Profiles Window



The Profiles window is for managing your voice profiles.

A voice profile is a complete set of data on how you speak. In order to speak into Dragon Dictate, you must have at least one profile; and at every moment you are using exactly one profile (the active profile or current profile).

To summon the Profiles window, choose Tools > Profiles. If you have checked Show Profiles Window in the General Preferences pane, the Profiles window will appear automatically when you start up Dragon Dictate, offering you a chance to activate a profile; otherwise, Dragon Dictate activates the profile you were previously using.

Each user of Dragon Dictate must create his or her own profile.

Every profile has a name, which uniquely identifies it. The name of the active profile is visible in the Status window (as its title bar).

The data for a profile lives on your hard disk as a package whose file extension is .ddictateprofile. You are offered the chance to set a profile’s location at the time you create it. You may place it anywhere you like, such as ~/Documents/Dragon Profiles. This allows the profile data to be backed up easily. A symbolic link to the profile will be found in ~/Library/Application Support/Dragon/Profiles.

The first time you use Dragon Dictate, you will be prompted to create a new profile.

To create a profile:

  • In the Profiles window, click the image button. A File Save dialog appears (“Choose a place to store your profile”); specify a name and place to save this profile, and click Choose. Back in the Profiles window, choose a microphone, spelling system, and accent from the pop-up menus on the right. Click Continue. You will then be taken to the Microphone Setup window and the Voice Training window for further preparation of the microphone and voice model.

To delete a profile:

  • Select the profile’s listing in the Profiles window and click the image button. You can’t do this if there is only one profile.

To add an Audio Source:

  • In the Profiles details, click the image button under Audio Sources. Provide a name for the microphone, select which microphone you wish to add and click Continue. You will then be taken to Microphone Setup window and the Voice Training window for further preparation of the microphone and voice model.

Profiles for this version of Dragon Dictate are incompatible with earlier versions of MacSpeech Dictate. Profiles from an earlier version of MacSpeech Dictate are marked in the Profiles window with a special icon (image). You can make such a profile active; when you do, it is updated for use with this version of Dragon Dictate and will no longer work with earlier versions.

Please note that you can't upgrade a profile that has a missing microphone.

To dismiss the Profiles window:

  • Create or activate a profile, as previously described.

  • Click the red close button in the upper left corner.