Review by Margaret P.

Dragon Dictate has been a somewhat frustrating experience.

This software came on a disc with no key to download, even though new Apple computers haven’t had optical drives for some time now. The software should be sold on a flash drive rather than on a disc and with a download included.

Installation was no problem after getting a disc drive.

Training was not a problem. However, there is a bit of a learning curve with the commands and when using the software, it is necessary to actively give dictation, rather than to just speak. When I have given verbal commands to a computer in the past, it was frustrating, and giving dictation just multiplies that into a continuous irritation.

The biggest problem is that the resulting documents are very error-ridden and really are more work to go back over and clean up than it would be to type them manually in the first place.

I can only recommend this software as useful for people who both need to make a record of their thoughts quickly and who can’t type or for situations where there are large volumes of information to be dictated and a clean final document isn’t important so a very rough draft is acceptable.

For me, it just isn’t worth the bother.