Dragon NaturallySpeaking: Dictating the 314 utterances with DNS, I finished the draft in 159 seconds, for a rate of 126 words per minute. Now compare that to what it took in Dragon NaturallySpeaking and Windows Speech Recognition. Correcting brought the time to 475 seconds, for a throughput of 34 words per minute.

There were 25 errors, giving an accuracy rate of 91 percent.

Also for the purposes of comparison I used dictionary words, not five-keystroke words.įirst, I timed how long it took to type it in. Keyboarding the document’s 271 words took 314 seconds, representing 51 words per minute. Pronouncing all its punctuation marks - as you have to do with speech recognition - makes it 314 words long. Here’s my product review shootout, pitting Windows Speech Recognition and Dragon NaturallySpeaking head-to-head.įor purposes of comparison, I used a widely-circulated government document known as “Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.” Typed, it has 271 words. How do the two perform with actual document production? I put each to the test. Yet it comes with the necessary microphone, not to mention far more extensive documentation.Īfter that top-line comparison, the easiest way to answer the question as to what program is technically best at what it was built for lies in the real world. Īs for Dragon NaturallySpeaking, you have to pay for DNS and install it. But you can’t use it until you acquire and install a suitable headset microphone and then figure out how to invoke the software. Well, WSR is free and is already installed. Of two leading options - Nuance Communications’ Dragon NaturallySpeaking (DNS) and Windows’ built-in Windows Speech Recognition (WSR) - which one is better? And at what? Deep dive …įor general purpose desktop dictation you have two choices: Windows Speech Recognition (WSR), an unheralded feature that’s actually built into Microsoft Windows, or Dragon NaturallySpeaking (DNS), an off-the-shelf software package from Nuance Communications. In his continuing series covering speech recognition, our Lamont Wood asks the ultimate question.

Dragon naturally speaking mac vs pc