Voice recognition software.

ashby

Can anyone recommend anything?
Can't afford to pay a lot, but struggling now to type for any length. Ta!

Madasafish_Customer_Care

Hi Ashby,

I used to work in this field and what I would recommend is Dragon Naturally Speaking. By all accounts from my old colleagues, it sounds like the latest version is actually quite good! I believe that the latest version is 8, however I would double check this as earlier versions were a bit questionable.

Kind regards,
Samara

Lord_Chris

as much as it pains me to say it, Microsofts voice recognition on Office isn't that bad, however any voice recognition software you can find will require training, where you read pages and pages of words to program it to your voice. (remember they're extremely unreliable if you have a cold or anything :P)

two things i would recommend:
1) get your doctor to check to see if you have RSI (if its hurting when you type etc.)
2) buy a good keyboard (should be ergonomically designed, get a split keyboard where it is a v shape to go more naturally with your hands).

No matter what voice recognition software you get your not going to find anything thats that reliable, it will still make lots of mistakes.

Jolly_Roger

I am a journalist and use Dragon Preferred. The accuracy depends on the amount of RAM you have on your computer! The program needs to work out the logic of what you are saying and so takes up lots of RAM! Or so it seems to me... As for the results, I get upwards of 90% accuracy, which is good enough for what I use it for (which is often to get down a rough copy of what I want to say, so that I can tart it up later). It is easy to get the program to correct mistakes and it does learn from those as well as learning your preferences. If you can get a whole sentence down in one go then the accuracy wilil be better. If you um and arm then the program has to guess the context and will get things wrong, often wonderfully funnily! You also have to put the mike in the correct place or it won't understand you either. Some things never change. Whenever I spell a word, it still cannot understand my letter "e", whilst it struggles with the correct pronunciation of "h", which is aitch. Apart from that, I wouldn't be without it. Cost is about £100.00, but you get a free headset!

ashby

Thanks to all of you. I did know about the Dragon but can't really afford it as too sick to work.
Thanks then especially to Lord_Chris for pointing out that Office 2003 already has a recognition prog. of its own. I suspected that it might be hiding in there somewhere after coming across "speech" in the control panel, but had concluded that it must not be installed after a lot of faffing around. When I have both time and energy (I have ME) I will give it a go. My use of the PC is not that great anyhow as it tires me a lot, so the inbuilt SR may turn out to be adequate.
:A

albertross_2

Double-click Add/Remove Programs.
Click Change or Remove Programs, select Microsoft Office XP, and then click Change.
Click Add or Remove Features, and then click Next.
Under Features to install, next to Office Shared Features, click .
Next to Alternative User Input, click , click Speech, and then select the type of installation you want.

sanya1995

hi
i tried the one packed with office 2003and with XP. it is useless.
i tried to train it at least for 2 hours but the mistakes are atrocious.

any ideas of something better and not as expensive as 100 pounds( dragon)

thanks

PierceUK

the onyl two i know are dragon and Via voice by IBM

i work at staples and im sure they are not that expensive there. give your local store a call to check or i can check tomorrow for you!

sanya1995

thnks for the offer. i have just orders from amazon dragon naturally speaking standard 8. i could not see any on staples website though. but i really appreciate the offer.lets see how good is dragon. i will keep u updated.

sanya1995

hi
i have now used the dragon 8 standard for 2 days.
without any training 80% accuracy. with training now about 90%.
will cont to use and then see. will keep u updated.