13.0

Starting to Dictate: Your First Dictation

You can use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to dictate into virtually any Windows application. Further in this workbook,

you will learn how to start programs by voice (but one doesn’t need to have started a program by voice in order to

dictate into it.)

What you dictate will be inserted wherever your insertion point (cursor) is located in your document. There are

many ways of moving the insertion point by voice, but know that you can also re-position it by hand (clicking the

mouse where you want it, or using your keyboard’s arrow keys) just as you normally would.

TIP Before dictating, make sure the desired window is active (its title bar should not be dimmed), and the

insertion point (vertical bar) is where you want your dictation to appear. (Your operating system can make such

visual elements easier to see.)

Dictating text and punctuation marks

Here are the most common punctuation marks, followed by what you say to “voice-type” them:

. period (or full stop)

, comma

? question mark

! exclamation point or exclamation mark

: colon

; semi-colon

For these exercises, start a word processor (for example, you can say start DragonPad).

Exercise 1: Look at the following sample, dictate it, then say microphone off. (If any word is misrecognized,

ignore it for now.) The very first words may take a moment to appear on the screen; this is normal.

How is this different from dictating to a person? I should try to provide clean input: speaking naturally,

but without mumbling or trailing off!

Do turn off your microphone when you finish dictating! If your last sentence reads something like “trailing off!

Microphone off", you probably forgot to pause briefly before giving the command. (If you cannot use your hands,

say “go to sleep” or “stop listening” instead of “microphone off.”)

New line and new paragraph

With Dragon active, you can press your Enter key, but you can also simply say the commands new line and new

paragraph.

Note: When you start dictating your new paragraph, Dragon will capitalize its first letter automatically, just like it

automatically capitalizes after a period, an exclamation point, or a question mark. By default, Dragon does NOT

capitalize the first word after new line or colon.

TIP If you prefer new line to trigger capitalization, you can change its default via the Vocabulary Editor, since

new line belongs to a special group of commands accessible there; these so-called Dictation Commands, such

as “cap”, “caps on” and “numeral”, appear near the very top of the Vocabulary Editor’s list, with a blank

Written Form field. To find them quickly, change the Display drop-down list to “Word with spoken forms only”.

Once you’ve highlighted new line in the Vocabulary Editor, say or click Properties, then choose “capitalized”

from the drop-down list “Format the next word”.