Originally Posted by
PTravel
DragonSpeak is good. However, Vista has voice recognition built in that works brilliantly with Microsoft Word -- as long as you speak clearly, it will recognize natural speech, i.e. just dictate, no need to go word-at-a-time.
I wouldn't necessarily recommend getting Vista just for this feature, but if you already have it, it works great.
Note, too, that which ever solution you use, a good microphone and quiet environment is critical.
The microphone needs to be a headset king with the "boom" that rests a constant distance in front of your mouth. Acoustic variations affect the accuracy a great deal. I was hoping to use the program to transcribe lectures. However, even with a good microphone just walking about the room and the variations in volume and pitch one uses in speaking to a group were enough to make it useless.
In an office, "dictation voice" and compared to theatrical voice? It is great.