Turning Off Speech Recognition

3 4

When you've finished dictating, you need to turn off Speech Recognition, otherwise the microphone will continue to record your every utterance. To turn off Speech Recognition, click the Microphone button on the Language bar, just as you did to start it. You can also simply say Microphone to disable the microphone. However, Speech Recognition is still running until you shut down Word and any other speech-enabled Office XP program that is running.

To uninstall Speech Recognition altogether, click the Start and choose Settings, Control Panel, and double-click Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel. Select Microsoft Word (or Microsoft Office XP) in the Add/Remove Programs dialog box, click Change and then Add Or Remove Features. Click Office Shared Features in the displayed list; then click Alternative User Input and Speech. Finally, select Not Available from the list of choices displayed when you click Speech. Click Update to Speech Recognition from your computer. For more information about installing Speech Recognition, see "Introducing Speech and Handwriting Recognition Tools."

---

Speech Recognition Works, but Will It Work for You?

When determining whether speech recognition is right for your work style, the key question to ask yourself is: how well do you really type? If your typing speed is 80 words per minute with 95 percent accuracy, speech recognition will probably slow you down. If you're actually creating content as you type rather than just typing, your speed is going to be tied to how fast your brain can turn a phrase, not how fast your fingers can fly over the keyboard. In most cases, Word's Speech Recognition abilities won't slow down your writing process.

Real-world accuracy levels for speech recognition can consistently be 90-95%, going as high as 98% in optimal conditions. But you have to train Word patiently and build up its vocabulary to get to that kind of performance.

In the end, the choice between dictation and keyboarding is a matter of personal preference. But as you know, variety is the spice of life. And whether you use Word's Speech Recognition capabilities to dictate your next novel or simply to give your mouse-button-clicking finger a rest, it gives you yet another option that enables you to work with words in a way most comfortable for you.

---