11.5

About audio sources, including smartphones and recorders

The Help and the Nuance website contain details on using special audio sources such as a Bluetooth

wireless microphone or a smartphone used as a wireless microphone over Wi-Fi. (Note: wireless use is a

feature of editions Premium and higher).

The Hardware Compatibility List on the Nuance website contains specifics from Nuance’s testing, such

as the recommended settings by model.

Digital recorders can be particularly useful to capture notes you dictate after a meeting, class, or field

inspection. Please see our website for illustrations and details, including Nuance’s Dragon Recorder

application for smartphones and related devices.

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

practice of “echoing” or “re-speaking”: 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).

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

directly.

Before recording files for Dragon to transcribe, note:

 We recommend first using Dragon for real-time transcription because this gives you a chance

to practice dictating (and punctuating!) your thoughts. You get feedback on how clearly you are

dictating from what you see Dragon transcribe as you dictate. It also gives you the opportunity

to refine your profile, for instance by noticing jargon or phrases you should add to the

vocabulary. (In addition, 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 prevents many recognition errors!

 Learn your recorder’s essential operations (starting and stopping recordings, for instance) and

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).