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Question about writing software

In the breaks in his writing schedule, David has promised to stop by and chat for a while!
Question about writing software
Post by Richardbrown89   » Tue Dec 06, 2011 10:25 am

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Mr. Runsforcelery -

You posted several months ago that you were using a speaking to writing program to put words down on (electronic) paper. What program is that? I have seen advertisements for Dragon Speaking Naturally, or do you use another>?

Muy grass? Much thanks.
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Re: Question about writing software
Post by pokermind   » Tue Dec 06, 2011 7:16 pm

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Not wanting to steel his thunder but David already wrote in FAQs, to read the whole in the bar above move cursor to FAQs then hit General, he answered your question in a question on Writing following breaking his hand he wrote:
Because of that, I've been forced to go to voice-activated software. In fact, I use Dragon Naturally Speaking. There are some distinct problems with using voice-activated, some of which are simply irritating and some of which get considerably worse than that. There are, however, two enormous advantages. One is that I can continue to work, which I probably couldn't if the only option I had was working on the keyboard until my bum wrist locked up. The second is that even though it's necessary to stop and correct errors which have been introduced by the voice-activated fairly frequently, it's also possible to dictate at better than 200 words a minute. Nobody I am familiar with can actually write at 200 words a minute for more than brief spurts, but the fact is that I believe my output has gone up considerably simply because of the speed Dragon makes possible. If you have the patience to deal with the foibles of the software, learn how to make it work for you instead of tripping you up, and get comfortable with it, it definitely becomes a speed multiplier, and any production writer will tell you just how important that is.


As I am going blind, with a professional writer's endorsement, I got it, and like it. It will read to you too just highlight the text and it reads, or hit the select all option in MS Word where all my E-Books are. Types what you say just remember to turn off mike when you don't want it to type. Commands can be used in programs and on the Net, but there is a learning curve, and I have not totally mastered my Dragon. I think it was worth the money, and they are having Pre-Christmass sale now. I bought I've only had it two weeks now, and have written some posts with it.

CPO Poker Mind.

this is a sample of Dragon NaturallySpeaking's typing. I will not edited in any way which I would normally do just so you can see what the raw Dragon looks like. You can see I would have to go back in and put in punctuation. I will now try a special feature. In Microsoft Word I would have underlined special feature but I cannot in this nuclear program as particular not nuclear. Well that should give you an idea what dragons typing looks like. Cpo Poker Mind I capitalize poker mind using a special feature of Dragon.
CPO Poker Mind Image and, Mangy Fur the Smart Alick Spacecat.

"Better to be hung for a hexapuma than a housecat," Com. Pang Yau-pau, ART.
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Re: Question about writing software
Post by Richardbrown89   » Thu Dec 08, 2011 5:10 pm

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Thanks very much for the info!
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Re: Question about writing software
Post by Richardbrown89   » Thu Dec 08, 2011 5:11 pm

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One more question. Any version more suitable than the others?
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Re: Question about writing software
Post by pokermind   » Thu Dec 08, 2011 11:13 pm

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I got the home version Dragon 11.5 it's cheaper, but the Professional version has more features, you pays your money you takes your choice. and the old Chief makes Jack Benny look like a sailor on his first liberty in two years throwing his money around.

Got time for a song? My Last Night in Baltimore will give you an idea what a sailor on shore after a couple of years is like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5c1oPQ6qZs&feature=related

Chief Poker Mind.

runsforcelery wrote:
pokermind wrote:Image

Hope you and yours have a merry one. PS thanks for recommending Dragon Naturally Speaking in your FAQs,I figured if a professional used it I should, but I use it's read feature more than its typing.



And Merry Christmas back to you. And raise you a Happy New Year, too!
CPO Poker Mind Image and, Mangy Fur the Smart Alick Spacecat.

"Better to be hung for a hexapuma than a housecat," Com. Pang Yau-pau, ART.
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Re: Question about writing software
Post by namelessfly   » Thu Dec 29, 2011 10:32 am

namelessfly

Screw getting Dragon.

I got my daughter a Samsung Galaxy tablet for Christmas. The word processor includes voice recognition.

It has a damn good camera too.
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Re: Question about writing software
Post by Guspaz   » Thu Jan 05, 2012 12:52 pm

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pokermind: You can add punctuation and styling as you go. For example, if you say "this colon is comma a test period", then I believe Dragon would output "This: is, a test.", although it's been years since I've used dragon, so those keywords might be different (full stop instead of period? Etc). Basically, the only reason you'd ever go back over something is to correct mistakes, and you can also do that as you go, since there's many voice commands for editing text.

namelessfly wrote:Screw getting Dragon.

I got my daughter a Samsung Galaxy tablet for Christmas. The word processor includes voice recognition.

It has a damn good camera too.


That's really a different class of voice recognition. Dragon on a PC is optimally going to be used with a high quality noise-cancelling mic in a quiet room, giving it a very clean audio feed to process. It's also very heavily trained, in that you typically build a voice profile before you even start dictating, and then it notices how you correct things as you go to refine that. Voice recognition on a tablet or smartphone has to work without any training (sometimes they do build a limited profile, but not to the same extent since they can't guarantee the person speaking won't change), they have to pick your voice out of the background noise from an omnidirectional mic a foot or more from your mouth, etc.

Siri is rumoured to use Dragon's software for the actual recognition engine (it's completely running on Apple's servers, the handset just streams the audio over the internet to Apple, and Apple returns an XML file with the probabilities of words spoken, so it's impossible to know). It's incredibly accurate compared to what we had only a year or two ago, but it's still nowhere near as good as something like Dragon on a PC.
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Re: Question about writing software
Post by Theswerd   » Thu Jun 14, 2012 7:10 pm

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Since I'm hoping to write a story soon as well, I started looking into voice recognition software. I also went to see what David Weber uses, but after looking at a price tag, I went to see what else was available. I've currently written this entire post using the windows seven speech recognition software. It's still learning, and there's a bunch of guys outside the apartment using circular saws and whatnot. That doesn't really help any. I've only been using it for about 20 minutes or so. I'm not sure if it's as good as dragon, but I don't have to pay for.So if looking for some cheap software, and you have windows seven, you might want to look into it.
Theswerd.
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Re: Question about writing software
Post by rdt   » Fri Jun 15, 2012 1:52 pm

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Theswerd's idea is appropriate...as long as you have Windows 7. Look under the Start button, All Programs, Accessories/Ease of Access/Windows Speeech Recognition to install and configure.

Once you have used it and decide that it mostly works for you, then you can more intelligently determine whether something more sophisticated (and very much NOT free) will be required.
Good Luck.
r
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