10.0

Starting to Dictate: Controlling the Microphone

When ready to dictate, you must ensure that Dragon NaturallySpeaking is able to hear you. Your device must

be connected and positioned correctly of course, but the software also needs to know whether to “listen”.

This lesson shows several ways to indicate that, and introduces the DragonBar—Dragon’s own “tool bar”.

The DragonBar and the Microphone Icon

The DragonBar appears by default as a floating horizontal window in Version 10 (you can change its

appearance: for instance, in the Options dialog’s View tab, you can choose to have it docked to the top of the

screen, which was the default in previous versions.)

It contains several menus, a message area, and a microphone icon, which is horizontal when the microphone is

off. If you click this icon, it becomes vertical and the sound meter next to it turns yellow, indicating that the

microphone is on and Dragon is ready to listen. You can now click the icon to turn the microphone off. This is

just one way to control whether Dragon’s microphone is on or off.

TIP Dragon’s microphone icon is also available in your system tray (on your Windows Taskbar, usually in the

lower-right, near the time display).

Voice Commands for the Microphone and Sleep State

One can turn off the microphone by saying the command microphone off. There is no command to turn the

microphone on, since when the microphone is off, it can't “hear” anything! There are, however, commands to

put the microphone in and out of a sleeping state, where it doesn’t transcribe your words, but it is still

listening.

To try this, turn the microphone on by clicking on its icon, then say stop listening or go to sleep.

IMPORTANT For these and all voice commands, there should be a brief silence before and after, but

none in the middle, otherwise the program cannot recognize the command and instead transcribes the words.

For example, make sure you say the words “go to sleep” together in a natural flow, not “go… to… sleep”.

Putting the microphone to sleep is useful when you need to "put on hold" Dragon for a moment. However,

leaving it in that state for a long time is not recommended, so do turn the microphone off if you will not be

dictating for a while (and are physically able to turn on the microphone manually.)

TIP

You can set Dragon to always open your User profile with the microphone asleep, waiting for your

command to “wake up”, so that no manual action is needed to turn it on: in the Options dialog box, on the

Miscellaneous tab, select Microphone on (asleep) under User Open.