11.5

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. (This position is usually shown as a blinking vertical bar some call

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…

Navigation and Selection Commands

TIP 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

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

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 next 2 words 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 convenience – "do let me know at your earliest convenience"

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.