Dragon Professional Individual

What’s new and do I need it?

Dragon Professional Individual is now available as a new purchase and as an upgrade from Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional 12 or 13.  Dragon Professional Individual  is the first of two Dragon Professional options that will be available for version 14 (Dragon Legal for version 14 has not yet been announced**). This post will note the key features of Dragon Professional 13 and then review what the Dragon Professional 14 products add, modify or remove.

This post is designed to help existing Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional or Premium users decide if they should upgrade to Dragon Professional Individual by the end of September to take advantage of steep upgrade price discounts, or to wait.

Check the end of the post for a  “Cheat sheet” list of upgrade recommendations.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking

A Powerful Tool Since 1997, but what has been missing?

Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional provides a host of powerful speech driven productivity tools for Windows and Mac PCs. What has been increasing requested in recent years is the ability to have the robust NaturallySpeaking speech recognition available on mobile devices.

Isn’t Dragon on Mobil Devices Now?

Recently the Dragon and other Speech Recognition apps for the iPhone and Android devices have become available, but these apps have very limited functionality. You can talk for around 20 seconds and then the words are typed on your screen, usually very accurately. That capability is great as far as it goes — but that is as far as the current mobile app programs do go.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking Current Feature Set

The Dragon NaturallySpeaking product line for Mac and Windows PCs starts with the voice to text transcription similar to the mobile apps and adds many more voice driven features depending on the Dragon edition being used:

• Dictations of any length
• Corrections and revisions
• Text formatting
• Document navigation
• Built in commands for starting and closing applications and navigating between applications
• Built in commands for activating program menus, buttons and links
• Built in commands for launching and navigating web pages
• Custom vocabulary words with custom pronunciations
• Custom text commands that can “drop in” images and paragraphs of standard text
• Automatic recording transcription
• Variable field templates
• Custom commands to execute any frequently used sequence of keystrokes and mouse clicks
• Licensed to install on multiple computers to be used by a licensed user
• Voice profiles that can automatically “Roam” between multiple computers
• Enterprise distribution features that allow custom commands and words to be “pushed out” to all Dragon users

Using the Full Power of Dragon

All Dragon users use at least some of the features at the top of the list. Unfortunately, many of the really powerful features near the bottom of the list remain undiscovered by most Dragon users.

The Power of Dragon Has Been Missing in Mobile Devices

It is this undiscovered capability that allows much higher productivity levels for power users.  These features also provide the tools that have enable Dragon NaturallySpeaking to be used as an Assistive Technology (AT) in a business environment.   Dragon AT solutions enable individuals with disabilities or typing limitations to use the mouse or keyboard at the level required for their job.

Request Additional Information on Dragon Advanced Productivity Features

Dragon is Moving to the Cloud

For years, Dragon NaturallySpeaking users have wanted to use these same powerful speech driven capabilities on their mobile devices. The first step in the process has quietly come to pass.

Dragon Professional Individual

Dragon Professional Individual is the next “Professional” edition of the Dragon product line.  Despite the much lower price ($300 vs. $600) and dropping “NaturallySpeaking” from the name, it still differs from the “Light” Editions of Dragon such as the Home ($100) and Premium ($200) Editions. These light editions have the same Dictation and Correction capabilities but lack much of the functionality needed to provide the high productivity business solutions available with the Professional edition.

What’s New in Dragon Professional Individual?

Dragon Professional Individual is the first of two version 14 edition upgrade options to be released for Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional. This edition has brand new features that set it apart from all of the prior Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional versions.

• There has been a substantial price drop, making it a much more attractive solution to those who may have purchased the less robust and more economical Home and Premium versions before.
• Sync with the Dragon Anywhere App for mobile devices.  Dragon Anywhere allows Dragon Users to share custom words and commands from their Dragon Professional Individual PC voice profile across multiple computers and mobile devices.  Dragon Anywhere  is scheduled for release in the Fall of 2015 (more details below).
• Now accurately transcribe recordings of a single speaker’s voice. Dragon Professional Individual can transcribe pre-recorded audio files or podcasts and requires only a 90-second audio clip to create the necessary profile.
  

Early user reports indicate some additional possible advantages:

• Some have noticed a substantial increase in accuracy.
• Better initial custom command compatibility in Windows 10.  There have been reports that Advanced Scripting commands may not functioning in Windows 10 with Dragon version 13 but the same commands will work with Dragon Professional Individual. If this proves to be the case, I would expect Nuance to resolve this issue with Dragon Professional 13 at some point in the future.

Important Note for Windows XP users:  As with the Dragon version 13 products, Dragon Professional Individual is not supported on Windows XP or Vista.  Supported Operating Systems are Windows 7, 8.1, 10 (32- and 64-bit); Windows Server 2008 R2 & 2012

Dragon Professional Individual – Limitations

Dragon Professional Individual also lacks some features found in its predecessor Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional versions.

• No Roaming Profiles: While Professional Individual is still licensed for multiple computers, Professional Individual no longer supports network implementations, specifically the Roaming Profiles.  This also includes the other associated features found in the Administrative Settings such as administrative overrides on some of Dragon command and vocabulary functions and Optimizer Scheduling.

The Dragon Roaming functionality will be added back into the Professional 14 lineup with the release of Dragon Professional Group. The release date of Dragon Professional Group has not been announced at the time of this post. Dragon Professional Group will provide the Roaming Profile option as part of the separate Nuance Management Console which provides central management of voice profiles, vocabulary words, custom commands, license tracking and many other enterprise tasks.

• A Reduced Help System: A revamped Help System has much less information on many topics, especially the sections on custom commands, Advanced Scripting and Visual Basic references. Links in the new help system to other web based resources are used to provide similar but generally less comprehensive information.

Summary: Should I upgrade now?

If you are going to upgrade, doing so by the end of September 2015 will save you $50-100.  Nuance is providing promotional upgrade prices for both Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional and Premium upgrades to Dragon Professional Individual.  Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional upgrade promotional price is $100, normally $150.  Dragon Premium upgrade promotional price is also $100, normally $200.

Purchase Upgrades   ♦   Get More Information

For current users of Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional or Premium versions 12 or 13, here are my recommendations regarding  upgrading to Dragon Professional Individual:

Yes  

You should consider upgrading to Dragon Professional Individual if:

• You are using Dragon Professional versions 12 or 13 AND you are not using Roaming Profiles AND you would love to use Dragon on your iPad, iPhone or Android

Upgrading to Dragon Professional Individual in this case is probably a good choice as you will not be loosing any needed features.

• You are using Dragon Professional version 12 AND you are NOT using Roaming Profiles AND you really don’t care about using Dragon on an iPad, iPhone or Android.

In this case you should strongly consider upgrading now as you will be required to upgrade to a version 14 product at some point before the next Dragon version release in order to continue to be eligible for upgrade pricing. Since Nuance is providing upgrades for $100 until the end of September you are unlikely to get a better price for an upgrade to version 14.

• You are using Dragon Professional versions 12 or 13 AND you ARE using Roaming Profiles on some computers BUT you would still love to use Dragon on your iPad, iPhone or Android.

Upgrading to Dragon Professional Individual could still be a good choice. You can continue to use your Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional where Roaming is needed and use your new Dragon Professional Individual elsewhere.

When Dragon Anywhere (details below) becomes available you can manually sync your current Dragon NaturallySpeaking software with the Dragon Anywhere and automatically sync with your Dragon Professional Individual.

• You are using Dragon Premium versions 12 or 13 AND you would love to use Dragon on your iPad, iPhone or Android.

In this case, Upgrading to Dragon Professional Individual is a very good deal right now. Not only will you get the full power of Dragon Professional for a great price but you will also be ready to take advantage of Dragon Anywhere when it is becomes available (see details below).

• You are using Dragon Premium versions 12 or 13 AND you wish you had the some of the features found in Dragon Professional.

The current promotional pricing is a great opportunity to obtain the newest Professional edition for the same price as a Premium upgrade.

• You are using Dragon Premium version 12

You will be required to upgrade to a Dragon version 14 product at some point before the next Dragon version release in order to continue to be eligible for upgrade pricing. That being the case. you should seriously consider the current promotional price upgrade to Professional Individual because it looks like the only Premium upgrades to a version 14 Dragon product will be an upgrade to a Professional edition. Nuance has not announced any plans for the Premium edition, and this is strictly my opinion with no insider knowledge, but the pricing structure implies that Premium may be discontinued going forward.

Purchase Upgrades   ♦   Get More Information   ♦   Email info@exaq.com   ♦   Call (916)966-8313

No 

You should probably wait to upgrade if:

• You are using Dragon Professional versions 12 or 13 AND you need Roaming Profiles on all computers.

In this case you should probably wait for the release of Dragon Professional Group to see how the pricing and feature set works out for you situation.

• You are using Dragon Professional or Premium 13 AND you are happy with it even if you would love to use Dragon on your iPad, iPhone or Android.

Since the Nuance Upgrade policy allows you to upgrade from the prior 2 Dragon versions, there is no monetary reason to upgrade until the release of version 15. You can still use the Dragon Anywhere app if you choose to subscribe to the service when it becomes available (see below).

Professional users will be able to manually import and export custom works and commands with Dragon Anywhere.

Premium users will not be able to sync Dragon Anywhere with your Premium software since Premium does not have the ability to import or export custom commands or words.

• You are using Windows XP or Windows Vista.

Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7, 8.1, 10 (32- and 64-bit); Windows Server 2008 R2 & 2012

• You are using Dragon to dictate into Medical Records Systems.

Dragon Professional Individual is not supported for dictation into Electronic Medical Record (EMR/EHR) systems and may not work. For EMR/EHR support, please use Dragon Medical Practice Edition.

   Get More Information   ♦   Email info@exaq.com   ♦   Call (916)966-8313

More on Dragon Anywhere – the Mobile App

Dragon Anywhere will be available as iOS and Android Apps bringing much of the PC Dragon functionality to mobile devices.  Dragon Anywhere is reported to be releasing during the Fall of 2015 and will be available as a monthly subscription estimated to be about $15/month per speaker.

Dragon Anywhere will provide:

• Dictations of any length
• Corrections and revisions by voice
• Text formatting by voice
• Corrections and revisions by voice
• Document Navigation by voice
• Custom vocabulary words with custom pronunciations
• Custom text commands that can “drop in” paragraphs of standard text
• Automatic sync of custom words and commands between mobile devices and PCs running Dragon Professional Individual and Group.
• Manual sync of custom words and commands with current versions and editions of Dragon NaturallySpeaking that provide the ability to import and export custom words and commands.
• Transcription from recordings of any single speaker

Purchase Upgrades   ♦   Get More Information   ♦   Email info@exaq.com   ♦   Call (916)966-8313

** What about Dragon NaturallySpeaking Legal

Dragon Legal Version 14 Upgrades for Dragon NaturallySpeaking Legal have not yet been announced. I expect Nuance to release one or more version 14 Dragon Legal editions.  This could be a single edition for Legal or two editions, a Personal and Group edition similar to the Dragon Professional editions.  We will be sending out information as it becomes available.