Do You Have Questions About Dragon Naturally Speaking?

When I first started learning how to use Dragon Naturally Speaking, a powerful voice recognition program, I found it exciting, yet overwhelming. I got myself in lots of sticky situations and wasn’t really sure how to get out of them. For example, typing my email address, microphone problems (Why won’t my microphone work…oh, the mute button…), etc. Through reading (and re-reading, and re-reading) the manual, perusing various websites and listservs, asking lots of questions of my co-workers, and most of all tinkering around, I’ve come to understand and love using this tool.

I recently revisited the website, www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking and was very happily surprised at the wealth of information I found, and wished I had it when I was learning this program. I was on this website for hours. Here’s some of what I found under the “For Customers” link:

• There are a whole slew of instructional videos that are easy to use. If you don’t have someone to help you learn Dragon, videos are the next best thing.
• I found some PDF “cheat sheets” that would be helpful if you are learning Dragon or teaching it to others.
• You can read stories from Dragon users, including students, professionals, and home users.
• You can view their blog, which has lots of news about Dragon’s acquisition of MacSpeech and Dragon apps for the iPhone.
• Dragon has a monthly newsletter that you can sign up to receive. This is where I spent most of my time. There is some really helpful, practical information here.
• Second to the newsletter, I loved the Tips and Tricks sections, which gives some of the lesser known tricks that can make a big difference in one’s success with this tool.

Having this information readily available online has helped my consumers be more independent in their training process. Check it out!