Writer Sanctum
Writer's Haven => Writer's Workshop [Public] => Topic started by: Angstriddengoddess on October 27, 2018, 12:13:45 AM
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I am afraid to meddle with Dragon. Not only am I crunchy and taste good with ketchup, I hear horror stories about all versions. (Except there are enough people who sing its praises that I wonder if I could make use of it.)
Question for all you ketchup-bespattered Dragon users: have you tried using Dragon for transcription?
I've got a long commute through the lonely countryside to get from home to work. I've taken to recording my day's writing stint and then typing it up when I get home. But I just listened to Chris Fox's book on 5000 Words an Hour. He records scenes as voice memos and then has Dragon transcribe them. That might work for me. I'd far rather use Dragon's transcription feature and just edit what's on the page. (Hey, I'm going to edit it anyway.)
I own a Mac, and I read that Dragon For Mac works for transcription if you use plain text and don't try to use it in Word or Scrivener or whatnot. Has anyone tried that? (I know they're not going to continue selling it, but from the sound of things they didn't support it much to begin with.)
I've tried Dragon Anywhere, but I can't use it on the commute since it requires Internet. Anyway, I really don't like the idea of monthly payments and Software-as-a-Service models. (Used to work for a SaaS company. Not a fan.)
I suppose I could break down and buy a PC or a Microsoft Surface Tablet. Has anyone tried Dragon transcription on a tablet?
Or I could always hire a handsome secretary to take dictation while I drive. Good inspiration for writing romance, but he might prove too distracting.
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Yes.
Nice simple answer! I use Dragon on an old Mac (can’t remember the version number, but it’s a couple of versions old). I dictate into a Sony dictaphone voice recorder, and get about 95% and up accuracy from the imported files.
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The thing about using the Dragon transcription feature is you need the Pro version. The Home version doesn't have the transcription feature. That being said, it really isn't necessary if you're dictating into your phone. Every smart phone I've ever used has speech-to-text capabilities. I just record whatever I want to say into the phone, it automagically converts it to text and I email that to my desktop. When I get home I just copy that text into my document file and format it to fit the manuscript. Takes all of one or two minutes to paste it into the novel.
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That's good to know Dragon transcription works on older Mac version.
I've tried the iPhone's Speech-to-Text feature, but I've found a couple drawbacks. It only records for a paragraph or two, so just when I'm getting warmed up the dang thing cuts off. Turns out it needs to communicate with Apple's servers to process the text. Which brings me to the other problem: it also requires Internet access. Not always possible on my commute.
I can see it would be useful if you just wanted to leave a reminder to yourself to pick up cat food. :catrun
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And thanks for the tip about using the Pro instead of the Home version! I didn't know that.
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It depends on what kind of accuracy you’re looking for. I’m a Mac user all the way, except for running the newest Dragon pro on parallels. AFAIK the Mac version can not learn from corrections, so the error rate you get on day one is probably the best you every will, barring any improvements in the audio quality of your recordings.
With the pc pro version you can open your transcribed file in dragon pad and correct it the same way you correct when dictating into a document and dragon learns from those corrections. The last time I checked I was averaging 98% accuracy. I don’t have the patience to correct more than I have to, so for me the inconvenience of dragon on parallels is worth it. That said, it sounds like transcription would be efficient for you, and if I were in your shoes I’d go for the Mac version over not using transcription at all.
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I though Macs had a pretty good Dragon equivalent built in?
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I though Macs had a pretty good Dragon equivalent built in?
They do, but not quite as accurate (and tricky to use on a commute!).