12.0

This can also be useful in cases where you want to put on the screen a word that would normally be

interpreted as a symbol or a command. For instance, if you wanted to be sure that Dragon types the word

“comma” instead of the character comma, you could say “spell space C O M M A”. This is also useful for the

word “cap” which is also a Dictation Command (to trigger capitalization of the following word): say “spell

space C A P.”

Exercise 7: Dictate “access code: 75Zq/7”, then practice with character sequences of your choice. (Pause

briefly after the colon, then say “spell 7 5 cap zee cue slash 7”. Try to not pause at all during the sequence;

if you paused, just resume by saying “spell” immediately followed by the rest of your sequence.)

Key points about dictating numbers and special text

 Dragon can format dates, times, prices, street addresses, phone numbers, Web addresses, units of

measure, and other special text automatically. The Auto-Formatting options dialog (from the Tools

menu) lets you turn these built-in rules off or on as desired. Also, the Word Properties dialog lets you

adjust spacing, capitalization, abbreviations (such as Gen. for General) and other alternate written

forms (such as “honour” and other spellings used in Canada). In version 12, Dragon reaches out to you

through its Smart Format Rules box when it detects that you made a change that might warrant

adjusting one of its format-related settings.

 The restricted recognition modes can make dictating special text more efficient. They are accessible

by voice commands (“Numbers Mode on”, “switch to Normal Mode”) and through the DragonBar’s

Modes menu.

 Dictation Mode can be helpful if you want to dictate as quickly as possible.

 If you will be dictating only numbers and punctuation, consider turning Numbers Mode on.

 If dictating a long sequence of characters (letters, digits, punctuation, symbols), consider Spell Mode.

The Spell command is good for short sequences which you can say all at once, without pausing, such as

“spell space T W O”.

 When spelling out, you can use alternate pronunciations for the letters (such as alpha, bravo, etc.) and

insert a capital letter by saying cap just before the letter. You can also say space or spacebar. (In

Spell Mode, Dragon doesn’t handle spacing as it usually does.)