Capterra Logo
Helping businesses choose better software since 1999
Dragon Professional Individual

Dragon Professional Individual

4.0 (240)
Capterra offers objective, independent research and verified user reviews. We may earn a referral fee when you visit a vendor through our links.
Recent review

"Good product but overpriced."

4.0

David G. - physicianJuly 27, 2024

STARTING PRICE

$300

one time
per feature

Free Trial
Not Available

EASE OF USE

3.9/5

Based on Capterra user reviews

What is Dragon Professional Individual?

Put your voice to work to create reports, emails, forms and more with Dragon Professional Individual, v15. With a next-generation speech engine leveraging Deep Learning technology, dictate and transcribe faster and more accurately than ever before, and spend less time on documentation and more time on activities that boost the bottom line.

Do you work for Dragon Professional Individual?Claim this product profile

Compare with a popular alternative

Dragon Professional Individual

4.0 (240)
Dragon Professional Individual

VS.

USD $300.00
One Time
USD $1.25
Starting Price
Free Version
Free Trial
Free Version
Free Trial
Pricing Options
12
28
Total Features
0
0
Total Integrations
3.9 (240)
0.0 (0)
Ease Of Use
3.6 (240)
0.0 (0)
Value For Money
3.2 (240)
0.0 (0)
Customer Service

Green rating bars show the winning product based on the average rating and number of reviews.

Other great alternatives to Dragon Professional Individual

Ease of Use
4.6
Customer Service
4.9
Features
4.5
Value for Money
4.7
Ease of Use
4.9
Customer Service
4.8
Features
4.8
Value for Money
4.7
Ease of Use
4.8
Customer Service
4.6
Features
4.7
Value for Money
4.2

Key user insights about Dragon Professional Individual

Based on of verified reviews collected between February, 2017 and February, 2023
avatar 1avatar 2avatar 3avatar 4avatar 5avatar 6

Voice recognition

Based on 73 reviews
Users find Dragon Professional Individual's voice recognition to be quite accurate, with the software learning and improving over time. They appreciate that it can handle live dictation into templates with minimal errors and that it works well for basic words and sentences. However, some users experience issues with the initial setup time, occasional misinterpretation of words, and the need for frequent voice training updates, which can be tedious and time-consuming.

Dictation

Based on 54 reviews

Reviewers praise Dragon Professional Individual for its efficient and effective dictation capabilities. They find the dictation process to be fluid and conducive to creativity, allowing them to focus on content rather than typing. Additionally, users highlight the software's ability to handle large volumes of dictation quickly and accurately, making it an indispensable tool for daily use and long projects.

Pros

  • The navigation of websites is pretty good most of the time. The ability to create custom commands for specialized applications is also nice to have.

  • The shorthand text is a great tool and helps speed up the process. It is very user friendly.

  • If you have to do any kind of creative writing, article writing, or making documentation you will amaze yourself at how quickly you will hit your target word count when you can speak instead of type.

  • It has been a life-saver, freeing me from the keyboard. Invest in a good headset mic to increase accuracy and make the most out of this software.

Cons

  • I had two technical problems that were very seriously hindering my capacity to use the program. All attempts to get a tech support failed.

  • Was just difficult to get them to understand could not always uninstall as harddrive was dead and could not get around the problem.

  • The set up process is somewhat annoying. Having to work with the program to get it to recognize my voice makes sense, but I’m wondering if it is necessary.

  • Poor word recognition but biggest problem is that it constantly crash itself or other programs. Support was useless as only wanted you to buy program and couldn't handle refund.

Most Recent Video User Review for Dragon Professional Individual

SEE ALL VIDEO REVIEWS
Video Review

Dictation made easy and inexpensive

5.0
Posted on November 25, 2020POSTED BY:

Harlan E.

Practice AdministratorMedical Practice
Reviewer Source

Most Helpful Reviews for Dragon Professional Individual

Evans J. avatar
Evans J.
Partner
Law Practice, 201-500 employees
Used the software for: 2+ years
Overall Rating
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Customer Service
2.0
Features
5.0
Value for Money
5.0
Likelihood to Recommend
9/10
Reviewer Source
Source: Capterra
December 26, 2018

"Great Program; Marginal Customer Service"

Overall: I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking daily for practically everything I do, including e-mails, correspondence, documents, and Outlook entries. It is accurate and effectively eliminates the need for a typist. It has a few drawbacks, but they are overwhelmed by its advantages.

Pros: NaturalSpeaking is the premium software for voice dictation. With an above average microphone, its accuracy is easily about 95% and likely 90% right out of the box. It learns as you use it, customizing itself to your manner of speaking, pronunciation, etc. It is relatively easy to create special words and even phrases and macros that you use often.

Cons: Customer service is a drag. It has been my experience that they are slow to respond. I also find that the knowledge base and online support is not fantastic and often get better results with a Google search than I do searching Nuance's knowledge base. It needs a better Chrome extension so that it does not need to be reset each time you close and reopen Chrome. Also, I cannot seem to train it to recognize how I pronounce certain words, which is regretable because those are almost always the inaccuracies in any document.

Francis H.
Director
Writing and Editing, Self-employed
Used the software for: 2+ years
Overall Rating
4.0
Ease of Use
4.0
Customer Service
4.0
Features
5.0
Value for Money
5.0
Likelihood to Recommend
10/10
Reviewer Source
Source: Capterra
August 19, 2019

"The power of speech."

Overall: My Business is all about writing and Nuance Dragon Speech Recognition software enables me to get my ideas typed quickly and easily. Moreover, the process is fluid and does not interrupt my creativity. I can talk faster than I can type, therefore, speaking into a headset microphone has become second nature. The purpose of getting this software was to speed up the writing process and to help with my wrist ailments. There are medical benefits too, for people with difficulties in their hands, where extensive typing can be a painful problem. Essentially the benefits to me of using Nuance Dragon Speech Recognition software are : Easily transfer my ideas to text by dictating. Transcribe recordings of meetings, podcasts, radio interviews etc. Ease my wrist pain by not needing to manually type so much.

Pros: I have used Nuance Dragon Speech Recognition software for several years, from version 12 to the current version 15 for PC. Anyone vaguely familiar with this type of software may be used to clunky products that struggle to recognize simple words, let alone sentences and so on. Fret no more. Nuance are the market leaders in this field, and for good reason. It works - pure and simple. I defy anyone not to tryout the current version and not be super impressed. Honestly, give it a go. After training it to your voice by reading out a set piece of text in your natural tone and voice, Dragon sets up a profile for you. The more you use Dragon, the better your profile becomes at remembering and crucially, learning how you speak. The current version even allow podcasts, radio interviews etc, to be transcribed with I would say depending upon the clarity of the persons voice, at least 80% accuracy. In addition to using Dragon for dictating, you can use it to navigate the internet. Yes, you can. With practice, you ask Dragon to open up your web browser and speak the web sites you wish to browse. I have achieved limited success with this, though this is more because I haven't grasped the commands yet. I love being able to say commands like - Open microsoft word. New document. Then watch Dragon perform these tasks like magic. More magic unfolds when you start to speak and the text appears. Oh keep in mind, though, you have to say the punctuation. After a while this becomes natural.

Cons: Nuance Dragon Speech Recognition software can after several hours of use appear to get tired and become sluggish. Words and phrases it will have previously recognised will mystify it and produce random or garbled results. Dragon will not recognise some commands. This can be annoying when you are trying to complete a piece of work. When this happens, its best to switch it off for a break. Another point is that Dragon can become too particular and remonstrate with you for becoming tired. For example, as we lose energy our voice may decrease in clarity and tone. Well, Dragon is unforgiving, such that when you dictate and are unclear with your words, the typed text will not be what you want. Dragon will have misinterpreted, often with random and bemusing results. Solution, take a break or resort to manual typing.

Alternatives Considered: SpeechTexter
Reasons for Choosing Dragon Professional Individual: Nuance Dragon Speech Recognition software appears to be the industry standard for this purpose. It is a heritage product, tried and tested over a number of years with great success. Having used the earlier iterations I was certain the current version would probably not let me down. However, I explored the cheaper alternative, SpeechTexter and decided this was not as feature rich and as accurate as Dragon. In addition, sometimes, the saying, "you get what you pay for", applies. With Dragon, I think its true.
Joe B.
President
Real Estate, 201-500 employees
Used the software for: Less than 6 months
Overall Rating
1.0
Ease of Use
1.0
Customer Service
1.0
Features
1.0
Value for Money
1.0
Reviewer Source
Source: Capterra
September 23, 2024

"old bad software"

Overall: I had to use it because I was temporarily disabled and it was horrible to learn and absolutely frustrating at times. As soon as I can type on my own it will be deleted and never ever purchase again.

Pros: command prompts worked reasonably well if you know what they are.

Cons: it is a very stupid software and can't read anything around it which in today's day is archaic. The software needs a major upgrade and update to be smarter on how it works. learning the software is a difficult task.

David G. avatar
David G.
physician
Medical Practice, Self-employed
Used the software for: 2+ years
Overall Rating
4.0
Ease of Use
3.0
Customer Service
1.0
Features
4.0
Value for Money
2.0
Likelihood to Recommend
2/10
Reviewer Source
Source: Capterra
July 27, 2024

"Good product but overpriced."

Overall: Unhelpful unless you pay $hundreds for help. I am not sure the quality of the service - I could never get that far.

Pros: The program (v 16) transcribed well (even medical terms) and is relatively easy to use once the learning curve and training have been completed.

Cons: I paid over $500 for what I was told was a plan that would include free upgrades. Nine months after purchase I noted that UK English was being used by Dragon instead of American English and I could not get the output text language back to American English. I called customer support and was told I needed to pay an additional $200 to get service. The rationale put forth was that my cust. support expired after 6 months and again I would need to pay $200 to receive help. The $500 I paid up front did not even allow me to get help from customer service. Unless you care nothing about expense. move on to a different program.

Reasons for Switching to Dragon Professional Individual: poor customer support with over charging for service
Alina P. avatar
Alina P.
Owner
Publishing, Self-employed
Used the software for: 1-2 years
Overall Rating
5.0
Ease of Use
3.0
Features
5.0
Value for Money
4.0
Likelihood to Recommend
8/10
Reviewer Source
Source: Capterra
March 20, 2019

"Great dictation software"

Overall: I have been using Dragon as an alternative to typing my novels. When used consistently, it provides for larger numbers of words per hour than I could ever type and it gives my wrists a break. It has a learning curve that's not something to ignore. You have to train the software and be patient with it and yourself at first. My preferred method of working with it is to record myself and then use Dragon to transcribe my dictation. It does a lot better with non fiction than with fiction at first. It's not great with exotic names (so if you write unconventional character names, you will have a few issues unless you use easier variants for dictation), but it can be trained to recognize even those if you take the time to correct it. It's great if you spend a large number per day typing, as it will reduce the strain you put on your wrists. With practice, it also increases the number of words per hour you can get on paper. Please bear in mind though that I spent more time training myself to dictate than I did learning how to use the software or to train it. Dictating a piece of fiction is a very different process than typing it and it will take time at first to get Dragon to understand you. Unless you have a very clean accent, you'll spend more time training it to recognize your speech patterns. English is not my native language and my accent is not a standard one, but I had very few issues getting it to accurately transcribe what I was saying.

Pros: Dragon is my preferred dictation software for my novels. I love the accuracy and how it can be improved through using the software repeatedly.

Cons: Dragon is not the best at handling accents and transcription can take a while.