How to Use Speech-to-Text Dictation for a Quantum Leap in Efficiency [UPDATED]

A deep dive into speech-to-text dictation.

I finally removed the small impediment that was preventing me from fully implementing speech-to-text dictation, and I have realized a quantum leap in efficiency as a result. You owe it to yourself and your clients to take a few minutes to read this article, in order to see the amazing things you can accomplish with this technology.

I’m not talking about dictating files that are then given to your secretary for transcription (although you can do that as well). I’m talking about software that allows you to create documents with your voice, instead of the keyboard. If you are resistance to voice-to-text dictation software, it may come from the fact that your experience was similar to my own.

The only viable dictation software I have experienced is Dragon NaturallySpeaking, by Nuance. (I’ll just refer to it as Dragon.) There have been other programs, and Windows has included speech recognition/dictation since Vista, but from my experience Dragon currently owns this niche. I tried Dragon once long ago (it actually came bundled with WordPerfect at one time) but never really got into it. It required an investment of time to “train” it to your voice, and even then it was only about 90% accurate, and the time spent editing out all the mistakes it created ended up being comparable to what it would have taken to type the document in the first place. In my case, I’ve gone through that process of trying to make it work a couple of more times. I was sent a review copy at some point, and even paid to upgrade it to keep it current, but never got into the habit of using it. However, I finally forced myself to take the time to implement it and to develop my technique, and my efficiency has soared. I am a very fast typist, but I cannot type anywhere near as fast as I talk (no one can, that’s why we pay the big bucks to court reporters, and even they must constantly tell people to slow down). Dragon claims that you can input text with your voice about five times faster than with a keyboard.

With legal briefs to write and multiple law blogs to feed, I need to be able to input text as fast as Einsteinian Physics will allow. I just talk into my computer, even gesturing as though I am explaining something to someone, the only difference being that I end sentences with punctuation and say “new paragraph” when appropriate. I usually don’t look at the computer monitor during the process. I’m too tempted to correct a mistake if I see it, and I found that the time it took to edit by voice (“select ‘Brad Berry’, spell it, B R A D B U R Y, go back”) was the time-consuming part of the process. If I make a mistake, I just say “fix this” and keep going. (I used to just say “crap”, but I didn’t want that to mistakenly end up in a document.) I just get it all into the document and then go back and edit.

You like I’ve modified my technique slightly as I’ve gotten more comfortable with Dragon. If I pause to collect my thoughts, I take a look at the screen and scan what I’ve just dictated. If I see a mistake that just involves replacing a word, I usually fix that with Dragon because it is so fast; faster than using the keyboard in most instances. For example, if I dictated the word “collage” and Dragon heard it as “college”, I just say “correct college”, and Dragon instantly highlights the word and offers a list of all the similar sounding words. Usually, the word I intended is in the number one position. It’s as though Dragon thought I might be saying that word instead of what it used. All I have to do is say, “choose 1” and it’s done. It corrects the word and returns me to where I was in the document.

Writing an article with the keyboard now seems so last millennium. It’s like the scene in the Star Trek movie, where the crew travels to the past (our present), and Scotty sits down at a computer and starts talking. When that doesn’t work, he picks up the mouse and talks into that. Finally, when someone points to the keyboard, Scotty says, “how quaint.”

I use Dragon on my desktop computer at the office and at home, as well as on my laptop. Multiple installations are permitted under the software license:

Dragon is licensed on a “per individual” basis. You are permitted to install the software on more than one computer (such as on a desktop and a laptop computer, or on a work and a home computer), but you cannot use the software concurrently on more than one computer. You are permitted to create multiple voice profiles, so long as each voice profile is for you.

I’ve been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking to a limited extent since version 10, but when I fully incorporated speech-to-text into my practice, Dragon 12 was the current version, which was released in October 2012. Nuance thereafter offered a free upgrade to version 12.5, and either because I was getting more comfortable with the software or the technology got better, that is when it really seemed to hit its stride. The misuse of words (using “threw” when I meant “through”) almost never happens. The accuracy is phenomenal. Even though I’ve been using it for some time now, I am still amazed by the program. Sometimes, even when I mumble, I’ll look up at the screen and see that Dragon got it right. As an example of how good the program has gotten, when I just dictated the word “Dragon”, it knew to use a capital D. Somehow, contextually, it knew I was talking about the program, and not a dragon.

It appears that version 13 was the last to use the “NatruallySpeaking” moniker, and now it is just Dragon, with “Home” and “Individual” versions. Version 13 is still available on Amazon ($58 for Premium), but Nuance stopped supporting it on January 1, 2019. I recommend going for version 15 of Dragon Professional Individual, which currently sells for $244. If you are daring, you can buy version 13 for $58, and then upgrade to version 15. The upgrade is $120 on Amazon, but when you register version 13, Nuance will offer you a $99 upgrade. Thus, you can get Dragon Professional Individual for $157 using the two step process, as opposed to $244 out of the box. I only say you have to be daring because you’ll be buying an unsupported version, so that could be a hassle if you run into installation problems. Do not buy the Home version, which is crippled from some of the cool features I will be discussing.

By the way, I’ll be discussing Dragon’s ability to transcribe audio files in a minute, and Nuance usually offers a bundled “mobile” version that includes a digital recorder for that purpose. If you are considering going that route, be sure to independently research the offered recorder, first to make sure that it is a quality recorder with good reviews, and second just to make sure you couldn’t buy the same recorder separately for far less than the increased bundled price.

I’ve been completely happy will every version since 12.5, but I upgraded to Dragon Professional Individual for a couple of specific new features. Primarily, it allows me to create word combinations that then insert whatever text I have designated. For example if I’m dictating an email, when I say “standard signature block”, Dragon inserts all of my contact information and the disclaimer. I’ve included a video, demonstrating the use of this feature, following this article.

This has turned out to be a real time saver on top of the efficiency I am already realizing from the dictation. For example, when I create a demurrer, I pretty much use the same three paragraphs every time that set forth the legal standards for a demurrer. I can now set it up so that when I say “demurrer law” Nuance will automatically insert those three paragraphs. I could accomplish the same thing with any text expander program, but this is super efficient.

Be sure to click around on Amazon to see what is available, because there are a number of permutations (including MAC versions). For example, at the time I am writing this, you can buy Dragon Professional Individual for $244, but there is a special Dragon Professional Individual BLUETOOTH edition that comes with a Bluetooth headset for $40 more.

There is a Dragon Legal edition that is about $380, but so far as I can tell the only added feature is a built in lexicon for lawyers. For my purposes, I would have no reason to spend that extra money. You can teach Dragon any word, and if it is a unique word that is unlikely to arise in the future, such as a legal term or someone’s name, I use a simple word in substitution, and then do a global search and replace when I go back to edit.

You can do more than dictation with these programs, including operating your computer. For example, you can open your email program, dictate an email to a client and send it without ever touching the keyboard. For me, though, I just use it for the lightning quick entry of text; mostly for articles and legal briefs, and to respond to emails. For court documents, where I will be cutting and pasting research and moving around arguments, I still find that the “quaint” keyboard is the way to go, but even there I use Dragon to speed up the process. To start dictating, you just say “wake up” and the mic turns on and Dragon types whatever you say. So, when I am preparing a brief and come to a point where I am going to insert my brilliant analysis, I just say “wake up”, dictate in all that I want to say, and then say “go to sleep”, at which point I return to typing.

And then there are deposition summaries. For you litigators, using Dragon to prepare deposition summaries is like discovering pen and paper when previously you had always carved your words into stone tablets. I just kick back, often with my feet on my desk, and read the deposition transcript. When I read something that I want to include in the summary, I just say, “23 colon 12 hyphen 17 tab Jones never attended Trump University period new paragraph 23 colon 12 hyphen 17 tab Jones is unaware of any information that would support the negative comments he posted in his Yelp review period”, and it is printed as follows (but lined up better than I can achieve in WordPress):

23:2-5 Jones never attended Trump University.

23:12-17 Jones is unaware of any information that would support the negative comments he posted in his Yelp review.

I’m sure the input method sounds a little strange to the uninitiated, but it becomes perfectly natural, and I estimate I can summarize a deposition transcript in about one-fifth the time it used to take me when I wrote them out by hand or typed them.

Dictation also beats the heck out of OCR.  A good OCR program is a wonderful thing when you have only a printed document that you need to get into your word processing program. But unless you have mad OCR skills that I lack, it is always a frustrating process, especially if I am scanning a court document with pleading numbers. I am apparently not alone in this experience, because when I ask a legal assistant to OCR a document, the usual response is, “can I PLEASE just retype it?” With Dragon, if the portion I need is just a page or two, I can just read it into the document in far less time than I could OCR it, with better results.

Here is a good video that shows Dragon in action with some basic text creation. This video is for version 13, but it is just the same for the other versions.

Notice in the video that she is dictating directly into the documents (Word, Outlook) she is composing. That is how it works for most programs (even WordPerfect!), but if you call up a program that does not link to Dragon, it just opens a dialog box. You dictate what you want, click “transfer”, and the text you just dictated is pasted into whatever program you are using.

A few words about headsets and microphones.

Some of the versions of Dragon come with a headset. The quality of the headset you use will directly impact the accuracy of the dictation (to a point). As you can imagine, the quality of the headset included with the software is going to be a compromise between price and quality. I’ve tested a number of USB headsets, including the one that comes with Dragon, and a Bluetooth headset. I really liked the Bluetooth headset because I could pace while dictating (it seems to help my thinking), but it appeared that the accuracy suffered slightly. (This was not the Bluetooth headset that comes with the Bluetooth edition of Dragon, so I can’t speak to the accuracy of that headset.) Also, the Bluetooth headset created an annoying extra step. You can’t just leave it on because that drains the battery. So, to use it, you have to turn it on and wait a few seconds for it to link with the computer.

Thus, for me, if I’m going to use a headset, I prefer a wired, USB headset. I really like the Vtin Headset since it offers both USB and analog plug, and it’s under $25 at the time of writing.

I mentioned above that I removed the final, small impediment to dictation. I have long used voice-to-text dictation as a supplement to typing, but now it is becoming my primary input method, because I have eliminated the need for a headset. Although headsets presumably give the best accuracy, I don’t like wearing a headset all day, so the headset was providing just enough of an impediment that I would keep typing rather than to take a few seconds to put on the headset. Back when I first started using dictation software, the quality of the headset was essential and, in fact, Nuance published a list of “approved” headphones that would work with its software. Even though I have become a complete zealot as regards dictation, I was still operating under the assumption that a quality headset was essential. Then I happened to notice, while I was upgrading to Dragon Professional, that the instructions included details on how to use your laptop’s internal mic. “Well,” I said to myself, “if I can use the internal mic on my laptop for dictation, why can’t I have a microphone in front of my monitor when I’m using a desktop computer?” It turns out the answer to that question is, “you absolutely can.” I now have a microphone on a desktop stand, just to the left of my keyboard, and the accuracy appears to be just as good as with a headset, which is to say, very good.

With this configuration, speech to text is seamlessly incorporated into all that I do. Before, I thought in terms of whether I was entering a dictation session. If I was about to prepare a brief, I would put on my headset in order to be ready for any dictation. Now, I’ve eliminated that thought process. The microphone sits there patiently, waiting for me to say “wake up” and dictate something. I’ll use Dragon to dictate a single sentence, something I never would have done if I needed to don the headset. Very often, using Dragon is far better than using the keyboard. For example, I can use dictation for more challenging passages, because I don’t have to worry about any tricky spellings.

Watch this. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I knew Dragon would know that word, even though WordPress marks it as misspelled, and offers no suggestions.

At home, I use my podcasting microphone, which is a Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB, which is probably overkill, but I already had it so why not use it. For the office, I ordered an ELEGIANT SF-920 Multimedia Studio Wired Handsfree Condenser Microphone, which is just a cheap $13 condenser mic, but it comes with a stand and looks totally cool on my desk and works great (see photo to confirm the coolness factor). Ironically, I bought this mic thinking it would provide a test of the low end of the spectrum. I already had the Audio-Technica, to test what a quality mic could accomplish with Dragon, so I wanted to see how cheap you could go and still achieve acceptable results. As it turned out, this unassuming little $13 condenser mic is rated very highly. But, while my low-end test was thwarted, the point is moot if you can buy such a quality mic for so little money. Incidentally, as you can see from the photo, this is not a USB mic. Be sure your computer has a convenient analog microphone jack before you buy this mic.

[Bonus: I’ve been using Skype more and more to meet with my clients by video conference, and I’ve been told repeatedly that the sound quality is exceptional. Typically when making a Skype call, the mic and camera are one unit, so the mic is some distance away. With a desktop mic, I can move it much closer to my mouth and thereby eliminate the echo.]

Let me be clear though. A headset has one big advantage over a desktop mic, in that it moves with you. Your mouth needs to be a consistent distance from the mic for the best results with Dragon. With a headset the mic is always the exact same distance from my mouth, even if I am moving around, reading from documents, etc. With a desktop mic, I basically have to be facing forward at all times (although a condenser mic is far more forgiving of a little movement than a dynamic mic). If I’m heading into a heavy-duty dictation session, I still don the headset, but having the mic on my desk makes dictation available to me at all times. Like me, I imagine you’ll end up using both.

You can dictate even when you are away from your computer.

The efficiency does not end with using speech-to-text dictation at your computer. Dragon doesn’t limit you to real-time input with a mic. One of the reasons that you want the “Premium” version of Dragon and not the “Home” version is that Premium will accept dictation files (as does Dragon Professional). Dragon for Windows can recognize .wav, .wma, .dss, ds2 and .mp3 files. Dragon 13 and Dragon Professional also accept m4a files, which is the native file format from iPhone voice dictation. Dragon cautions that these must be in your voice, because the profile is optimized for you. I haven’t tested the claim, but it rings true. I dropped one of my podcast files into Dragon, and was amazed by the accuracy of the output, albeit without any punctuation, because obviously I don’t articulate how a sentence should end during a podcast. So, even when you are away from your computer, you can dictate a letter or whatever, and dump it into Dragon later. The challenge, though, is how to accomplish that “dumping” process.

Dragon Recorder.

Chances are you already have a portable dictation device right there in your pocket or purse. Any smartphone has a built-in app for voice memos, or you can get the Dragon Recorder app for free. With the right set up, you can just plug your smartphone into your computer with a USB cable, and it shows up on your computer as an external drive. You can then just point Dragon to the file(s) you want to transcribe.

For me, that’s too much work, and it has an added complication if I’m using my home computer. There, when I plug in my iPhone, it opens iTunes and syncs my phone. Not a bad thing to happen, but annoying when all I want is to quickly transcribe a file. The Dragon Recorder app avoids all that. When you open Dragon Recorder, all the voice files are there with whatever name you gave them. Assuming your computer and smartphone are on the same wireless network, the Dragon Recorder app sees your computer and provides an IP address for you to enter into your browser. If you enter that IP address, your browser will display all of the files you dictated into your smart phone. Very cool.

Digital Recorder.

I’ve gone a different direction. Instead of my smartphone, I bought and use a digital recorder for my dictation. The Sony ICD-PX440 Digital Voice Recorder can record more than 1,000 hours (!) of voice memos. But unlike most digital recorders, which connect to your computer with a cable, this one has a built-in USB plug. You use it just like a flash drive; plugging into your computer and then accessing the files directly from the recorder. No uploading necessary. But check this out because it gets even better. The Sony Recorder comes with free software called Sound Organizer that automates the upload process if you so desire. When you plug the recorder into your computer’s USB port, it automatically uploads any files. For its part, Dragon will monitor any folder you designate, and automatically transcribe any files if finds there. Put them together, and you have an automated transcription service! Just plug in your Sony Recorder, and you’ll get a message from Dragon when the transcription is completed. Amazing. Even though the digital recorder is one more gadget I have to deal with instead of just recording onto my smartphone, it’s worth it to me because of the form factor and incredible ease of use when dealing with the files.

Dragon Anywhere.

If even that is too much work, you can take all the file transferring out of the transcription process by using Dragon right on your smartphone. Nuance puts Dragon on your smartphone with an app and service called Dragon Anywhere. It works just like Dragon on your computer, but since your smartphone doesn’t have the sort of computing power necessary for speech-to-text dictation, the app uses Nuance’s computers via the Internet. (Incidentally, Siri on the iPhone does the same thing; that’s why you can’t use Siri if you don’t have an Internet connection.) Dragon Anywhere will also propagate your auto text and custom words across all your computers and devices. But this convenience comes at a price of $15 per month (less if you buy longer terms). Yes, it would be convenient to be able to dictate and fully edit a document right on my phone, but as I stated earlier, I don’t really use Dragon to edit. For that reason, I wouldn’t save much if any time over just dictating the document and then editing it on my computer. But if you could make use of the ability to dictate, finalize and send off documents from your phone, this might be the application for you.

A few tips.

Author Scott Baker has written extensively on using Dragon, and offers a free ebook entitled Quick Cheats for Writing with Dragon. Here are three great tips from his guide:

Dictate into your applications.

By default, if Dragon doesn’t natively recognize the application you want to dictate into, it will pop up its own dictation box. That comes with two problems. You’ll have to cut and paste from DragonPad into the app where you want the text, and if resource intensive Dragon decides to crash, it will take dictation box down with it and you’ll lose your work.

To get around this, on the DragonBar, go to Tools, Options, and then Miscellaneous. On that screen uncheck the box for “Use the Dictation box for unsupported applications.”

My own tip, while you have that option box open, there are a number of useful tweaks. You can opt to have Dragon turn on the microphone but place it in sleep mode (thereby saving one click every time), you can adjust the responsiveness of Dragon, and you can decide which menus will be voice-enabled.

Store your voice profile in the cloud.

Dragon’s accuracy improves as you train it, and that information is kept in your profile. If you use Dragon on a desktop and laptop as I do (permitted under the license), you end up training two different profiles. Now, Dragon permits you to maintain a single profile in the cloud.

This can be a tremendous boon, but it depends on your circumstances. You’ll need an internet connection if you want to use the cloud profile, and different mics create different profiles, so you’d need to be using the same mic on both for this to have any application.

Store your smart phone dictation on the cloud.

Taking my dictation discussion one step further, if you use a cloud-based storage such as Microsoft’s OneDrive, then the files you dictate on your cell phone will automatically sync with your computer, ready for transcription.

Resources

If you are ready for a deep dive into speech to text dictation with Dragon, here are some great resources:

Quick Cheats for Writing with Dragon is the free book discussed above. It was written about version 13, but based on my review, all the tips still apply to the latest version of Dragon.

Training Your Dragon is a newly updated book by Baker, including updates for Dragon Individual (version 15).

Here is the video I promised, showing the use of the auto text feature contained in Dragon Professional: