Recognition Window

The Recognition window allows you to correct any errors Dragon Dictate makes when recognizing your speech. This helps improve recognition over time.

When Dragon Dictate has typed what you said in Dictation mode, and has made a mistake, use the Recognition window to correct Dragon Dictate’s interpretation of what you said, which will correct what Dragon Dictate typed.

There two ways to modify the existing dictated content of a document: you can use Dictation mode commands or you can use the Recognition window. It’s important to know when to use each:

To open the Recognition window:

The Recognition window (and voice model training in general) operates on dictated utterances. Dragon Dictate has its own ideas about what constitutes an utterance, based partly on where you paused while dictating. Therefore, the phrase that is selected when you say Train…, or the phrase that appears in the Recognition window (and is selected when you open the Recognition window), might be longer or shorter than what you initially specified.

If you don’t want to use any of the smart formatting rule choices, you can click the X in the top left corner of the window, or simply resume dictating text, and the window will disappear. Smart formatting rules are turned on by default when you install Dragon Dictate, but you can turn them off in the Recognition Preferences pane, which is accessible in the Dictate menu.

To close the Recognition window:

Try different Recognition Preferences pane settings and different ways of opening and closing the Recognition window as you train your dictation. You’ll soon settle on a favorite way of working (which might depend on external factors, such as the size of your screen).

You can adjust the transparency of the Recognition window. Say Increase Transparency or Decrease Transparency.

How to Train

The Recognition window presents alternative interpretations of the phrase containing the current selection or insertion point in the dictation document. The first alternative is the interpretation that Dragon Dictate entered in the document. The number of additional alternatives is limited by your setting for “Maximum number of alternatives” in the Recognition Preferences pane.

You can use the Recognition window to train what you just dictated, because the insertion point is still at the end of that phrase, so that is the phrase shown in the Recognition window. You can also select a dictated phrase (using Dictation mode navigation commands); if Dragon Dictate still has cached dictation information for this part of the document, the Recognition window will change to show alternatives for that phrase.

One way of working with the Recognition window is to train phrases as soon as you dictate them; another is to dictate a larger amount, such as a paragraph or two, and then go back and train.

In most cases, Dragon Dictate will have preserved the recording of your speech from when you dictated the phrase. If you’re not sure you said what you think you said, play back the recording of the phrase selected in your text:

You do not want to mistrain Dragon Dictate by using the Recognition window to enter a trained phrase that is not a correct interpretation of what you actually said. Correcting with the Recognition window is only for cases in which Dragon Dictate did not recognize your voice correctly.

If one of the Recognition window’s alternatives is correct, you enter it in the document in place of the alternative that’s already there by either:

You have now performed phrase training. Internally, Dragon Dictate will modify its speech model, and will save this information into your profile the next time your profile is saved.

If none of the Recognition window’s alternatives is correct, you can edit one of the alternatives so that it is correct. It doesn’t matter which of the alternatives you edit; edit whichever is most convenient. To edit an alternative:

The alternative you are editing is now the “target” for dictation and commands. You can edit using Dictation mode or Spelling mode (and it is also fine to use your fingers to type in the Recognition window). The only standard command that doesn’t work is “Scratch that”; instead, use Scratch Word.

To exit editing mode without entering the corrected phrase into your document: