I have been using Dragon as an alternative to typing my novels. When used consistently, it provides for larger numbers of words per hour than I could ever type and it gives my wrists a break. It has a learning curve that's not something to ignore. You have to train the software and be patient with it and yourself at first. My preferred method of working with it is to record myself and then use Dragon to transcribe my dictation. It does a lot better with non fiction than with fiction at first. It's not great with exotic names (so if you write unconventional character names, you will have a few issues unless you use easier variants for dictation), but it can be trained to recognize even those if you take the time to correct it. It's great if you spend a large number per day typing, as it will reduce the strain you put on your wrists. With practice, it also increases the number of words per hour you can get on paper. Please bear in mind though that I spent more time training myself to dictate than I did learning how to use the software or to train it. Dictating a piece of fiction is a very different process than typing it and it will take time at first to get Dragon to understand you. Unless you have a very clean accent, you'll spend more time training it to recognize your speech patterns. English is not my native language and my accent is not a standard one, but I had very few issues getting it to accurately transcribe what I was saying.

Dragon is my preferred dictation software for my novels. I love the accuracy and how it can be improved through using the software repeatedly.

Dragon is not the best at handling accents and transcription can take a while.

Currently I was able to get the accuracy on my invoicing corrected and I use it daily. I also use it for customer descriptions on the custom products I design along with taking notes for new designs, customer meetings and for vendor resourcing. Being as though I can speak and do all of that it allows me the ability to keep working on the projects I am doing simultaneously.

I have been an avid user of Dragon Naturally speaking for several years. I have been on version 2 since it was released some 10+ years ago. I liked the software but was hesitant to upgrade it due to all the issues it had back then with integration and the limited amount of usability. I recently decided to upgrade to Dragon Professional Individual v.15. Being as though I was a previous user the setup was easy and the migration of vocabulary files was simple and worry free. The tutorial was simple and but could have been more informative. However the purpose for upgrading was to utilize the new features that it offered for my business. At first most users having never used a software of this nature could be easily intimidated by the amount of features it offers. I personally was a bit surprised by what all this version could do in comparison to my "dinosaur" version of the application. The overall integration to nearly every application that I use was simple and very effective in most cases. I can use it for invoices, taking short notes on ideas of new products to design, reply to emails and the list goes on. Virtually anywhere that text is used you can implement the use of this software. And with the Dragon anywhere subscription feature you can literally take it anywhere and use it whether on a pc, laptop, or cellular device.

I have found this version to be a bit clunky when it comes to invoices and overall voice depiction accuracy. For example every time I say the number 1 it puts in "none". Overall it does have a higher accuracy level than the previous versions and much better than most comparable software publications on the market. I do find the overall business integration to be rather smooth and simple. If I had any complaints it would be not having some general templates designed for voice use such as general invoices, sample email setups and items like that where the accuracy ration should be virtually perfect and just process through said items with speed and ease.

I wish I could say that this solved a business problem or for me rather an academic accommodation issue. I spend more time making corrections after this program dictates then I do if I just type it myself. The entire purpose of me purchasing this crap for a second time was to make life easier and leave me time to focus on more important things, but I could never be so lucky instead I wasted hundreds of dollars on a program that has done nothing but cause me to get creative with my use of obscenities.

I can read and not take at the same time- when it decides to work.

It is very inaccurate, I often have to type what I dictated and go back over the reading again. This is the only speech recognition that works with sonnocent except that it doesn't work with that program, it dictates hi, him, and ummm was a complete waste of money especially the premium price for dragon professional, there are cheaper programs that work better, it is a bummer that Dragon has an exclusive license with sonnocet, because I have to listen to and dictate 28 hours of recordings every week, since this hot garbage of a program does not work for the purpose I purchased it for. Some smartalic will say well you need to run the accuracy tuner, or let the program improve accuracy, well I am not a moron and I have done this and GUESS WHAT? IT GETS WORSE, YOU CANNOT DEFEND THIS GARBAGE!!!!

I originally bought Dragon Speech Software for my Dad as he was aging and had growing difficulty sitting at his computer and typing accurately. For him it actually proved more of a nuisance since the program had to learn his voice and much of his vocabulary before it could be of any real use to him. I did find more use for it myself, but still had to get through that original adjustment period.

This software is great for people who have difficulty typing and/or for anyone who wants to transcribe a large physical document into digital form and does not have use of a scanner.

The learning curve of the program can be a bit difficult to overcome in the early stages as the program learns the user's voice, intonations, and inflections. It does work better with more use, but you must be aware of errors when you first get started.

Very good and will continue using as it saves me a lot of time.

Dragon Naturally Speaking is a great concept and saves me a lot of time when writing long emails. It is much quicker than typing.

You have to proof read the writing thoroughly, otherwise you may have completely random words thrown in. Also, when used for gmail on a browser there can be quite a bit of lag.

Makes reports a breeze. Also, because you are talking out loud, you hear your ideas and they resonate better. You notice your mistakes more readily. You also do not miss out on getting some of your perfect thoughts to paper. You know, those GOLDEN thoughts that you have while you are busy typing and finishing out the last thought that you are still typing. Don't lose the golden thoughts wasting time typing, get them into the document fast!

Great software. Makes writing reports, emails, papers, documents so much faster than typing, and I am no slouch when it comes to being able to type. It also releases you from the tethers of a pesky keyboard! You can also program in shorthands to speed up the process. Set it up so that you say ASPCA and it enters in "American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals." Excellent for scientific articles and jargon-heavy reports as you can train it to learn your words, your speech patterns, which make it more accurate.

Buggy. Works most of the time, but after long stretches, it tends to slow and crash. Save early save often. Save, close, then reopen after any new training to make sure that your edits are saved before a crash.

This application allows users to type from speech. This is very valuable for social scientists doing a lot of interviews. Instead of spending time, which is usually a very long time, to transcribe the data, it is easier to use the application to type the data for you. It has good voice recognition quality so your data will likely maintain its form, around 80-90% accuracy.

It requires a lot of memory. It would run fine and smooth at first but the longer you work with it, the more memory it will consume until it crashes.

It's more accurate and faster than google and works really well offline. Works well with accents and learns how you speak over time. Gets better the more you use it.

Been using Dragon software since the 90s and every version gets better. Not only does a great job when dictation, but works well at controlling computer

The number of license options and versions over the years have become confusing and I wish this was simplified. Wish one liencce could run on my multiple computers. Better mac support would be great

Once you spend some time training the algorithm, you start getting a pretty accurate recognition of the dictated sentences. The Mac and the Windows version work both comparably well.

Their customer service basically is terrible, to give them a compliment. Expect few crashes here and there, so save often or you'll lose your work. I have a feeling that my smartphone does a comparable job if not better in terms of voice recognition.

A decent tool for those who are not fast goers and are very limited on time for transcription.

Ability to speak my transcription notes as a provider into the electronic medical record system at my clinic.

Inability of the software to decipher complex words. Notes are choppy and have to be edited by hand. If you are a fast typer it would be easier to do that.

I do some of my most creative writing late at night. I’ll set up Dragon and then just start talking without paying attention to the program. If I get stuck I’ll just think of something else and just start talking again. I won’t even check my work at the end of the night. Just save it and go to bed. The next day I’ll go over it and be amazed at the quality of most of the copy I’ve written. The text seems noticeably improved over what I write when I’m poking and pecking at a keyboard.

I'm an author. I've written a book and many short articles that were published in a variety of online magazines. I have been using the Dragon Speech Recognition software for over 3 years and I love it. I'm not a great typist and in the past I'd have an idea but my sluggish typing would slow me down before I could get my thoughts recorded. With Dragon you simply speak and the software does the typing. While Dragon unquestionably saves you time and effort, more importantly it allows you to maintain your train of thought and commit your ideas much more concisely. Dragon has positively improved the efficiency and the quality of my writing.

Dragon does make mistakes. It Claims to have a 99% accuracy rate but that means if you are writing a 1000 word essay, you’ll have 10 mistakes. You definitely have to go over your work and fix any problems. Dragon creates a user profile. Over time it ‘learns’ your voice and pronunciations and improves its accuracy. Dragon also has difficulty with punctuation. I deal with it by speaking the punctuation where I need it. When I end a sentence I’ll say the word “period” or “question mark”. Doing this, while using Dragon, gets to be second nature very quickly. In my opinion Dragon’s benefits far outweigh its minor shortcomings.

I dictate regularly, and it makes it so much easier to write notes (and saves my fingers from early arthritis, I'm sure). I'm able to "teach" this program medical terminology, and it makes my job so much easier. Would highly recommend for anyone who needs to write notes at length.

Dragon is one of those software apps that seems to have been around forever, and for good reason. Having used this for medical dictation, I can say Dragon is perhaps the best in the field. It's easy to use, easy to set up, and it adapts rather well (you can add your own words that may not normally be recognized, so medical terminology can be programmed in based on your pronunciation). In addition to dictation, which Dragon does extremely well, you can also use Dragon to execute commands based on voice prompts. While I use this feature less, it is still rather functional. In short, Dragon adapts well and performs well. It's the leader in dictation software for a reason.

My only complaint would be that it uses up a lot of memory, which can be a problem on older machines. I personally use my laptop primarily, which is newer and does not run into these problems, but if you're forced to use an older desktop it may be laggy at times.

As an Occupational Therapist, I use this software with many of my patients who can no longer type, or who have difficulty with vision. Dragon Speech is by far the go to product for all of us in my field because what it does can be learned so quickly, modified very simply, and adaptable and sophisticated enough to help students needing to write papers, create assignments, etc. It is also helpful for those of us who do point of service documentation because dictating basic information while performing an evaluation removes the laptop from between me and my new patient. I cannot stress how extremely important that can be when working with someone who cannot process with even slight distraction. So much good in one small package. Worth every penny.

The only drawback i ever have is cost for people with low income situations but we typically find a way around this. An academic specific program would be nice for students with various differing abilities who need to be able to utilize specific programs with their classmates for group projects, etc. Other than that, I have nothing bad to say.

Having used this software for over 15 years I have finally given up on it and changed to an online free service that is not only good, but doesn't use up massive amounts of computer resources, and interfere with other running processes running on the computer and gives a surprisingly accurate output albeit not as sophisticated as Dragon.

Its basically a very good program but recent upgraqdes have become increasingly buggy, and have incompatibility problems with windows 10 that causes crashes and freezes and random changes in font size and configurations.

The company takes no notice of customer complaints about the program, and have made no attempt to correct them or issue upgrades to overcome them. Trying to anyone to help in managing these problems is almost impossible.

Overall experience has been very satisfactory. I have cut my work time in half.

The ability to just be able to speak and have it transcribe accurately and quickly. I do student assessments and curriculum adjustments daily. It is time consuming if you are stuck at the keyboard all day. This allows me to get other tasks accomplished simultaneously. Spelling is usually error free and it gets accustomed to words and phrases you use often. I am getting so many words per minute accomplished using this method rather than typing.

A little pricey. I would recommend for people who will use it multiple times per week to make it cost efficient. You may want to invest in a good microphone. I got one online at a reasonable price. my children are Home schooled and also use it from time to time. If you are using this for children be sure they speak loudly and clearly as it may make more errors when words are not spoken clearly. Cumbersome installation but worth it in the end!

Once customized and the end-user's experience how to deal with the software, it is of huge value for day-to-day use. Especially for repeating text fragments it is extremely time-saving.

After the "learning process" and adaptation to the local language of the user the software works fine and "as designed".

The learning process of the software (adaptation to the local language) and the effort for the new end-user to learn the most important commands and features takes some time and needs a lot of exercise.

This program helped me to deliver more freelance work because it cut down on the time I spent typing out my clients requests. I also found the program useful in other word processing programs that I used frequently like Ms Word and Google Docs. The software is well worth the investment, especially if you are writing for fun or for a career.

This software allowed me to cur my writing time in half, because I could speak the words into my headset and the program would type it automatically. This program helped me excel in my freelance business, since I could write more orders during the day for my clients.

I found that having an accent with this software can cause the program to type out the wrong words. This and get annoying especially when you have a thick accent that pronounces certain words in a different way. For me, if I tried to say “I helped someone”, the program would always type “I hoped someone”. This became rather annoying and frustrating, because I couldn’t correct my country accent.

Used it without issue since 2019, though I cannot train it to a level where I can actually dictate errorfree. Use it mostly for transcribing recordings.A month ago, my laptop suffered a hard drive failure and needed to be replaced. I found out that the download file stops working after two years. Support stuff suggested I re-purchase the product.I eventually located the download file on an old backup and re-installed the product. Only to find that I couldn't activate it because I didn't uninstall the software from my old laptop - which I couldn't!I've never dealt with any company so unhelpful and predatory. Would not recommend.

I tend to dictate while out walking and use the Dragon to transcribe my recordings.

The customer service is horrible, consisting of unhelpful, canned responses.

At the school board we recommend this software for kids with reading/learning disabilities. It helps them tremendously with their school work. We especially like it for kids in high school as they need to read larger volume of texts and needs to write longer lengths of paper/assignments. This tool allows them to succeed.

This software is the gold standard when it comes to speech-to-text. It is able to read anything on the computer - icons, websites, pdfs, etc. and will respond to voice commands to access these things. The rate at which it converts your speech to text is almost seamless and the accuracy is superior in comparison to other speech to text programs.

This software is very pricey considering there are other free speech to text programs out there. There is also a bit of a learning curve in the beginning as the program learns your voice and as you learn how to access all the features available. However, once you have mastered the program you will not consider other programs.

it is an intuitive speech recognition program so even those with accents can use it relatively easily oncve they train it to recognize their patterns.

I'd been using Dragon Medical for years when I transferred to a new position. When I arrived my dragon had not moved with me ... I considered it a deal breaker. "No dragon no transfer" It took a few weeks but finally my dragon turned up on my computer snuggled down on my task bar .

I work at multiple sites and the dragon icon doesn't transfer easily

You can customize your own templates which is intended to make workflow more efficient. You can also customize hotkeys and pedal buttons if you are recording with a foot pedal. If you buy the learning software it can learn your voice and remember your preferences. It can also be integrated into other software systems.

The voice recognition is very poor most of the time. I have had a lot of problems with this program crashing. It is very unfortunate if the program crashes and you are in the middle of a long dictation. I also think the functionality could be more intuitive.

Although it isn't perfect, it's the best option out there from what I hear, and I'll continue to use it while hoping improvements continue to be made to the software.

I like that I can use it to write my novels without exacerbating my carpal tunnel syndrome--it's extremely easy once it's all set up and I've written entire novels with it.

I'm not crazy about its ability to recognize certain words. Swear words are impossible. If it mixes up a homonym, it can be hard to fix if it's something like to/too/two and there are many in the document already. Basically, it isn't perfect.

Overall Dragon is a nice product that can save you time. I don't know very many people that can type fast than they can talk.

Dragon is great and will type for you. The more you use it the better it works. It has other functionality besides just typing text for you.

Sometimes words that are spoken to not type correctly within the application I am using like word or outlook.

I like how you can learn to run your entire computer. It's nice to not only dictate but to give my wrists a break from time to time. I'm on the computer for work at least 10 hours a day.

Even when it claims you've trained the software, it can still make a lot of mistakes. It takes quite a bit of time to get it trained to your voice. Things like Google Docs can understand you just as easily, if not better, without voice training. But, you can't run the entire computer from Google Docs - so there is a definite pro to Naturally Speaking.

I suffer from dyslexia and use this software everyday at work to help me write emails and documents. The more you use it overtime the more efficient it becomes at understanding the word you want to say. Set up is simple and once you get the hang of using all the voice commands it just becomes second nature. I could not work without this!

Correcting mistakes, for example adding in a hyphen between words, is still not that intuitive and I'd love to see some more work done to help improve this feature.