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General discussion

New to Mac: Dictation Software Question

Aug 30, 2006 6:40AM PDT

Hello everyone:


I'm trying to switch from PC to Mac and I'm wondering is there any dictation software (i.e., speech recognition) available for it? I want to point out that I am inquiring about a professional-grade software, as someone told me that there's something built in OS that incorporates speech recognition as well.

I've been using Dragon Naturally Speaking for PC and it'd be awsome if Mac had some sort of the similar software to convert?

Thank you in advance.

Discussion is locked

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Dictation or Recognition?
Aug 30, 2006 6:47AM PDT

One thing is not the other. Express Dictation is worth a google.

Bob

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Talking versus typing
Aug 30, 2006 9:08AM PDT

I've used IBM ViaVoice for Mac and I'm disappointed, to be honest. Maybe it's because I can key at 60+WPM anyway, or maybe it's because I use a lot of specialist terms in my work.

Whatever, it didn't work for me, regardless of the amount of time I spent 'training' the program. (It-works-if-I-speak-really-slowly.) If anyone knows of any better solutions, do say.

The Mac OS as it comes out of the box recognises voice commands but that's only for system-related functions such as 'open', 'save' etc as far as I know.

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Dragon on a Mac
Sep 2, 2006 3:27AM PDT

I am aware of only one Mac dictation product currently under development, and its called iListen (http://www.macspeech.com/). I am not aware of any software that can compete with Dragon. I have been using Macs since 1985, and I the primary reason I bought a PC laptop was to run Dragon. If you bought an Intel Mac, consider buying Windows and running Dragon off of a partition. Google some articles by David Pouge on this topic:

Like Having a Secretary in Your PC

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/20/technology/20pogue.html?ei=5070&en=15ad316ef6fa3694&ex=1157342400&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1157217702-oIJetORDf7bcqklir7XcNw