My 8 Favorite Settings Advanced/Power Users

Here are just a few settings I use with my own personal copy of Dragon. These settings speed things up and make using Dragon much simpler for the power user. However, these settings may confuse a beginner, so introduce them cautiously.

1. ANCHOR THE CORRECTION WINDOW: Tired of having the Correction window appear directly over your text? Now you can anchor it off to the side. This is done by choosing TOOLS, OPTIONS, choosing the CORRECTION tab, and choosing ANCHOR. But, you are not finished yet. The next time you select a word, drag the Correction window to where you always want it to appear. In my case, I push it off into the right margin of an open copy of Microsoft Word.

2. MINIMIZE THE CORRECTION WINDOW: OK, definitely not for beginners, but I love this setting. Again, choose TOOLS, OPTIONS, the CORRECTION tab, and select SHOW ONLY THE CHOICES. Basically, all of the cues in the Correction window disappear and all you are left with are the alternative choices.

3. SHOW 9 ALTERNATIVES IN THE CORRECTION WINDOW: If you have over 512 MB of RAM and a 1.5 GHz or faster processor, you may want to show more alternatives than just the five default choices listed in the Correction window. Choose TOOLS, OPTIONS, the CORRECTION tab, and increase the number of alternatives to be shown to 9.

4. ENABLE DOUBLE CLICK TO CORRECT: This is a setting I don't like much. I found it annoying, but you may find it very helpful. Choose TOOLS, OPTIONS, the CORRECTION tab, and select ENABLE DOUBLE CLICK TO CORRECT. With this setting, every time you double- tap/click a word, it brings up the Correction window.

5. LAUNCH WITH THE MICROPHONE ASLEEP AT STARTUP: This setting saves several digital pen taps or mouse clicks, and when you have carpal tunnel syndrome like me, that matters. Choose TOOLS, MISCELLANEOUS, and MICROPHONE ASLEEP AT START UP. Then, all you need to say is LISTEN TO ME and begin dictating.

6. AUTOMATICALLY SAVE YOUR USER FILES ON EXIT: Are you tired of always having to choose Yes at the end of each Dragon session to save your user files? Me too. Choose TOOLS, MISCELLANEOUS, and AUTOMATICALLY SAVE USER FILES. Then, when you exit, there is nothing else to worry about.

7. SWITCH TO CLING MODE: I do most of my work in Cling mode. I love this setting because it hides in the title bar above any open application, obscuring minimal screen viewing space. (DNS 8 users see Nifty 58 Exercise 51. DNS 7 users see Nifty 50 Training Capsule 30.)

8. ANCHOR THE RESULTS BOX: Even beginners should probably move the Results box into the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen. This is accomplished by right clicking on the Results box, choosing the Anchor command, and dragging the box to a convenient place on the screen. (DNS 8 users see Nifty 58 Exercises 47 & 48. DNS 7 users see Nifty 50 Training Capsules 27 & 28.)