Someone asked me recently whether their friend should purchase Dragon Home or Dragon Premium.

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• Dragon Professional For Mac
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@CharJTF I'll blog about this, but always Premium. Extensible. Compatible with Excel and PPT. Lets you do text and graphics macros. @jfc3

The 15 Best Mac Apps to Make Everyday Life Easier Apple's macOS is a good operating system, but it's missing some key ingredients. Try these programs to get the most out of your Mac. Cons: I have Dragon 15 and a normal update notice popped up on my screen. I like to keep my software up to date so I clicked update now. The next day I go to use my Dragon and it won't accept my user profile. Being a quadriplegic it took many hours to add custom words/phrases/or things that make Dragon work the best that he can for me.

• A life‑saving idea. When Raghu Vemula first formed the Nuance cross‑functional team that created PowerShare, his goal was to improve the cumbersome and time‑consuming process of sharing radiology imaging among medical providers and hospitals.
• Product Title Nuance 362334 Dragon Naturally Speaking Home Version. Average rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 2 reviews 2 ratings Current Price $89.99 $ 89.

— Eric Wright (@ewaccess) October 15, 2014

Get Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 13 for Windows. Dragon Home is missing useful features. Most of Dragon Professional’s useful functionality can be achieved using third party tools.

Expanding the question from Dragon Home vs. Dragon Premium to the whole universe of Dragon-brand computer products, the question of which one to buy is more complicated than it should be. It involves three factors that I’ll consider below:

• Which platform (Dragon NaturallySpeaking for Windows, or Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac)?
• Which version (For Dictate, 3 or 4. For NaturallySpeaking, the latest version is 13)?
• Which edition (Home, Premium, Professional, Legal, or Medical)?

This decision is the easiest one to make. If you want to run Dragon on Windows, get Dragon NaturallySpeaking. If you want to run Dragon on Mac, do you want to use Mac OS while doing it?

For the Mac

Quite simply, if you’re using a Mac and you want to run a Dragon program designed to run natively on Mac OS, you should get Dragon Dictate for Mac. The current version of Dragon Dictate for Mac is version 4. Personally, I’m still using version 3. I wrote a Dragon Dictate 3 review in 2012. Truth is, not much has changed about Dragon Dictate since then. The core speech engine (which recognizes your voice and transcribes it to text) is better with each version, but in terms of new features and capability from its predecessor, Dragon Dictate 4 was such an incremental upgrade over its predecessor that I wasn’t compelled to write about it. My Dictate 3 review stands.

Dragon Dictate for Mac isn’t the only option for Dragon users on Mac hardware. You can install Dragon NaturallySpeaking (the Windows version of Dragon) on Windows, provided you can install Windows on an Intel-based Mac. If you go this route, you can either install NaturallySpeaking on Windows using Boot Camp or you can install NaturallySpeaking from within a virtual machine.

Personally, I run Dragon NaturallySpeaking on my MacBook Air using a VirtualBox virtual machine. People have written volumes on whether BootCamp or virtualization is superior. Suffice it to say that Dragon NaturallySpeaking 13 runs very well on my virtual machine (Intel i7 Processor, 4 GB of RAM, 60 GB SSD), but that if I were looking to get a computer specifically to run Dragon NaturallySpeaking then I would get a Windows PC. Virtual machines are convenient for when you occasionally need something from multiple operating systems, but they’re not worth consistent, intense resource usage (by which I mean the whirring fans and toasty lap) that come from hours of dictating on a FrankenMac.

For the PC

If you’re going to get DNS, the question of which version number to get is easy. Always get the latest version that you can afford. Unlike Dragon Dictate, each release of Dragon NaturallySpeaking is faster, less-resource intensive, and more powerful than its predecessors. Dragon NaturallySpeaking 13 is the best version of Dragon there has ever been. The only caveat to the advice is to always get the latest version of Dragon that you can afford is to avoid Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 or 11.5. Version 11 introduced a new UI and a new speech model. Both of those things were ultimately useful (and they have been carried over and improved upon in subsequent versions), but at the new speech model introduced significant latency that made Dragon borderline unusable for users who weren’t comfortable changing their speech model and modifying the options.ini file.

You want Dragon NaturallySpeaking 13 Premium. This is true if you are:

• New to Dragon
• A user who is not concerned with full voice control of their computer or automating complex tasks with voice macros
• A web accessibility professional looking for a cheap, fully capable testing tool
• A user with a disability who wants a cheap alternative to Dragon Professional for personal use

But Dragon Home is cheaper! Can’t I just get that?

You could, but you probably shouldn’t. If you like speech computing at all, you’ll quickly become frustrated by its shortcomings. Nuance offers a helpful Feature Comparison Matrix [PDF] that itemizes the differences between Dragon Home and Dragon Premium.

Among some of the things you can do with Premium that you can’t do with Home:

• You can dictate into Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint, and control those programs by voice.
• Advanced Correction plays back what you said (in your own voice) while you edit your document. Knowing exactly what sounds Dragon transcribed is essential when trying to decide how to effectively correct any mistakes it makes.
• You can use Dragon with a mobile app for Android or iOS in lieu of a microphone
• You can save and import your custom vocabulary in case you want to carry it over into a new profile, a new install or new version of Dragon
• You can create simple “text-and-graphics” commands, such as “my logo” to insert a logo a document, “my signature” to insert an e-mail signature, or simple phrases to insert often-repeated text.

Advanced Correction (the ability to hear what you dictated when you’re trying to figure out whether Dragon mistranscribed something or whether you misspoke) is a can’t-miss feature, and that alone is worth the price of admission for Premium.

It’s a KnowBrainer

The biggest reason to prefer Dragon Premium to Home is that Premium is extensible. Premium is compatible with third-party add-ons like Vocola and KnowBrainer. With these, you can use Dragon Premium to create custom voice commands to automate any task on a Windows PC.

I have also used Voice Computer, SpeechStart+, and ShowNumbers Plus. All of these tools offer additional hands-free functionality at a cost substantially lower than purchasing a Professional version of Dragon, and none of them are compatible with Dragon Home.

My favorite add-on is KnowBrainer. Not only does it work with Dragon Premium to offer advanced scripting functionality comparable to that of Dragon Professional, but it is free to people with disabilities and assistive technology professionals.

Why should I get Dragon Medical?

• If you or your practice need to be HIPAA compliant
• If you need to dictate into an EMR on Nuance’s EMR Whitelist
  If you need to use Hidden Mode [Flash demo]. Hidden Mode is an exclusive feature of Dragon Medical that allows you to dictate into a non-active window.
• If you want to save time by not having to create your own specialized medical vocabulary.

Dragon Medical also contains every feature of Dragon Premium and Professional.

Why should I get Dragon Legal?

Unlike Dragon Medical, I don’t see the value proposition of Dragon Legal. Dragon Legal contains no extra features or functionality beyond those of Dragon Professional. Dragon Legal does have an extensive legal vocabulary, but the Professional and Premium versions of Dragon can transcribe most legal terms and styles accurately by default. I think that most Legal professionals will be well-served by buying Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional and simply adding any unknown words or phrases to its vocabulary. Moreover, Dragon Legal’s language model is for American lawyers only, so if you’re outside of the United States then its value proposition is further reduced.

What about Dragon Professional?

I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking 13 Professional. For years I was satisfied with my combination of Dragon Premium and KnowBrainer, which gave me full, hands-free access to my computer and the ability to create custom commands for $99. I recently outgrew it though and upgraded to using Dragon Professional even for personal computing. Dragon Professional has every feature in Premium, and some additional ones that I love:

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• Deferred correction. I can save a copy of my spoken dictation with my documents so that I can go back to them over multiple sittings and still remember what I said. This performs identically to the Advanced Correction in Dragon Premium, but with Premium you lose your spoken when you close a document, meaning you need to edit your dictations in the same sitting that you compose them.
• Step-by-Step commands. Dragon Professional contains a GUI that lets you build custom voice commands by stringing simple actions together from a list. This is the quickest and easiest way to create custom voice commands.
• Open-ended commands. New to Dragon 13 Professional, it’s now possible to create commands that accept free-form dictation. Meaning, I can create commands to “Search Website X for [whatever query I speak]. Dragon Premium has long had the ability to search Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Wikipedia for free-form queries, but the ability to create custom searches or to act on any file in a specific directory will be a big time saver for me.
• Easier control over custom vocabularies. Dragon Premium lets you import and export custom vocabularies, but Dragon Professional gives you more granular control over custom pronunciations.
• It is compatible with Utter Command, a third-party add-on that enables you to perform complex actions using an efficient, intuitive syntax.
• Dragon’s Advanced Scripting engine. If you don’t have a third-party command utility, Dragon Professional lets you create powerful, flexible macros to perform any action by voice.

Most of these features are for power users. If they appeal to you, Dragon Professional is worth the price of admission.

Correction- October 20, 2014: This article originally implied that Utter Command was compatible with Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium. This has been edited to clarify that Utter Command is only compatible with Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional, Medical, and Legal. I regret any confusion.

What is Dragon Software? Review of Dragon Home & Professional

Nuance Dragon software offers speech recognition technology that converts the spoken word into written text. Coming in multiple versions with different feature sets, Dragon is for anyone who finds that typing out long strings of words is inconvenient or impossible.

Dragon has versions for students, teachers, law enforcement personnel, lawyers, courtroom support employees, and other professionals.

Below, I will review Dragon Home, Professional and Legal to enlighten you about the pros and cons of Nuance’s speech recognition suite. I will also discuss a few higher-end products, e.g. Dragon Anywhere, which places some of its functionality in the cloud. Finally, I will give you a general recommendation to put things into context. So, read on below and enjoy our Dragon software review.

Dragon Software 2021 – Overview

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Who for? – As I mentioned above, Dragon software focuses on providing a user-friendly speech-to-text recognition and conversion engine for a broad audience. It is designed to listen to your speech, understand it, and convert it to text.

Understands accents – Because individual speech patterns and accents can vary significantly, Dragon software utilizes machine learning to recognize and understand your speech patterns better over time.

Easy commands – It can also execute simple commands, which allows you to do things like open and close software, post status updates on social media, and edit text.

Dragon Software Features

• Full voice-to-text functionality.
• Execute commands using your voice.
• Search and browse the internet by voice.
• Dictate homework assignments, emails, messages, appointments.
• Fast, accurate documentation. Dictate anywhere, transcribe later (Pro).
• Dictate and edit case files, contracts and briefs by voice (Legal only).
• Deep learning of individual accents and regional intonations.
• Multiple versions for professionals and individuals in different fields.

Dragon Home, Profession or Legal?

Dragon software comes in different versions to suit your tastes and requirements. The core functionality is present in Dragon Home, with professional versions providing additional features likely to be of use to the targeted niche.

As I discuss below, for those who decide they need dictation software, the choice of which version to go with can be as important as the choice of the software provider.

1. Dragon Home v15

Dragon Home (visit website) boasts a robust feature-set for a “basic” product. It comes with all of the features I’ve described above while coming in at a $150.00 price point.

Nuance emphasizes Dragon’s ability to translate speech-to-text up to three times faster than typing. This capability is borne out by the experiences of users all over.

People report being able to speak at a natural cadence. As long as their hardware was powerful enough, Dragon Home had no issue keeping up with their voice.

Playback feature – This is an exciting addition and one that is unique to the Dragon software. It does what it sounds like: it plays back entered text. What’s interesting is that it does so in your voice. It’s a handy function to have, as one’s voice is infinitely easier to understand than a robotic and generic one. Although it can be eerie at times to hear your voice, with subtle modifications, played back at you.

Fast – Nuance claims to be able to transcribe three times faster than a typist, though this does not include the time spent dictating punctuation and special characters. Dragon Home also requires you to indicate every punctuation mark and special character verbally if you want fully punctuated text. Tutorials are available here.

Resources – Keep in mind, real-time speech-to-text recognition and translation are bound to be resource-intensive. Especially when paired with their machine learning functions, users should prepare for that reality. Unless you have a powerful machine, avoid running it, even Dragon Home, alongside other beefy software.

Commands – Dragon software provides extensive command functionality for selecting the text, fixing mistakes, moving in lists, searching or copying and pasting information. However, it is good to know the limitations here. While it can be convenient to be able to launch and instruct applications with just your voice, one must be careful not to leave the functionality on when not needed. For example, you don’t want your conversation to unintentionally become the content of your next Twitter post.

Practice commands – It can also be a clumsy tool until one has the hang of it. Individual commands must be voiced in the correct manner and sequence for them to operate. Once one is familiar with the feature though, it can significantly increase the ease with which one interacts with a PC or Mac. Cheat sheets are available.

Verdict – Dragon Home has much improved over the course of the years, and it does what it is meant to do: reliable voice communication. It is suitable for those who want to use a voice-based approach to web browsing and search, shopping, writing or social media. As discussed it is also resource-intensive and requires some type of training that is available online. Those who need more business features should, however, consider one of the professional editions which I review below.

Systems: Windows, Explorer, Firefox, Chrome
Price: $150. Visit website.
Rating: ★★★★☆
Note: Home v15 is the successor of Dragon Naturally Speaking v13.

2. Dragon Professional Individual v15

Dragon Professional (view website) contains the features of Dragon Home with some additional customizations intended to make life easier for the typical professional.

Dragon Professional makes it easier to create custom words and phrases consisting of proper names or unusual industry terminology. Both of these might be used unusually frequently in a user’s line of work.

There is also custom functionality to make it easier to work on multiple kinds of devices, like PC touchscreens, smartphones and tablets.

Benefits – Do you find yourself repeatedly using the same text and graphics? Use custom voice phrases to have Dragon Professional include them instead. The Professional edition allows you to leave your work at your desktop PC and pick it up again on another device using the Anywhere functionality.

Documentation – Apart from memorizing words and phrases, it is possible to set smart format rules to implement abbreviations, contact details or dates based on corporate styling schemes. Text can be highlighted, underlined or set bold or in different sizes by voice. It works within common business applications.

Verdict – In some ways, though, Professional is the app without a home in the Dragon software portfolio. Dragon Home is ideal for home users. Legal is custom-built for lawyers and legal professionals. Nuance also has solutions for law enforcement, financial services professionals, and medical professionals.

This makes one wonder why anyone would choose a generic “Professional” version when there is likely an industry-specific version with a fuller feature-set? Well, Dragon Professional is suitable for businesses, freelancers and even ambitious home users who want to settle between Home and Legal, and do not need specific vocabulary but require solid documentation functionality.

Systems: Windows and Windows Server, iOS or Android
Price: $300. $400 with Bluetooth headset. View website.
Rating: ★★★★☆

3. Nuance Dragon Legal v15

Dragon Legal (view website) is a specific version of Professional and designed for anyone in the legal industry. The Legal edition comes preloaded with hundreds of legal terms and words, obviating the need to train the software in the use of those terms.

It has the same features as Dragon Professional, including custom voice commands, names and terminology as well as Dragon Anywhere functionality. These features are very useful in the legal realm, which relies heavily on boilerplate contracting language and precedent documentation.

Benefits – Legal comes with the ability to dictate and pre-record a string of text, or conduct an interview, and transcribe it using the tool at a later time. For lawyers in remote locations who are required to perform their interviews of witnesses outside of more formal deposition environments, this feature could be worth the $500 cost alone.

Who for? – Dragon Legal may be most useful for small and mid-sized firms in the private sector. Governmental organizations (including the courts) frequently have access to proprietary methods of dictation and transcription, while large firms can often afford to hire full-time transcriptionists. If you find yourself at one of the small or medium-sized firms and are without a transcription or dictation solution, this Dragon software may be an appropriate tool to use.

Good to know – Similar to the legal issues that may arise for professionals using Dragon Anywhere (discussed below), Dragon Legal may raise some problems for lawyers. Regulations surrounding solicitor-client privilege and confidentiality are notoriously stringent. Lawyers and those who work with them will need to pay close attention to the storage and security of the files created by Dragon Legal. Privacy and data security will be paramount considerations for legal professionals here.

Systems: Windows and Windows Server, iOS or Android
Price: $500.
Rating: ★★★★★

4. Nuance Dragon Anywhere

Dragon Anywhere (view website) is the cloud-based version of Dragon’s speech- and voice-recognition technology. It is designed to be compatible, and sync with, several different cloud-based notetaking and file storage apps (like Evernote and Dropbox).

Effectively, Anywhere is a solution for anyone who requires Dragon software functionality away from their desks or laptops. The app works on Android and Apple phones, tablets, and allows for seamless cross-functionality between mobile devices and desktop or laptop computers.

Benefits – The app will enable you to share your work with colleagues and other people, making it a possible solution for teams of more than one person. Unlike some other software, Dragon Anywhere also imposes no word or time limits. You can speak for as long as you wish, and the program will continue to convert the words to text.

Good to know – Dragon Anywhere’s cloud-based technology may pose some legal difficulties for specific users, though. It’s integration with external servers, devices, and even users may run afoul of best practices or regulations concerning confidentiality and data security in some fields, particularly law-related ones.

Therefore, users in professional settings who frequently handle confidential information will want to peruse their organization’s privacy policies before using these features.

Systems: Cloud. All systems.
Price: $14.99/month or $149/year.
Rating: ★★★★☆

Nuance Dragon Software Review – Pros and Cons

There is only one feature that takes top billing in speech-recognition tools, and that is, obviously, its ability to recognize and translate voice to text.

Here, Dragon software does not disappoint. All of the downsides of the product (its tendency to devour a computer’s resources) are byproducts of the software’s ability to accurately, quickly, and adaptively take dictation. Dragon software understands a wide variety of speech well and converts it to text accurately.

It has other admirable features as well, namely:

• Excellent compatibility with popular apps like Dropbox and Evernote
• Wide feature-set including web search or documentation
• Diverse versions for professionals, especially in the medico-legal fields

Downsides – The major drawback to Dragon software is that, for many people, it will be a solution in search of a problem. In other words, if you are a reasonably competent typist, dictation will not be your bag. I am a full-time writer, and I have yet to see the need for such tools, despite spending eight hours per day at a keyboard.

Voice vs typing – That may be an unfair criticism though, given that many people are not reasonably good typists. For them, this product could be a godsend. Alternatively, typing programs offer a good opportunity to help speed up pace and accuracy and to reduce the time needed for editing, hence, getting the best of both worlds.

Dragon Software Review 2021 – Verdict

Dragon software products do what they say they are going to do, and they do it well. If you have difficulty typing accurately and quickly, and you deal with a lot of written work, this may be the product for you. You will want to make sure that you have a powerful device to run the software, and that you’re reasonably proficient with technology, to get the most out of the programs though.

Tutorials – It certainly requires some “training” and a person who has “significant” difficulties with computers may continue to have trouble with Dragon software. However, there are videos, webinars and material provided by Nuance to get you started quickly and to enjoy the benefits. Furthermore, there is eMail and phone support to ask questions. Below are some of the FAQs listed.

Bottom line – While there are many alternatives on the market, Dragon software is certainly one of the best solutions when it comes to human-computer conversations. If you want to use it to ease daily tasks such as email or writing, Dragon Home is the best option. For professional use, Nuance offers a wide range of customized versions.

Professional solutions – Dragon software includes a growing number of niche products designed to meet the needs of a diverse array of professional users. Lawyers, doctors, police officers, accountants, and other professionals can all choose from versions of the software designed specifically for their industries.

Nuance Dragon Software 2021

1. Dragon Home | ★★★★☆ | $150
2. Dragon Professional Individual | ★★★★☆ | $300
3. Dragon Legal Individual | ★★★★★ | $500
4. Dragon Anywhere | ★★★★☆ | $149
5. Dragon Medical | ★★★★★

Dragon Software – FAQ

Can I install Dragon software on other computers?

Usually, an installment can be made on one PC though each license is per user, not per computer. It is possible to create voice profiles that can be stored on other machines. Therefore, each speaker needs its own license.

Can friends or family use my license?

One license will serve one speaker. This also applies to create voice profiles for different speakers.

Can I use the software without any training

There is a smooth setup procedure to quickly get users up and running. No training or research is needed to get started. However, there is a range of tutorials available to make Dragon software more accurate or to use commands more effectively.

Can I record lectures using Dragon?

As mentioned above, Dragon is not designed for multiple speakers. However, it is possible to use the tool to transcribe interviews or lectures using voice writing or parroting. A brief how-to guide is available on the company’s FAQ website.

What are the hardware requirements?

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Dragon’s full feature-set comes at a hardware cost though as it taxes the typical computer setup. The minimum requirements for desktops are not outrageous, however, trying to run anything processor- or memory-intensive at the same time as Dragon Home may slow down your PC. Therefore, I recommend at least 8GB of RAM, a quad-core processor or higher and at least 8GB of free disk space.

Older editions: Dragon Naturally Speaking V13 is the previous edition. It is not being marketed by Nuance anymore. Beware of any offers selling Naturally Speaking particularly if you are in the market for the latest iteration which is Dragon Home V15.

What is your experience? Do you use Dragon Home, Professional, Legal or Anywhere? What could be improved? Please share your review in the comments below.

If you like our Dragon software review please spread the word and share it on your favorite social media platform.

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Further resources:Wikipedia | AI and Transformation