NaturallySpeaking
Speech-recognition programs have traditionally been far more advanced on Windows than on the Macintosh. Windows programs like Dragon NaturallySpeaking transcribe your dictated text with almost Star Trek–like accuracy, and even let you make corrections and manipulate the computer itself using all voice commands.
Fortunately, the Mac program called MacSpeech Dictate (www.macspeech.com) uses precisely the same “recognition engine” as NaturallySpeaking. If you just can’t use the keyboard, or don’t want to, you’ll be amazed at its speed and accuracy, although it’s much younger (and therefore less fully featured) than NaturallySpeaking.
Finally, of course, there’s Mountain Lion’s built-in Dictation feature (Dictation). It’s a bare-bones, down-and-dirty transcription feature that doesn’t give you the same accuracy as Dictate. But it’s built-in and free, which is worth quite a bit.
Get Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Mountain Lion Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
