10.0

Dragon NaturallySpeaking and Microsoft Word

In “Controlling the Operating System and Applications”, you learned about Natural Language Commands. Since

Microsoft Word is an application many people use, this chapter lists built-in commands for this word processor.

Corel WordPerfect has similar commands, so it shares the same Sample Commands

window. If the application’s

Natural Language Command set is disabled, the Sample Commands window will show Global Commands.

Remember that if your system resources are low, enabling these commands could decrease Dragon’s speed.

This chapter also covers a few special points of interest regarding Word: ctfmon (on Windows XP only) and

Voice Notations.

Special note for Windows XP: turning off CTFMON

After installing Dragon on a Windows XP system, errors may start appearing when using Microsoft Word if the

Microsoft Alternate User Input application (CTFMON.EXE) is also installed and running.

You can disable CTFMON.exe via a simple checkbox during Dragon’s installation, or later from the

Miscellaneous tab of the Administrative Settings dialog box. The Administrative Settings box is accessed via the

DragonBar’s Tools menu, when no user profile is open (if necessary, choose Close User from the

NaturallySpeaking menu.)

“Voice Notations” in Word documents (editions “Professional” and up)

The higher editions of Dragon let you add “Voice Notations” in Word: text that can later be used with Word's

Accept/Reject Change functionality. A Notation could be anything you do not want permanently in your

document or you do not want transcribed, e.g. instructions you speak for the benefit of your assistant. Voice

Notations are not used by the Acoustic and Language Model Optimizer.

To add a Voice Notation, press the Esc key while dictating. Voice Notations are highlighted in green and

formatted as red, italic text.

Commands for Word 2003 and 2007

For applications like Word, Dragon has so many commands (and many different wordings for most commands),

that we couldn’t possibly list them all here (and in the Sample Commands window!).

If you are working in a supported application and you encounter an action you’d like to perform by voice, open

the Command Browser and use its Context list -- and its Filter box, to see a modular display of just the

commands that contain a particular word or words. If you see a command that looks interesting, make sure it’s

highlighted in the list, then use the links on the Command Browser’s menu, such as Refine

or Undo All, to

expose its full wordings (for instance, to include all optional words or expand ellipses.)

TIP: If you say what you think is a command, but Dragon takes no action, or just transcribes the words on the

screen, look in the Results box. If the box does not have a thick border, Dragon did not recognize what you said

as a valid command for the current situation: if you say "Insert a 2 by 2 Table" when the insertion point is inside

a table, nothing happens because you cannot insert a table inside a table.