Summer 2009 Newsletter

 
  

Welcome to the all-new Dragon Flash customer newsletter. We still offer the latest product news along with great tips and tricks to improve your experience with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, but our new format makes it easier to read the latest news. This month we offer a number of formatting tips, including information about the new Quick Voice Formatting commands, guidance on formatting numbers and suggestions for formatting text without spaces. We also explain how to find the best microphone for use with Dragon.

Product News: Enable/Disable Quick Voice Formatting Commands

The Quick Voice Formatting feature introduced in version 10 of Dragon NaturallySpeaking makes it faster and easier than ever to format text by voice. In a single command, you can state the type of formatting you would like to apply followed by the text you would like to format (e.g., "Bold easier than ever"), and Dragon will execute the task for you. You can even format an entire passage by dictating its first and last words (e.g., the command "bold you can through words" would format the entire previous sentence in bold). In addition to traditional formatting options (such as bold, underline, and italicize), Quick Voice Formatting also allows users to cut or copy text using a single voice command. You now have the option to disable the "Delete/Cut [XYZ]" and "Copy [XYZ]" commands if you prefer. Select "Options" from the Tools menu of the DragonBar and click the Commands tab. You can then enable or disable the specific commands that meet your personal preferences.

The option to disable Quick Voice Formatting is one of the features and enhancements included in Dragon version 10.1. To learn more about version 10.1, click here.

Improving Accuracy and Productivity: Formatting Numbers

It's often said that "Dragon works the way you work," meaning that you can customize Dragon to map to your personal style and preferences. This is particularly true when it comes to formatting your text. Different customers have different style preferences to format items such as dates, times and numbers. Dragon provides a Formatting dialog box (opened by selecting "Formatting" from the Tools menu of the DragonBar) that gives Dragon users the ability to customize a wide variety of style and formatting options.

With the Formatting dialog box, you can control the style applied to numbers within your dictation. For example, by selecting "Prefer 5 million over 5,000,000" Dragon inserts numbers as a combination of text and Arabic numerals (e.g., "8 million" instead of "8,000,000"). By selecting "Numbers if greater than or equal to" you can insert numbers as numerals if they are equal to or greater than the value shown in the drop-down list. If the number is less than the chosen value, the number is spelled out. For example, if you set the default value as 10, Dragon will write "five" when you dictate "five" and "11" when you dictate "eleven." Your preferences will be stored in your user profile. If you wanted to format a number differently for an isolated instance, you could always dictate the preference (e.g., dictate "numeral five" to write out "5" despite your set preferences).

You can also use the Formatting dialog box to set preferences for other numeric forms, such as phone numbers, prices, units of measure, negative numbers, numbers with punctuation, fractions, decimals, and Roman numerals.

Tips and Tricks: The "No Space" Command

Dragon automatically inserts a space between each word or unit of punctuation based on standard grammar rules, but what happens when you don't want the space included? Perhaps you need to label a reference 523(a) or you have a creative screen name for instant messaging such as Dragonmaster1. There are many ways to deal with these situations, but one option is to use the "no space" command. As the name suggests, the command instructs Dragon not to insert the default space. For example:

• 523(a) is dictated as "five-twenty-three no space open parens alpha close parens"
• Dragonmaster1 is dictated as "Dragon no space master no space numeral one"

If you frequently use a word or phrase that requires "no space" formatting, consider adding the word to your Dragon vocabulary with a "spoken form" that is easier to dictate. For example, you could add the term Dragonmaster1 as the written form in your Vocabulary Editor, and list "Dragon master one" as the spoken form. Whenever you say the spoken form, Dragon will transcribe and format your text correctly.

You Asked, We'll Answer: What microphones can I use with Dragon?

A: Each edition of Dragon includes a microphone headset. If you lose or damage your headset, or simply would like to try an alternate microphone (such as a wireless microphone), you can find a list of approved devices using our Hardware Compatibility List available at support.nuance.com. The Hardware Compatibility List provides a summary of third-party hardware devices that Nuance has evaluated in its compatibility labs. Devices listed as "Nuance certified" have passed all tests with Dragon NaturallySpeaking and meet our highest performance and quality standards. Although we are continually testing new hardware, please note that newer microphone models may not be included within our compatibility list simply because we have not tested our products with them yet. However, if your hardware is not listed you may still be able to use it with Dragon. If you have any questions, or if your hardware is not listed, please feel free to contact our customer service team at 800-654-1187.

Customer Profiles

Nuance is pleased to announce the winners of the annual "I Speak Dragon" contest. Thank you to the nearly 1,000 customers that sent their stories to us, and congratulations to all of the winners!