This post is being prepared entirely with MacSpeech Dictate. I have been waiting for my copy of this software from the local Apple reseller for over two weeks and I finally received the call yesterday to tell me that it was in the shop ready for pickup. In between meetings, I collected the software (which includes a quality USB headset and microphone) and have spent the last 10 minutes or so getting familiar with how it works and training the software to recognize my voice.
Now I am simply sitting in front of my MacBook Pro dictating this blog entry for you and being literally blown away by the quality of the software and its ease of use. To give you an example of what I mean. I told Dictate to use Australian English, and it is quite correctly using Australian spelling of words such as favourite. My spell checker, which I still haven’t convinced that I’m in Australia, is highlighting that word as being misspelt. In these first two paragraphs that is the only misspelt word, and I have not had to repeat or edit any of this text.
One of the things that I have long known about myself is that I am a far better speaker then typist. Some say I can talk for hours, but then bemoan the fact that it takes me two days to get around to typing a simple e-mail!
At $299 (Australian), Dictate could not be described as cheap. But then I am dictating at virtually normal speaking speed and it is having no trouble keeping up. Also, up to now, I have not laid a finger on the keyboard. Paragraphs, punctuation, editing, has all been undertaken simply via the microphone. As a bonus I can also start up applications using the microphone. And I’m sure that there will be many more features to this amazing software which I will discover it after reading the user manual tonight.
Using Dictate is also going to allow me to adopt one of the strongly recommended techniques of writing, particularly when publishing regularly. This is to write continuously, without editing, from the beginning to the end of a piece whether it be a simple blog entry or a chapter of an e-book. Once this is done return to the editing task. I am aware that one of the reasons for it taking too long for me to write via the keyboard, is that I cannot resist the temptation to edit “on the go”. Almost invariably this means that after a few paragraphs, I am totally bogged down with trying to make the words perfect and never actually get to the end of the piece that I’m writing.
In my days in the big corporate world, with a personal assistant, I dictated everything from the simplest memo to a 100 page report. Editing the dictated draft came afterwards. Now, even though I no longer have a personal assistant, I can emulate that workflow model of creating the entire piece by dictation and then return to edit mode.
If this workflow model sounds as if it could work for you, or if you have been even considering the possibility of speech recognition for your publishing, I cannot recommend MacSpeech Dictate more highly. This is true even though I cannot say that I am a vastly experienced user of the software. It’s just one of those rare applications which falls naturally into place, is completely intuitive and does exactly what it is supposed to do without fuss.
Now for a quick edit with the old keyboard and my post is published. Gleeful clapping is heard from the Editor’s Desk!
Oh, and here is a bonus – Get 10% off any purchase at MacSpeech.com when you use the coupon code DICTATE10!.
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