NaturalText

Last Modified: March 22, 2000

Also in November of 1997, Dragon Systems released another feature for Dragon NaturallySpeaking called NaturalText. NaturalText allows you to dictate directly into almost any windows application.

NaturalText's direct dictation into Windows applications uses a technology similar to that which was used in DragonDictate for Windows. When NaturalText is enabled, and you speak into the microphone, and Dragon NaturallySpeaking will type what you say into the application which currently has the focus. This allows you to dictate into applications which do not support dication with correction (like Dragon NaturallySpeaking itself and Microsoft Word 97).

NaturalText is a feature of last resort. Wherever possible, Dragon NaturallySpeaking allows you to dictate directly into applications including editing and correction features. The applications which Dragon NaturallySpeaking supports at this level include the Dragon NaturallySpeaking editor itself, Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect, and other applications recently added to because of their support of standard Windows edit controls (see Editing in Other Apps for more information). With other applications, users will be forced to use NaturalText for dictation support.

Dictation using NaturalText is more limited than dictation into Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Currently, NaturalText has no concept of the text in the target application. Because of this, correction using "Select <text>" is disabled for other applications. If Dragon NaturallySpeaking makes a mistake, you can use the "Correct That" or "Scratch That" commands but no other voice correction commands.

Yet even with these limitations, dictating directly into other applications can save you a lot of time especially if you are just dictating a sentence or two. You have to activate the target application by mouse or keyboard (or macro that you write yourself using the Professional Edition), but once the target application has the focus, you can dictate directly into it.

You can also issue voice macros including macros that you write yourself using the Deluxe Edition for other applications. This makes a possible, for example, to speech enable an e-mail program so that you can send an entire message including the dictation portion by voice.

When the direct dictation feature is installed, an additional icon is added to your tray. This icon allows you to disable dictation into other applications. Otherwise, dictation is always active (even when a button has the focus).

This web page (http://www.synapseadaptive.com/joel/NaturalText.html) was last modified on March 22, 2000. The contents of this page are (c) Copyright 1998-1999 by Joel Gould. All Rights Reserved. See Copyright Information for more details.