14.0

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”.

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).