Dictation Using the XP Language Bar

[Guest]

I have been trying to use the dictation feature of the language bar that
comes with XP for some time now. None of the programs I use it in – Word,
Outlook, IE, etc., seems to accept the dictation. I have been through all
the tutorials – the mic is on, the computer can hear me, the “train profileâ€
operation has been completed, and Word has been told to accept speech. When
I activate the mic on the language bar, and pull up Word or IE, it says
“Listening†in the balloon, but it never types.

The command tool of the language bar does not function either, but I don’t
really need it to.

I’m just trying to save myself time in typing, as I write a lot of essays
for college. Can anyone help?

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I have been trying to use the dictation feature of the language bar that
comes with XP for some time now. None of the programs I use it in - Word,
Outlook, IE, etc., seems to accept the dictation. I have been through all
the tutorials - the mic is on, the computer can hear me, the "train
profile"
operation has been completed, and Word has been told to accept speech.
When
I activate the mic on the language bar, and pull up Word or IE, it says
"Listening" in the balloon, but it never types.

The command tool of the language bar does not function either, but I don't
really need it to.

I'm just trying to save myself time in typing, as I write a lot of essays
for college. Can anyone help?

You've been through everything here?
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q306537

Bear in mind that speech recognition at any level isn't particularly good,
and there are good reasons it isn't widely used.

After you spend time training the computer in how to recognise your voice,
and spend time training your voice to what the computer needs, you're going
to have to go through the documents word by word anyway. If you don't,
you're going to wind up with embarassing (and potentially costly) whoppers
that spellcheckers and grammar checkers won't come close to fixing.

Homonyms are always going to be a problem, and any word the system doesn't
recognise will be guessed at. This is why real-time court reporters and
captioners are still guaranteed lots of work.

So, don't get your hopes too high. You may find it's faster and more
effective to take keyboarding speed and accuracy lessons.

As well, note that the speech recognition engines *will* slow down your
system, and you may find that the dictation process produces less text over
time than keyboarding does.

HTH
-pk