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| Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional Legal Suite | Speech Recognition |
PowerDragon Systems Inc. recently released Dragon NaturallySpeaking Legal Suite 2, which includes version 3 of Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional software. There are actually four versions of Dragon NaturalSpeaking: Point & Speak, Standard, Preferred and Professional. The versions become more powerful (and more expensive) as you move up the list. Point & Speak is the basic version of NaturallySpeaking. It contains only the NaturalText function, which allows you to dictate into virtually any Windows application. Point & Speak has a suggested retail price of $59. The Standard edition ($109) is more advanced. In addition to NaturalText, it includes NaturalWord, which integrates NaturallySpeaking with Word and WordPerfect so that you can issue menu commands by voice. An improved version of the Select-and-Say feature is also included in NaturallySpeaking 3 Standard. You can now select blocks of text by dictating "Select <start-text> Through <end-text>." You can also continue dictating where you left off if you were interrupted by dictating "Resume With <word>" and dictating additional or replacement text. The version of NaturallySpeaking included in the Corel WordPerfect 8 Legal Suite is similar to the Standard Edition (albeit version 2.02). Another new feature in the Standard edition (as well as Preferred and Professional) is BestMatch technology. BestMatch takes advantage of faster and more powerful computers to provide a higher level of recognition accuracy. BestMatch appears to have improved the recognition accuracy on my 300 MHz 64K RAM system. However, NaturallySpeaking 3 often takes longer to insert text into a WordPerfect document. Although the little yellow dictation window keeps up most of the time, NaturallySpeaking often waits too long before it sends my dictation to a document. These delays made it difficult at times to determine if NaturallySpeaking was properly recognizing what I said. The next version of NaturallySpeaking is Preferred. It includes all of the features discussed earlier as well as Text-To-Speech, Recorded Speech Playback and Hands-Free Support. The Text-To-Speech feature will read a document back to you using a computer-generated voice that sounds very strange, and is not always completely accurate). Recorded Speech Playback will replay your NaturallySpeaking dictation, although I'm not sure why you would want to. Hands-Free Support lets you press any key on the keyboard by saying "press" plus the name of the key. Although this feature seems to have been added to assist the disabled, it helped me when dictating some acronyms, such as ADAAG. The Preferred edition costs $229. The Professional edition, the most advanced version of NaturallySpeaking, is included in the Legal Suite. It has all the features described above plus the ability to handle multiple specialty vocabularies and the ability to create custom commands for automating repetitive tasks (i.e., macros). For example, you can create a macro to open your time & billing system and make a time entry for yourself. You can also create different vocabularies for different types of dictation, such as legal, general or medical. The Professional edition has a retail price of $695. The Legal Suite, available only from Dragon, costs $995. Why the difference? The Legal Suite also includes special legal vocabularies and a copy of Corel's WordPerfect Suite 8. If you already have the Corel WordPerfect Legal Suite 8 and you installed the "Personal" version of NaturallySpeaking included in the Suite, the NaturallySpeaking Legal Suite will install over the Personal edition and update the NaturalWord integration module automatically. The only major benefit to the NaturallySpeaking Legal Suite appears to be the inclusion of the legal vocabularies, although these vocabularies are not necessarily worth the additional cost ($300 more). The legal vocabularies include many common and uncommon legal words, such as res judicata, arguendo and aff'd on reh'g. Common reporter citations are also included, such as A.2d and Fed. Reg. However, there are some errors and omissions. For example, I had to add N.C. App., the § symbol and the ¶ paragraph to the legal vocabulary using the Vocabulary Builder. In addition, "CFR" should be "C.F.R." (at least according to the Blue Book of Citations). There shouldn't really be any errors and omissions in something that lists for $995, especially when the only real reason for paying the additional cost is to get the legal vocabularies. Overall, the recognition accuracy of NaturallySpeaking seems improved. I was able to use NaturallySpeaking for several projects. I find it most useful when I need both hands free to sift through books and documents while dictating notes. I also find it extremely useful when my fingers are tired from typing too fast for too long. Nevertheless, it can get frustrating when I'm trying to dictate certain acronyms. For example, I never could get it to recognize ADAAG. I kept getting "a debt" even though I kept re-training ADAAG. I finally had to resort to using the new Hands Free Support feature and dictate each letter individually. It was also cumbersome when dictating some citations. For example, I can dictate "section 43 point 1 parens 1 parens a parens i" to my secretary and get back "§Ý43.1(1)(a)(i)." However, with NaturallySpeaking I have to dictate "section symbol 43 point 1 no-space left paren 1 right paren no-space left paren alpha right paren no-space left paren india right paren." Whew, that's a mouthful! Another problem I encountered was that I had to reboot whenever I exited NaturallySpeaking after dictating into WordPerfect. My computer always became unstable. Although NaturallySpeaking Professional includes a lot of nice features, I question whether anyone really has a need for all the add-ons, especially when you consider the $995 price tag. I already have the WordPerfect 8 Suite, and I can easily add legal words to NaturallySpeaking's standard vocabulary (even with the "Personal" edition included with the WordPerfect 8 Legal Suite), so they may not be worth that much more. However, if you need voice activated macros and multiple vocabularies, then you can always purchase the Professional Edition and save yourself around $300. Overall, NaturallySpeaking is a useful, but not yet indispensable, tool for your law office. Before buying, consider carefully which features you really need and purchase accordingly. Keyboard Free?: Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional lets you dictate even the most obscure legal terms, but at a cost. |
Dragon Systems Inc. (800) 4-DRAGON www.naturalspeech.com Windows 95, NT $995 Reviewed by Richard C. Belthoff, Jr., partner, Grier, Belthoff & Furr, Charlotte, N.C. PROS CONS VERDICT |
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