Making Sure You Have the Essential Equipment

Making Sure You Have the Essential Equipment

Before you try to use Excel's speech recognition feature, make sure your computer system is properly equipped. Work through the following checklist, and examine your computer to make sure it meets the minimum requirements:

• Processor: Pentium II 400MHz or faster. Trying to run speech recognition on anything slower than a Pentium 400MHz machine will slow down your system to a crawl. (To view information about the processor, right-click My Computer and choose Properties . The System Properties dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 15.1.)

  Figure 15.1. Display the System Properties dialog box for information about your computer.

  

• Memory: 128MB RAM (memory). If your system has less than 128MB of RAM, the speech recognition feature will slow down your computer and cause it to crash. (Again, display the System Properties dialog box to determine the amount of memory installed.)

• Sound card: Most computers come equipped with a 16-bit SoundBlaster-compatible sound card or better. A 16-bit sound card is sufficient for voice commands and dictation. If your computer has speakers , it has a sound card.

• Close-talk microphone: A close-talk microphone is positioned a couple of inches from your mouth and is designed to block out background noise. If your computer has a built-in microphone or a microphone that sits on your desk, you must buy a better microphone, specifically a close-talk microphone.

Tip

Get a microphone with a headset mount, and position the microphone about one inch from the corner of your mouth. Do not position the microphone directly in front of your mouth; the puffs of air your mouth emits during normal speaking will cause erratic results. Try to mount the microphone in the same position each time you use it.