Diagnosing Dragon Problems

	How to Treat a Sick Dragon Updated 05/25/02. (Includes version 6)

If you followed all the training procedures (training not yet updated for verison 6) at http://BRIGHTOK.NET/EDROSE/page9.html
and Dragon NaturallySpeaking is still not performing well, it might be time to:

Call your local PVAR (Dragon PremierPartner) and arrange for evaluation of your hardware/software setup and training in the use, care and feeding of NaturallySpeaking. How do you find a Dragon PremierPartner in your city, I hear you asking? Mine is A.E.C. Solutions, Inc. in Oklahoma City I found him in the Yellow Pages, under the category, "Voice Recognition".
Read the NaturallySpeaking technical data base (You may have to register to view it. (this is link to version 7) link to tech notes.
tune in to Dragon's Forum - There is a new Dragon Forum that requires registration in order to post. If you are already registered or just want to read the Forum, you can go directly to it here. To read, in latest date order, the new forum out of frames, click here. BIG FAT WARNING: The forum is unbelievably slow and non hands free friendly!
Join the VoiceGroup. This group of "e-mail buddies" support each other in the use of voice recognition software. Many great tips can be found. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VoiceGroup
Read: First of the Rose Tips -How to: change command names in earlier versions. How to: Change Command Names in Version 6.
Read: Second of the Rose Tips - Thou Shalt
Read: Third of the Rose Tips - Make a List Macro (not yet updated for version 6)
Read: VERSION 6 Rose Tips - VERSION 6 MACRO WRITING TIPS
READ: On going list of little Rose Tips - MINIATURES
READ: On going list of little Rose Tips for version 6 -
Take a look at Joel Gould's Unofficial NaturallySpeaking web page (Updated 01/00) for tips, explanations and great utilities (like VocEdit) and the best thing since VocEdit GetWord & PutWords at: http://www.synapseadaptive.com/joel/default.htm Consider the following:

get the best computer, sound board, microphone you can afford. (problems have been reported with built-in chip sound on Dell, Gateway and on some AMD and Cirrus processors)

For Nat version 6.x, the consensus in the voice-users group is a minimum of a PIII 650 with 512 RAM

Read Rose's Rant on "minimum system requirements" - written about version 3.01 (equally true of version 6)

Read more of Rose's rantings at the RoseThorns page

Keep your version of Windows as current as possible. For upgrades to all versions of Win95, Win 98, NT & 2000 without using the annoying Windows Update feature, look at the bottom of this page.

Still using Win 95 OSR2? - - great info at: OSR2FAQ

(NOTE: With Nat v 5.0 Win95 is no longer supported)

Have Win98? Want to get rid of I.E., turn off animations, convert to FAT32? See: http://www.annoyances.org/win98

Have Win2000? (Dragon Systems supported starting with version 5.0 of Nat) See: http://web.ukonline.co.uk/cook/Win2000.htm and http://www.annoyances.org/win2000/

Have WinXP or want to learn more about .net? (like to live on the bleeding edge, do you?) Go here.

THE NUMBER ONE BEST WINDOWS REFERENCE SITE!

System Resources - After a cold boot of your system, try to have your system resources (find them at Control Panel|System|Performance) at 97% or higher. The following may help you achieve that:

Run as "clean and mean" a machine as you can. Remove everything possible from your StartUp folder, autoexec.bat, config.sys and from the "load" "run" lines in win.ini. Use no animated icons, cursors, screen savers, task bar utilities, etc. BIG NOTE FOR VERSION 6 WITH MS WORD USERS: do NOT delete the Microsoft Office entry that Nat 6 installs in StartUp. (doing so will remove your select & say capabilities in Word)
Press {Alt+Ctrl+Del} one time to see a list of "TSR" running. Decide if you can turn some of them off to free more resources. Here is a lookup for file extension. Here is a handy look up for common "TSR"s.
If using Win98, Run msconfig.exe and uncheck everything in StartUp EXCEPT Microsoft Office - you can reselect them if necessary.
As part of your system housekeeping duties, delete the contents of your default windows temp directory (usually C:\windows\temp); contents of your internet temp directory and run scan disk and defrag - on a regular basis.
Consider adding the following line to your autoexec.bat in order to have all files automatically empty from your default windows temp directory (line assumes that your system's default temp directory is c:\windows\temp\):

@ECHO Y | DEL C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\*.* >NUL

Run as few programs at the same time as you can and still get your work done. Realize that some programs, as they are opened and closed, do not return all resources so reboot your system periodically
Learn more about "Dll Hell" and how it may be solved in Win2000.
Download and install necessary patches to M$ Office (assuming you actually have decided to use it)
Order SP4 for Wordperfect 9 (Corel Office2000) now available on CD
New service patch for WordPerfect 10 here.
If you still have WordPerfect 8, strongly consider upgrading to version 9 or 10 - solves 99% of the problems some have experienced when using Nat with WP.
Click here for help with the "jumpin' cursor" & "jumbled text" in WP8
help with WORDPERFECT and Word.
In WordPerfect and Word, turn off all auto correct features (like "replace words as you type", etc.)
In Word97, turn off Allow Fast Saves (under Tools, Options, Save). This option is supposedly the #1 top cause of corrupted files in Word and it's on by default! Also TURN ON Always Create Backup Copy (same place).
Disable FindFast in Office and QuickFinder in WordPerfect
For current users of Nat 3.52 and Nat 4.x (UPGRADE TO VERSION 6!) who wish to use Nat to dictate directly into Corel WordPerfect Office2000 (aka WP9), WP8, as well as those dictating into Word97 and Word2000, NaturalWord SP1

BIG NOTE: If you are using WP9 with few problems with Nat do NOT INSTALL NaturalWord SP1 - it offers little improvement but removes your ability to "UNDO THAT" - by voice or by keystroke!

Merge your command files and vocabularies into NaturallySpeaking Professional v4.0 quickly and easily with NaturalCommand Merge & NaturalVoc Merge.

Special Interest Voice Recognition Groups:

Want to learn how to write NatPro macros, especially in the new version 6? Why not join our NatPro Macro Writers Group. see subscription box, bottom of this page. Or click here to go directly to box
Interested in voice recognition in the field of medicine? http://www.onelist.com/community/medspeech
Learning Joel Gould's NatLink for NaturallySpeaking with Python and want to get together with others for idea sharing? Sign up at: http://harvee.billerica.ma.us/mailman/listinfo/natpython
Think you can't program by voice? You will want to see:

http://www.onelist.com/community/VoiceCoder

VoiceCoder FAQ

http://ii2.ai.iit.nrc.ca/VoiceCode/

interested in Speech recognition in linux, there is mailing list. DDinux subscription page.
Interested in voice recognition and children? See: http://www.edc.org/spk2wrt/spk2wrt.html

Macros, macros and more macros can be found at:

Home of MacroViewer and other J. Epstein developments (if you want to write macros, don't miss this page): http://voicerecognition.org/developers/jepstein/dnsMacroViewer/
Need Dragon Dictate (not nat) voice macros? See: http://www.perigee.net/~gttracy/speech.html
Great sites for DragonDictate & NaturallySpeaking macros:

http://www.inficad.com/~chadt/dragon/natmacros/frames.html

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~dcfox/dragon/index.html

Kimberly Patch has the nicest user-created collection of Nat macros I've seen, together with full documentation.
David Austin offers a free utility, "SayWhat" for organization of macros (version 4 & 5 only) plus some version 6 tips at: http://www.speechutilities.com/
Want to learn to write Nat Professional Edition Macros for use with WordPerfect 8,9 &10? Macros are stored in the NatPro/WP8,9,10 archives for members only but everyone with interest in writing Macros for Nat and WP are welcome to join.

Thank you and a Rose for: thankyou

More to Come......This document was produced by voice using Rose's version of Dragon Dictate 3.02 and Corel WordPerfect Suite 8.0

Ruth Rose

If you have any suggestions/comments for this site, feel free to put them in the
Rose's Guest Book.

Click to subscribe to NatPro Macro Writers Group

This Page Last Updated 02/14/02