box also enables you to manage vocabularies: import, rename, delete… See the next section.)

Step 2: In the New Vocabulary window, enter a

descriptive name in the Name field. From the drop-down list, choose the vocabulary on which you want to base your new vocabulary (what you see in the list varies if you have the Legal edition):

Using Multiple Vocabularies (editions Professional and up)

Every Dragon NaturallySpeaking user automatically has at least one Vocabulary. Editions Professional and above, allow you to have several Vocabularies. The advantage of having several Vocabularies is being able to

customize each one to perform best for very different topics or styles of dictation. (It is relatively rare for a person to need more than three or four.)

For instance, suppose an architect uses Dragon to dictate business letters and site reports, but also frequently uses it for his community theater group. In his work-related dictations, he might use formal business language and mention technical terms, brands of materials, the abbreviations for building codes, as well as the names of clients, contractors and other work contacts. When writing for his theater group, however, his dictation style might become significantly more casual and the words he uses most frequently would be different.

The documentation contains many details about creating and managing vocabularies. This lesson presents the essentials.

Creating a vocabulary

 If you want your new vocabulary to contain the customizations already present in your existing vocabulary, choose this existing vocabulary: e.g. General – Large.

 Otherwise, choose the Base vocabulary.

Step 3: Dragon will then offer to perform a basic adaptation of this new vocabulary based on documents found on

your computer, or sent emails (this is similar to what Dragon offers when you create a profile).. This automatic process may take a while, and is not as powerful and targeted as the other vocabulary tools. You can choose Cancel, then customize your new vocabulary using what you learned in previous lessons. Remember that designating documents for Dragon to analyze is particularly important for good accuracy, in addition to adding written forms and spoken forms to the vocabulary… (see the Accuracy Center).

Managing Vocabularies

After creating (or importing) a new Vocabulary, you may wish to rename or delete it; both are done in the Manage Vocabularies dialog box, accessible from the DragonBar’s Vocabulary menu.

From there, you can also Export a Vocabulary, to burn it to a disk or save it to a USB drive, for instance. This would allow you to share it with other users of Dragon: the recipient user just needs to open the Manage

Vocabularies dialog, choose Import and browse for the exported Vocabulary’s .top file. (See the Help for more details.)

The Open User Profile window also shows the different dictation source(s) that may be available for the User profile(s) present on your computer.

You can pick the line containing the Vocabulary you wish to open.

Opening a Vocabulary

During your dictation session, you will be able to switch to a different Vocabulary, by saying open recent vocabulary, for instance.

If you have multiple Vocabularies for the same profile, this will be reflected in the Open User Profile window, which will appear when you start Dragon.

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