Fundamental Dragon commands
Overview
There are thousands of commands and command combinations available for use in Dragon Naturally Speaking. Learning every single command it has to offer is time consuming and potentially overwhelming. In either case there are some commands that may prove to be more or less practical for the provider depending on their level of utilization, method of documentation, and their overall comfort level with technology.
Dragon Commands
When getting a provider up and running on Dragon it is important to provide him/her with the knowledge of a basic starter set of useful and practical commands than can prove to be beneficial from day one.
Overall there tend to be two main types of commands in Dragon. There are commands known as navigation or cursor movement commands and there are editing or grammar oriented commands. It can sometimes be useful to make that distinction when approaching commands.
"Wake Up" or "Listen to Me" – this will change the microphone from a paused or “sleeping” state to an active/listening state.
"Go to Sleep" or "Stop Listening" – this will change the microphone from an active/listening state to a paused or “sleeping state”. This is useful when the provider either pauses to think, is reviewing other chart items, or momentarily steps away.
"(Exit|Close) Dragon" - used to exit the application completely.
Dictation Box commands
"Open Dictation Box" - this command will open the Dragon Dictation Box for direct dictation while working within the Dragon application (most accurate & recommended method).
"(Hide|Show) Dictation Box" - this will toggle the Dictation Box from being hidden or shown on the screen.
"Transfer Text" - once text has been dictated into the Dragon Box, navigate to the location the text will be transferred to and then say this command. This will essentially copy/paste the text from the Dragon Box into the desired location where the cursor is present.
"New Line" – this is the equivalent to 1 carriage return or hitting the Enter key once and is useful when listing items such as in an Assessment or Plan.
"New Paragraph" – this is the equivalent to 2 carriage returns or hitting the Enter key twice and is useful when starting a new paragraph.
"Insert (before|after) [word to insert before or after]" – this is the equivalent of manually placing the cursor either before or after a specified word.
"Go to (beginning|end)" or "Go to (top|bottom)" - this will move the cursor to either the absolute beginning or to the absolute end of the text in the active window. Using “Go to Beginning” will place the cursor before the first letter in the entire passenger and using “Go to End” will place the cursor after the last latter in the entire passage. The command "Go to End" also helps to prevent strike thrus in the users dictation.
"Move (up|down) [# of lines]" – this is the equivalent to using the up or down arrow key on the keyboard. The cursor will directly up or down the # of lines of which you specify in the command.
Selection Commands
"Select Again" - this commands will select the next instance of the currently selected word. This can be helpful when you hav emultiple instances of the same word in the same passage; such as "the" or "and".
"Select All" - select the entire document.
"Select Line" - select the entire line that the cursor is present within.
"Select Paragraph" - select the entire paragraph that the cursor is present within.
"Unselect That" - unselect the currently selected text.
"Select [word or phrase to select]" – this is the equivalent of dragging the mouse over and highlighting a specific word or phrase in a passage. Double clicking on a specific word in a passage with the mouse would also have the same effect.
"Select [start text] through [end text]" - this command is useful when attempting to make selections of long blocks of text, so the entire block of text doesn't have to be recited, just the first part and the last part.
Editing Commands
"Scratch That" – this command will delete the last word or utterance. Dragon defines and utterance as basically the last batch of transcribed text that was committed or printed to the screen. Depending on the speaking style and speed of the dictating provider this could be one word or even a small paragraph.
"Cap That" – this command will apply normal capitalization to a selected word or phrase. Selecting the phase “diabetes mellitus” and using the Cap That command will yield “Diabetes Mellitus”
"Delete That" – this command will delete either the currently selected word or phrase.
"Delete [Word(s)]" - this command will delete the specified word(s).
"Undo That" – this command will undo the last action or most commands used by Dragon. For example if the Cap That command was used to change “diabetes mellitus” to “Diabetes Mellitus”; the Undo That command would yield “diabetes mellitus”.
"Copy That" - this command will copy the selected text to the clipboard.
"Copy All" - this command will copy the entire document to the clipboard.
"Cut That" - this command will cut the selected text to the clipboard.
"Paste That" - this command will insert the copied/cut text into the cursor location.
"Cap That" - this command will capitalize the first letter of the selected word.
"All Cap That" - this commands will capitalize the entire selected word.
"Caps [On/Off]" - this command will turns cap lock on or off.
"Bold That" - this command will bold the selected text.
"[Next/Previous] Field" - this command will move to the next or previous blank field or variable field [ ] within the document. This command is particularly useful if you have built variables or blank fields into a macro or template that may have slight variations which can be added on a case-by-case basis by utilizing blank fields/variables.
Correction/Training Commands
"Correct That" – this command will bring up the Dragon correction menu for the select word or phrase. The correction menu is a drop down list that will offer corrections for the word or phrase such as closely related words, and access to other Dragon commands.
"Spell That" – this command will bring up the Spelling dialog box. If a provider is becoming stuck on a particular word they can attempt to spell the word letter by letter. Dragon will perform an active lookup in the current vocabulary for the word or the word can be added and trained to the provider’s vocabulary on the fly; all from the Spelling dialog box.
"Train That" – this command will bring up the training dialog box. This is where the provider train or prompt Dragon to remember how he or she speaks specific words or phrases. This is highly recommended for a provider to consistently do in order for the program to actively learn and adapt to the speaker. The Dragon learning curve to a provider’s speaking style is exponential. This means the more it is trained sooner will lead to lesser word and more accurate recognition later.