Selection “Cheat Sheet” for Dragon NaturallySpeaking
Rev. 2.2

(For NaturallySpeaking Version 7.x)

PDF version

A Resource Page for the California Department of Rehabilitation provided by:

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Contents

• "Out of the box" NaturallySpeaking is suited for:
• When customized, NaturallySpeaking can be effective for:
  
• Negative Factors affecting NaturallySpeaking
• Why use NaturallySpeaking Preferred
• Why use NaturallySpeaking Professional
• Why use NaturallySpeaking Legal or Medical
• Minimum System Requirements
• Minimum Recommended System Requirements

"Out of the box" NaturallySpeaking (Standard, Preferred, Professional, Medical, or Legal) is ideally suited for:

• Large text documents (reports, letters, etc.)
• Small Text documents (emails, memos)
• Internet Navigation and Web Browsing with Microsoft Internet Explorer
• Basic Windows Command and Control for most programs (Menu and form navigation)

With moderate to substantial customizing and support, NaturallySpeaking (Professional, Medical, or Legal) can be can be extremely productive with:

• Repetitive Documents with standard phrases or paragraphs (Legal contracts, medical reports, etc.)
• Field oriented applications (database entry forms, QuickBooks, etc.)
• Command oriented applications (DesignCAD, AutoCAD, Games, etc.)
• Technical Programming Languages (Visual Basic, JAVA, HTML)
• Non-Windows applications accessed through Windows Emulation (UNIX applications, CIDOR, HWDC, etc.)

Factors that tend to have a negative impact on the performance, accuracy and success rate for NaturallySpeaking users (assuming a system that meets or exceeds the Recommend System Requirements):

• Speech that is very soft.
• Certain Learning Disabilities (such as long term memory problems, unable to recognize an error, difficulty or inability to remember sequences of 2 or 3 steps, and others)
• Speech that has inconsistent and/or hard startup sounds (CP, uncontrollable stuttering)
• Noisy environments (noisier than typical background office noise)
• Creation of classified, confidential, or sensitive documents without a private office. (personnel files, medical records, etc.)
• Marginal microphone/sound card compatibility (poor accuracy with no apparent reason).
• Inadequate system Hardware (meeting minimum but not recommended hardware requirements)

Why Preferred ($199.00) instead of Standard ($99.00)? All features of Standard plus:

• Commands for browsing the Internet (Web browsing VERY difficult with out them.)
• Text to Speech voice synthesizer (Read what was written works well for proofing and dyslexia.)
• Dictation Playback (essential for effective corrections on longer documents)
• Save Audio with Text (delayed correction)
• Hand held recorder transcription.
• Works with Pocket PC
• Text and Graphics Dictation Shortcuts (for creating signature blocks, standard paragraphs, etc.).
• Extensive commands for Excel (Office 97, 2000, & XP)
• Import export user files (important for moving to a new computer)

Why Professional ($695.00) instead of Preferred ($199.00)? All features of Preferred plus:

• Section 508 (federal standard) compliant for use by persons with disabilities.
• Scripting commands allow the creation of custom commands to deal with situations that would otherwise be difficult, tedious, or impossible to accomplish (critical for dealing with non-standard programs, working with programs like AutoCAD, or attempting 100% reduction in keyboarding.)
• Extensive commands for Outlook and PowerPoint (Office 97, 2000, & XP)
• Import/export Macros (allows updates and transferring.)
• Works with specialized vocabularies. (Medical, Legal, and other third party vocabularies)
• Supports multiple contexts within a single user (provides maximum accuracy for users who create very different types of documents i.e. students creating chemistry and English papers, or doctors generating medical reports, journal articles, and private correspondence.)
  

Why Medical or Legal ($995.00) instead of Professional ($695.00)? All features of Professional plus:

• A Medical or Legal vocabulary producing substantially higher out of the box accuracy when creating legal or medical documents.

Minimum System Requirements:
The requirements listed on the box as advertised by the Manufacture. Note: Minimum Systems produce minimum performance, productivity and reliability. Systems being used in a work environment should meet or exceed the Minimum Recommended System Requirements listed in the next section.

Processor:	Intel® Pentium® III / 500 MHz processor (or equivalent AMD processor)
Hard Disk Space:	300 MB free hard disk space
RAM:	256 MB RAM
Sound Card:	Creative® Labs Sound Blaster® 16 or equivalent sound card supporting 16-bit recording.
CD-ROM:	Required for installation.
Microphone	ScanSoft-approved noise-canceling headset microphone (included)
Speakers	Required for playback of recorded speech and text-to-speech features
Operating System:	Microsoft® Windows® XP, Millennium, 2000, 98SE, or Windows NT® 4.0 (with SP-6 or greater)
Internet Explorer:	Microsoft® Internet Explorer 5 or higher (free download available at www.microsoft.com)

Minimum Recommended System Requirements:
The minimum system having shown (through experience) to provide consistent, full functionality and performance of NaturallySpeaking. Changes from the Minimum System Requirements from above are shown in Red.

Processor:	Full (not a Celeron) Intel® Pentium® III / 1 GHz processor (or equivalent AMD processor)
Hard Disk Space:	800 MB free hard disk space
RAM:	512 MB RAM
Sound Card:	Creative® Labs Sound Blaster® 16 or equivalent sound card supporting 16-bit recording.
CD-ROM:	Required for installation.
Microphone	ScanSoft-approved noise-canceling headset microphone (included)
Speakers	Required for playback of recorded speech and text-to-speech features
Operating System:	Microsoft® Windows® XP, Millennium, 2000, 98SE, or Windows NT® 4.0 (with SP-6 or greater)
Internet Explorer:	Microsoft® Internet Explorer 5 or higher (free download available at www.microsoft.com)