13.0

Controlling the Operating System and Applications

Dragon NaturallySpeaking can do much more than type and format your dictated text: it lets you use your voice to

find information, open a specific website, start programs, open desktop items, switch between open windows,

maximize or minimize windows, choose menu and submenu items, navigate dialog boxes, click buttons, press

keys, move or drag the mouse pointer, and more.

Note: If your operating system is Windows 8, keep in mind that Dragon is designed to work primarily in this

system’s “desktop” (“classic”) interface, and that Windows 8 replaced the Start menu with the Start screen and

Charms bar.

IMPORTANT : When Dragon is running, it does not inhibit the use of your mouse and keyboard. Mouse,

keyboard, and voice are just three input options. Use whatever is fastest and easiest for you for a given task.

Let’s start with a frequent task made fast and easy thanks to Dragon: searching your computer.

Searching the computer

Available in the higher editions, the “Dragon Voice Shortcuts for Desktop Search” help speed up a process many

of us go through often: finding information that is somewhere on our computer!

At any time, no matter what application is currently active on your screen, these commands let you launch a

search for items containing the keyword(s) you specify. They use indexing software such as Google Desktop

(freely downloadable from Google’s website).

They have flexible wordings (the Command Browser lets you see all the possible ways to say them) and can be

general (“search computer for <xyz>”-- <xyz> being any word or words) or specific, as follows:

• Search emails for <xyz>: searches for the keyword(s) <xyz> in just the e-mails indexed on your

computer

• Search [the] documents for <xyz>: searches just the indexed files

• Search [the] history for <xyz>: searches just the indexed Web pages visited