You speak (into a microphone) and the words you say appear on the screen. You can also use your voice to issue commands that open up particular files or programs, or even to click a particular point on the screen. The voice dictation software I use is, without a doubt, the industry leader: Dragon NaturallySpeaking produced by Nuance. There are different products, but most people can get by with the two lower end options, now called “Home” and “Premium.” Home is about about a hundred bucks, Premium twice that. You can buy them online, or at your standard Best Buy type store. At the time of this writing, Nuance is about to release version 11. I’m currently using version 9.5, (Update May 9, 2011: I’m now using version 10 and generally consider it an improvement. I’ve heard strongly negative things about the current Dragon release, version 11.) because I have zero confidence in any software company’s ability to adequately test its product before they release it. (Plus, as you will read, I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got.) I use the version for Windows, but they do have options for the Mac, which I cannot claim to have any experience with. There are other voice dictation software tools that can be found on the web, though I know little about them.
#FREE DICTATION SOFTWARE FOR MY LAPTOP MAC OS#īoth the current versions of Windows and the Mac OS have some kind of built-in voice dictation functionality which I presume to be underwhelming, though I’m open to being convinced otherwise. #FREE DICTATION SOFTWARE FOR MY LAPTOP MAC OS#.#FREE DICTATION SOFTWARE FOR MY LAPTOP HOW TO#.