Hands-Free Typing with Dragon Home

This is something that I have been able to do well for many, many years. After all, I never really learned how to type when I was in high school. The number of people who were taught to do so at that time were relatively few and only attended special “office” classes so they could get a job once they graduated from school.

Nope, I taught myself how to do so at home. My recollection is that I was not such a bad typist at the time. Somehow, by teaching myself, I learned how to do so. I could use both my full hands and not have to look at the screen when I typed. I also believe that I typed relatively quickly as well.

Unfortunately, as time went on, that skill of mine pretty much disappeared. 

Luckily for me, when I went to work for a law firm, I did not have to type anything because I had my own secretary who did all of that for me. All that I had to do was dictate something and then she typed it out fully. It was when I stopped working for others and started doing things for myself that I needed to learn again how to use a typewriter.

This time around I did not do as good a job as before. Using both of my full hands was replaced with just using a two finger job, one on each hand. Naturally, I had to look at the keyboard as well to find the key to type. I did all right but I was not particularly quick at what I was doing. Moreover, it took me a longer time to complete an article. I discovered that there was, in fact, a number of programs that permitted people to dictate whatever they wanted to say in a document that they were preparing.

For what I needed to do, and that included typing a lot of articles, I chose to use a dictation system. The one I used was “Dragon Dictate” to do so. It is now called “DRAGON HOME” and is offered by Nuance Communications, Inc. I am using Version 15 for this article. Of course, Nuance has other Word Processing products that you should consider especially if you are in other groups such as the legal one. After all, lawyers do a lot of dictating of documents and correspondence don’t we!

Now I used a lot of their older products and I was quite happy with them. In other words, I used a variety of their “Versions.” Each time that I got a new version I enjoyed the better advantages that I had. The product just seemed to get better every time.

Then, I just tried DRAGON HOME “Version 15.” Let me tell you what happened the first time that I dictated a sentence. Truly, I almost got blown out of my chair!

I did not dictate generally at a low speed when I was dictating to a secretary. I only dictated slowly when I was on here with the older Dictation products so that they could keep up with me. I had to go slow because unfortunately they had to go slow as well as my sentences were being transcribed. Not this time. Literally, as I finished my last word, I saw that DRAGON HOME was close to finishing typing in type exactly the words which I had just dictated! In other words, I did not have to sit here and watch the dictation finally come to an end. In fact, “DRAGON HOME” believes on its website:

“Dictate documents, send email, search the web, and more - 3x faster than typing.”

I could not believe what I saw. I consider that to be a huge advantage this time. It is really remarkable seeing what I’ve just said set out in print so that it can be corrected immediately if required. Its huge advantage is that everything is done so quickly and so well. Whatever I say immediately gets printed. I don’t care what anyone else thinks, but to me that is quite an advantage with this product. It just saves time and effort on the part of the person who is dictating whatever is being done.

Just think about it. It means that something is being typed so much more quickly than I could ever hope for. If you want to understand what “quickly” means think of this. I am talking about how quickly I can actually type a sentence. It takes me a fair bit of time to do a sentence because I am a terrible typist. Now, DRAGON HOME can finish that sentence in a period of time that is almost exactly the same amount of time that I can dictate something. It is much faster than the previous dictation systems that I used and could well be even faster than a “human” can do it because it can go on continuously without requiring a rest.

Now perhaps, dear reader, will understand why you will have to pay a fee for this kind of a software product that achieves so much for you. Plus, it is NOT an outrageous amount either for something that works so well to help you produce finished documents. I have tried a few others before but there’s no comparison between them and DRAGON HOME.

Yes, you are paying a fee to use DRAGON HOME but if you need it in a job, it certainly will pay for itself quickly as it helps you work so much better.