ScanSoft Dragon Naturally Speaking 8 Standard Description:

ScanSoft Dragon Naturally Speaking 8 Standard review:
4 stars (Excellent if you have the right attitude) - Scansoft's Dragon Naturally Speaking 8 Standard (DNS8S) is excellent at what I want it for. I know I am going to be editing my stories, scripts, and documents anyway; the hard part for me is to get the text written down in the first place.







For this reason, I purchased DNS8S and a microphone I could throw over my shoulder in the car on my long commute. (you can't wear a headset in the car). Then, before I leave the garage, I set my laptop up in Microsoft Word to accept the voice input. And, away I go often getting five single spaced pages entered on my drive home.







The only special commands I use are "new line" and "period". Sometimes, I find that I am about thirty seconds ahead of the machine, but it usually catches up. Occasionally, it jumps out of Word and I lose my transcription, usually not such a big deal.







My one request would be that there be a truly stripped-down version that just allowed text to be written into word. I imagine it is very frustrating for people trying to use any voice recogniation package as a complete alternative to typing on the keyboard. I cannot imagine anyone being successful speaking too much formatting in. How frustrating must that be.
4 stars (ScanSoft Dragon Lessons) - Good software. The only minus is when it refers to the manual which is on the disk. The manual has to be printed to be used. A link withing the software to the appropriate section would make this much easier.
1 stars (Much too finicky) - This product only works if the microphone headset they provide is positioned in precisely the correct place. It takes about 15 minutes for me to find that exact place each time I use the product.



I'll get it working, take off the headset and the next time I try using it, it types random words until I manage to get the microphone exactly right. That makes the product unusable for me. In the time it takes me to get the microphone right I could have just typed whatever I was going to dictate.