11.5

Replacing and Inserting Words

The select commands are very useful when you wish to change some of the text on your screen. As you would

with mouse or keyboard, you select the relevant segment, then you overwrite it—by dictating or typing.

For instance, if your text reads "100 Main Street" but you wish to change it to "500 Washington Street", say

select 100 Main (pause) 500 Washington.

TIP For larger passages, take advantage of select line, select <start> through <end>, select paragraph…

The command “resume with…” can also be very efficient as an equivalent of selecting then deleting what you

have just dictated up to a particular word; be sure to read about it in the Help and try it out.

Exercise 1: Practice “overwriting” by voice. Observe then dictate the following paragraph.

I will be in Boston for a few days next week, and would love to get together for lunch. We could

meet at your office at noon. I’ll be staying at the Madison downtown; give me a call. Talk to you

soon!

1) Say select lunch.  You should see the word “lunch” highlighted.

Say an early dinner.  The sentence should now read “get together for an early dinner.”

2) Say select noon.  You should now see the word “noon” highlighted.

Say six o’clock.  The sentence should now read “We could meet at your office at 6:00.”

3) Say select in through week.  The words “in Boston for a few days next week” are highlighted.

Say in your area on Tuesday.  The sentence should now read “I will be in your area on Tuesday…”

Let’s say we now want to add a few words inside this paragraph.

4) Observe the insertion point’s current position. Say insert after dinner, then say if you have time.

5) Say insert before exclamation mark (observe the move), then say comma I hope.

TIP If, after doing some editing in your text, you need to remove trailing white space, you can use commands

such as backspace or delete next character for a single space. You can even say backspace combined with a

number: for example, backspace 5 is like pressing the backspace key 5 times.

Dragon’s many selection and navigation commands can help you quickly edit text—whether or not this text was

created by voice. The exercise below is to be performed entirely by voice, but remember that for optimal

productivity in daily work, you may use a combination of voice and keyboard/mouse.

Exercise 2: Look at the following text, dictate it, then edit it by voice as described below.

Dear Ms. Cooper,

It was nice meeting you Tuesday. I think you have some good ideas about the Johnson project! Let’s get the

team focused on this project by February. When you have time, could you write up your comments and email

them to me? I would really appreciate it.

 Edit the first sentence so it reads "meeting with you last Tuesday".

 Edit the second sentence so it reads "You have some great ideas".