About dictionaries

So I eventually broke down and bought Dragon NaturallySpeaking Home version 11.5. I struggled with the accuracy levels of Windows Speech Recognition for so long, that I decided to just go ahead and try something different. After using Dragon NaturallySpeaking now for a few days, I can absolutely, definitively, tell you all that it is eerily accurate. Without fudging the truth even one little bit, I can claim 99.9% accuracy. In fact, I have typed this entire paragraph without one mistake. Not one.



Now the thing is this, while the accuracy level is through the roof for this program, I actually do not like it for anything else. It simply isn't very good at controlling the computer. It has a lot of difficulty launching programs, and it has nothing like the Show Numbers feature of Windows Speech Recognition. Also, to get macro recording, you have to buy the extremely expensive professional version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. My theory about the program is that it is so accurate because it has a massive dictionary of words, and so I wanted to ask here whether there was a way to add a text-based dictionary to Windows Speech Recognition? I know that you can add words one at a time, but I would like to insert a whole mass of words at one time. Is there any way to do that?

I don't know about that, Marty, Dragon is already somewhat of a resource hog. Running two speech recognitions together, might slow my machine down to an unusable point. ;-) Still, it's an idea I will have to try. In the end, I will probably just return this version of Dragon, and buy the more expensive one. Seems a shame that they don't just include the macro recording features in all versions. :-(

Now I'm starting to consider getting rid of Dragon altogether. Yes, it is as accurate as anyone could ask for when it comes to dictation, but I've realized something… I use speech recognition more for controlling my computer than I do for dictation, and as far as I'm concerned, Dragon fails at control miserably. One of the biggest problems is that it tends to wake up far too easily, and there is no audible signal to let me know that it has started to listen. So, consequently, all kinds of commands are issued before I know that anything is going on. By comparison, Windows Speech Recognition can be asleep while I'm having normal conversations in the household, and it never wakes up until I issue the proper command.