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Mark Blaeuer 07-04-2018 04:29 PM

Dictation software for poets
 
A friend wants to keep writing despite her now-arthritic hands. Does anyone here have experience they'd be willing to share, about which packages (for a PC) might work best to compose poetry? Good and bad points of each? Relevant links?

Thanks in advance for whatever help you can provide!

Roger Slater 07-04-2018 07:21 PM

I haven't tried it myself, but I recently got a notice from Microsoft that they have incorporated dictation into the latest version of Word.

Jim Moonan 07-05-2018 07:31 AM

I used to use the audio feature on my iPhone Notes app quite often, though it sometimes doesn't "hear" you correctly so you've got to monitor it constantly.

Also, Google Drive for laptops/tablets has an application option for creating docs with voice. You first have to insure you've downloaded Google Chrome to your hard drive, then from the home page select Google Drive application, and then open a new document. From there you goto the menu bar and select "Tools" and from the drop down menu select "Voice Typing".

When my father lost his functional vision we found software Dragon (Nuance Dragon) that is specifically designed for speech recognition. He was monumentally technology-challenged so it never worked out, but it's worth a look.

Here is a youtube video of Nuance Dragon software.
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Mark Blaeuer 07-09-2018 10:47 AM

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.

Roger, I noticed that Windows has a voice-to-text accessory built in, but I tried it myself and it seemed a bit clunky. The new Word might turn out better--we use Word for word processing, although both our computers have an older version right now. I'll look into it.

Jim, our desktop already has Chrome loaded, so I'll try the Voice Typing tool as well. I've heard of Nuance Dragon (sorry it didn't work out for your Dad), and I checked out your video link. I want something that requires a minimal number of overt voice commands--punctuation, control of lines, and so forth--so as not to hinder compositional flow. It shouldn't question metaphors, long or incomplete sentences, etc. Editing can wait until a rough draft is done, if that's what the author wants.

This may or may not end in success (read Sam's "The Bard of ViaVoice"), but I'm aiming to find a few options within a couple of weeks, when her birthday comes around. Then she can choose which, if any, she wants to pursue.

Thanks again.

Mark

Roger Slater 07-09-2018 11:18 AM

I don't know if this is the same thing I got email about, but there's something called Dictate that is a plug-in you can use with earlier versions of Word. I haven't tried it myself, but it looks like it's worth checking out. One of the nice dictation features for poets appears to be the "new line" command. http://dictate.ms

By the way, I find my Android phone's native voice recognition to be amazing. I often dictate emails and texts and Google search requests, and the accuracy is incredible. It's come a very long way since just a few years back when voice recognition required lots of voice training and was clunky at best. I still write, though, at a full keyboard since I'm very comfortable writing that way.

Claudia Gary 07-11-2018 10:44 PM

Mark,

I’ve found that on the iPhone, text messages can be dictated using the microphone key to the left of the space bar on the screen. You can, for example, send a text message to your own phone number, and then edit and resend as email. It definitely would need to be checked over and have linebreaks added.

This might also be an easy way for anyone to avoid initial caps on each line of a poem. Otherwise (on an iPhone or iPad) you can do that by tapping the shift key before typing the first letter on a line.

Good luck,

Claudia

Claudia Gary 07-11-2018 10:52 PM

(Sorry, double-posted)

marly youmans 07-13-2018 03:16 PM

I've thought about Dragon but have not tried it... But I did see a site with lots of comments from writers...

Think this is it: a post on voice recognition software. It's all comments from self-published writers, it seems. One of them uses Dragon because of hand problems: “I love Dragon! I have physical problems with my hands and have used Dragon & its predecessors for years. I used to work as a social worker for social services and it was a little more basic at one time. Then Dragon bought out its competitors and concentrated on improving it. Now it is superb, even straight out of the box it has a pretty good rate of accuracy but it has lessons for you to read an excerpt from a book on the screen and it matches each word with your speech until it gets it right. It is so much quicker than writing too.”

I'd love to hear what she chooses and how she likes it. (I have rather weak hands--from issues during pregnancies, not arthritis--and now and then consider something like this.)


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