Dragon Dictate for Mac, version 4 merges fast, accurate speech recognition and versatile transcription to fit the way you work. Dictate and edit documents, send email, transcribe voice memos from. Setting up the headset with a new profile You will need to create a profile so that Dragon Dictate can get used to your voice, your microphone, and your speech. Plug the headset's USB adapter into your Mac and make sure your headset is charged, powered on, and paired and connected with the adapter. I created several forms that I use in ebay listings. They have multiple text form fields. In windows I used Naturally Speaking to dictate information into the fields. When I switched to Mac I got Dragon Dictate for Mac and Word for Mac and it all worked fine. I upgraded to Office 2011 and it still seemed to work fine.
- Dragon Dictate For Mac 2.5
- How To Use Dragon Dictate For Mac Manual Online
- How To Use Dragon Dictate For Mac Manual 2016
If you have mobility or motor impairments, repetitive stress injuries, or you find typing on a keyboard difficult in any way, there's an alternative. Dictation lets you talk instead of type, and voice-to-text transcribes what you say into words on the screen. It's among the Mac's many accessibility features. All you have to do is set it up and get going.
How to enable and use Dictation
Basic dictation is essentially always enabled by default — you just need to activate it.
- Click into a text area like a document or the address bar of your web browser.
- Double-press the Fn key. A microphone will appear on your screen and if it's receiving audio, you'll see activity inside of it.
- Speak the text you want to type. You can speak various punctuation and symbols, including brackets, percent signs, and more. You can also say phrases like 'caps on' to turn on capital letters.
- Click Done under the microphone icon or press the Fn key once when you're finished dictating.
The more you use Dictation, the more it learns how you speak — like your accent and cadence. It may seem finicky at first, but as you use it more, it'll get better and better. Apple has a great starter guide on how to dictate punctuation and formatting, as well.
How to change your Dictation language
Did you know that you can dictate your text in multiple languages? Here's how.
- Open System Preferences from your Dock or Applications folder.
- Click Keyboard.
- Click Dictation.
- Click the drop-down next to Language.
- Click Add Language…
- Click the checkboxes next to languages that you wish to add.
- Click OK.
To use those languages, you can switch to the default dictation option at any time by going to System Preferences > Keyboard > Dictation Language and selecting your current language from the dropdown menu.
How to enable and use Enhanced Dictation
Enhanced Dictation enables you to dictate without an internet connection, and dictate continuously; this means that your words will convert to text more quickly since they're being processed locally on your device.
- Open System Preferences from your Dock or Applications folder.
- Click Keyboard.
- Click Dictation.
- Click the checkbox next to Use Enhanced Dictation. Enhanced Dictation will take several minutes to download if you haven't done so already.
Once enabled, you can use Enhanced Dictation the same way you would regular dictation. Press the Fn key twice when your cursor is in a text field. If the microphone shows up, speak what you want to be typed and click Done or press the Fn key once.
How to change the Dictation keyboard shortcut
While the Fn key on your Mac's keyboard is the default trigger for dictation, you can change that in the Dictation section of the keyboard preference pane
- Open System Preferences from your Dock or Applications folder.
- Click Keyboard.
- Click Dictation.
- Click the drop-down menu next to Shortcut.
- Click an option in the list or click Customize to create your own (seems like only the arrow keys work).
How to enable/disable Dictation Commands
Dictation Commands allow you to do things with your text just by speaking. For example, you can select a whole paragraph, go back to the beginning, or replace a phrase with another phrase.
You can only use Dictation Commands with Enhanced Dictation enabled.
- Click the Apple menu button on the top left of your screen.
- Click System Preferences.
- Click Accessibility.
- Click Dictation in the menu on the left. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find it.
- Click Dictation Commands…
- Click the checkbox next to each dictation command you'd like to disable. They're all enabled by default.
- Click Done in the bottom right corner of the window.
Reading through the Dictation Commands list is a great way to learn all the things you can do with text just by speaking to your Mac. You can also click the checkbox next to Enable advanced commands, which will enable system commands.
How to enable the dictation keyword phrase
Want to feel like you're in a sci-fi movie? Enable the dictation keyword phrase and you'll be able to use dictation commands even when you're not dictating. So you can be all 'computer, replace 'boots' with 'cats',' and the phrase will be replaced in your text. It's a bit finicky, but when it works, it's so cool!
You have to have Enhanced Dictation enabled for this to work.
- Click the Apple menu button on the top left of your screen.
- Click System Preferences.
- Click Accessibility.
- Click Dictation in the menu on the left. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find it.
- Click the checkbox next to Enable the dictation keyword phrase.
- Enter a keyword phrase if you want to change it from 'Computer'. (But if you leave it as 'Computer', you sound like the captain of a spaceship!)
Now when your cursor is in a text field, you can just say the keyword phrase and your dictation command and it'll do it.
How to enable a sound when a command is recognized
You have to have Enhanced Dictation enabled for this to work.
- Click the Apple menu button on the top left of your screen.
- Click System Preferences.
- Click Accessibility.
- Click Dictation in the menu on the left. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find it.
- Click the checkbox next to Play sound when command is recognized.
How to enable/disable output mute during dictation
If you accidentally open a website with an autoplay video or you're listening to music but want to dictate something quickly, you can mute audio output during dictation so that you don't have to manually fiddle around with volume.
You must have Enhanced Dictation enabled to use this feature.
- Click the Apple menu button on the top left of your screen.
- Click System Preferences.
- Click Accessibility.
- Click Dictation in the menu on the left. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find it.
- Click the checkbox next to Mute audio output while dictating.
Dictation accessibility in macOS Catalina
In macOS Catalina, Apple has opted to change things up a bit regarding dictation and accessibility. While there was previously a section for accessibility options for dictation in System Preferences, those capabilities have been folded into the new Voice Control accessibility feature. Voice Control is a greatly expanded set of capabilities that allow you to control every aspect of your Mac, including text entry, with your voice.
Great accessories for your Mac
Apple AirPods 2(From $159 at Apple)
The best Apple accessory has gotten betting with AirPods 2. Now offering a wireless charger case, the popular earbuds feature the new Apple H1 headphone chip that delivers a faster wireless connection to your devices, as well as support for 'Hey Siri.'
Bose Companion 20($250 at Amazon)
These beautiful speakers offer a balanced sound in a stylish package. With no knobs on the front, a small pod attached to the right speaker controls volume, which also holds the ports for your headphones or other audio devices.
Questions?
Dictation questions? Let us know in the comments below!
Updated July 2019: Updated instructions for macOS Mojave and added a section about what's happening with dictation accessibility in macOS Catalina.
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We've covered Dragon Dictate—a program that allows you to dictate into your favorite application, to save time and effort typing—over several iterations now. But the recently released Dragon Dictate 3 () adds a transcription feature that can be useful in certain situations. Here's how that feature works and how you can take advantage of it.
About transcription
Transcription differs from standard speech recognition. Instead of sitting in front of your computer and dictating with an application open, you dictate into a portable digital recorder or an iPhone. Nuance's free Dragon Recorder iOS app lets you make voice recordings on an iPhone, and many companies sell portable digital recorders.
Dragon Dictate is a speaker-dependent program, meaning that you start by creating a voice profile and Dragon Dictate interprets the sounds it hears based on this profile. For this reason, you can't use Dragon Dictate's transcription feature for meetings or interviews. (Nuance says that it plans to update its MacSpeech Scribe transcription program, which doesn't run on OS X 10.7 or 10.8, but which can transcribe audio without requiring an existing profile. The company did not say when it expects to release the updated program.)
How to dictate for transcription
You don't have to pay attention to how your words will look on your computer screen when recording your voice for transcription, but you still need to think about it and use the special words that tell Dragon Dictate when to insert punctuation, when to skip lines, when to capitalize words, and more. You need to speak like this:
Today comma I had a meeting with John comma Susan and Charlie about the caps on open house caps off comma and we agreed that we would plan to hold it on January 7 period
Once you get used to working with Dragon Dictate, these special words will become second nature; but if you don't use them when you dictate into a portable recorder, the transcribed text will appear as one long run-on paragraph.
As I said earlier, you can use Nuance's Dragon Recorder iOS app on an iPhone, or you can use a portable digital recorder. I tested the transcription feature using a Philips Voice Tracer—a small, lightweight handheld digital recorder.
If you're using the Dragon Recorder iOS app, transfer files by connecting your iPhone to your Mac, going to iTunes, clicking on the iPhone in the iTunes source list,and then clicking the Apps tab. Look for Dragon Recorder in the list of apps in the File Sharing section, then click on it. You'll see files listed in the pane to the right. Click the file that you want to copy to your Mac, and then click Save To and save the file. (Dragon Recorder also offers Wi-Fi sharing, but working via Wi-Fi can be slow if you have big files to transfer.)
If you're using a portable digital recorder, connect it to your Mac with its USB cable, click its icon in the Finder's sidebar, and then look in the folders that you see. The Voice Tracer's Voice folder contains four subfolders. Look inside those folders to find your voice files, and copy the files to your Mac.
Transcribing with Dragon Dictate
Launch Dragon Dictate, choose Tools > Transcription, locate your file, and click Open. The first time Dragon Dictate performs a transcription, it will display a small window that analyzes 20 seconds of your speech. If you see any mistakes, click the displayed text and correct the errors. This will help Dragon Dictate transcribe your speech more efficiently.
Once you've completed the speech check, Dragon Dictate will transcribe your speech file. This may take a fair amount of time, depending on how much content you dictated; but you'll be able to see the progress on screen, because Dragon Dictate displays the text as it interprets it. Unlike 'live' dictation with Dragon Dictate, corrections that you make to the transcribed text won't affect your voice profile.
Dragon Dictate is not designed to learn from files that it has transcribed. You'll notice that the program's accuracy is a bit lower than when you're working at your desk. This is, in part, because of the way transcription works, but also because most of the texts you transcribe will be recordings made on the go. Some people use transcription to take notes during the day (in the car, in a plane, in a waiting room) and because the audio conditions you're recording under may be far from ideal. The iPhone 5's microphone is much improved over previous models, and many digital voice recorders offer some active noise reduction, but the sound quality will always be at least a little worse than you'd get in a quiet office.
If you’re performing dictation with an iOS device, make sure that you have enough free storage space to handle the job. Dragon Recorder saves audio files in .wav format, and these files take up about 2.7MB per minute. If you prefer to use a digital recorder, you should be aware that, though Dragon Dictate 3 can recognize a number of audio file formats (.mov, .wav, .aiff, .m4v, and .m4a), it does not support .mp3 files.
Dragon Dictate For Mac 2.5
Unfortunately, many digital recorders—such as the Philips Voice Tracer that I used in my tests—support only .wav and .mp3 files, which means that you’ll need to use the uncompressed .wav format that takes up the most space. Some recorders support only .wma and .mp3 and you can’t bring the audio file directly into Dragon Dictate 3. Most people won’t run out of space on their digital recorder, but if you do a lot of dictation, keep this limit in mind and consider get a recorder with more room. (The standard 2GB digital recorder holds about 3 hours of recording in .wav format.)
Transcribing interviews
How To Use Dragon Dictate For Mac Manual Online
As noted earlier, you can't transcribe interviews directly, but you can obtain a transcript of an interview by a method sometimes called parrot speaking; it involves listening to a recording of an interview on headphones and repeating into a recording device everything that the interviewer and the interviewee say. Since Dragon Dictate can transcribe your voice, but not the voice of the people in the interview, you can feed the parroted file into the program. To some extent, this arrangement resembles simultaneous interpretation, where an interpreter hears someone speak in one language and then, in turn, provides an oral translation in another language. Here, you won't be switching languages, but a similar mental process is involved: You hear something, and then you speak it.
How To Use Dragon Dictate For Mac Manual 2016
Once you get hooked on dictation, you'll look for ways to use it as much as possible. Transcription is one way to use dictation even when you're not in front of your computer. As long as you have good hardware, know how to dictate, and are willing to accept the limitations of the technology, it can save you a lot of time.