Jan 27, 2018 A job that requires a lot of multitasking can, at times, make typing a burden. With this software, you don’t even have to be in front of the computer screen to create documents. Voice recognition apps also eliminate the need for holding a phone. Professionals aren’t the only ones who can potentially benefit from this software. When you use voice typing for the first time, the browser will ask for your permission to use your computer's microphone. Once that's done, you'll see a Red-colored microphone icon on the left. Simply start speaking naturally, and see your spoken words appear on the screen. For a free program, Google Docs voice typing works quite well. Jan 29, 2020 Voice Control will help you configure the new command based on the context. For example, if you speak this command while a menu item is selected, Voice Control helps you make a command for choosing that menu item. Create your own dictation vocabulary. Open Voice Control preferences, such as by saying 'Open Voice Control preferences'. Nov 16, 2017 No matter what word processor you do your typing through, you can switch to voice dictation if you need to—here's how to do it. Arrendale's Transcript Advantage (TA+) is a fully HIPAA-compliant cloud-based application suite for clinical document management. We deliver multiple dictation methods, front and back-end speech-to-text, HL7, a robust word processor with workflow management and transcript grading, keyword search, eSign, and multiple delivery methods plus EHR integration.
I have never been a very fast typist (or a fascist type for that matter), in fact I operate a keyboard in a fashion that might be called “touchhunting”. Lately if I’m writing something that runs more than 300 or 400 words I feel my shoulders and neck tighten up and I get more headaches than I used to. For the last several months I thought about getting some kind of voice-activated typing software but the prices seemed rather high and it was one of those things that I couldn’t justify buying because I didn’t actually need it.
A stumbling point for me was that Mac users are excluded from the apparently state-of-the-art Dragon voice recognition software, NaturallySpeaking. Last year though, MacSpeech licensed the NaturallySpeaking engine for its Dictate software.
After coming across another review of MacSpeech Dictate I thought to myself “It probably won’t get much cheaper and I’m probably going to buy it eventually.” Why not do it before the headaches get any worse and before my hands start to hurt? Hey, some rationalizations require more creativity than others do. Still, I was excited about my rationalization.
(BTW, IBM ViaVoice is another voice activated software option for Mac with a free trial and about the same price point as Dictate. I didn’t try it, but I’d love to hear opinions of it. I also looked for cheap or free voice recognition software for Mac but I didn’t find any.)
The base price for Dictate is about $199, but Amazon knocked about $30 off that. I recently got a MacBook Air (no, I’m not a fanboy, and that will have to be a different review) so the installation wasn’t as simple as it would have been if I could have loaded it right from the disk. Still, using the Remote Disk functionality worked entirely without problems for me.
Training the software was as easy as advertised as well, taking less that five minutes, and I was amazed at how, in my normal speaking voice and a pretty rapid clip, the software seemed to have no problems transcribing what I was saying immediately.
After a couple of days using Dictate, my honest impression is that it is physically easier for me to bang out 500 to 1000 words, but I don’t necessarily do it any faster than I do typing manually. Alas, the software I need to help me think faster may not have been invented yet.
I am impressed at how easy it is to make corrections verbally, on-the-fly, without ever touching the keyboard. The documentation actually encourages you to use verbal commands for corrections and punctuation, because actions like changing the location of the cursor and using the delete key can and do lead to unpredictable results.
Voice Activated Typing Free
Also, while I don’t have to try very hard to speak clearly, if I do make an effort to speak clearer, errors are a reduced to almost zero. Having said that, my wife points out that I say the “forget that” and “scratch that” commands quite a bit, so far.
Voice Activated Typing Mac
I’ve used Dictate only with TextEdit up to now, doing blog posts. Obviously I plan to use the software to write e-mails and other applications too. Having read a few reviews on the net about voice dictation software, I see a general absence of information on users’ impressions with software of this kind after the first flush of enthusiasm with it. I think I will report back to Digital Media Minute readers after a couple weeks and maybe a month out.
Yes, this post was created with Dictate voice dictation software, and creating it did feel a lot more like a relaxed conversation than an editing session. Stay tuned.
Voice Activated Typing In Word
(This was not a paid review.)
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