You can dictate text into an iPhone (3G or better), iPod touch (4th generation or better), iPad, Android or other smartphone-- or any other digital recording device, or into a computer microphone (if you find yourself at a computer other than yours, for example) -- and ask Dragon Dictate to produce a transcript of what you said. Dragon uses your currently-active speech profile to analyze the audio, so the file needs to contain your voice and should have preferably been dictated under circumstances similar to the ones in which you use Dragon on your Mac.
So, for example, if you normally use Dragon Dictate in a quiet environment but you tend to dictate into a digital recording device in a noisy atmosphere, you may want to train a new speech profile in Dragon Dictate and use it for producing transcripts. As with Dragon Dictate’s other speech recognition functions, its ability to produce an accurate transcript of your file depends on how well you’ve trained your current speech profile.
To produce a transcript, click the Tools menu and click Transcription...
In the resulting dialog box, select the file you want to use and click Open. The first time you use the Transcription feature, you’ll need to select a file with at least 20 seconds of audio, so that Dragon Dictate can calibrate itself with your voice. This is similar to the same method the software uses to learn your voice when you first set up a profile and go through voice training.
The software recognizes these file formats: aif, aiff, m4a, m4v, mp4 and wav.
A progress window will track Dragon Dictate as it analyzes the file. When Dragon Dictate is done analyzing the file, you will be able to review the resulting text in the Transcription Training window. You can click anywhere in the text, which will cause the phrase to become highlighted, with a dialog box pointing at it. In that dialog box, you can choose to ignore or accept the text, with the option to click the triangular play button to hear it played back. You can also type in the text box to change the text, if it was analyzed incorrectly; doing so helps train Dragon Dictate for future transcriptions.
As you accept text for transcription training, Dragon Dictate keeps track of the 20 seconds of accepted text that it needs to perform the necessary calibration. The text turns green as you accept it, the same way the text turns green as you read the initial training story when you set up your profile, and when you have accepted enough text, the bottom of the training window says “You can Calibrate at any time,” with a Calibrate button to the right.
When Dragon Dictate has finished calibrating, it places the resulting text in an open Note Pad window, where you can work with it further or copy and paste it into another application.
When you transcribe audio files in the future, Dragon Dictate will analyze them and place the text in a Note Pad window without requiring the calibration process.