Curious if anyone has any experience trying speech to text software for their writing and if so, what they'd recommend.
I've tried it, but only using free software, so it might be better if you get something good like Dragon. It was frustrating, because usually it would get much of what I said right, but maybe 10 or 20 percent completely wrong. It would put down a bunch of words that were similar to what I had said but wrong. As a result I had to do a LOT of editing. Well, about as much as I do when I type way too fast and/or use a crappy keyboard like I'm using now. My recommendation would be to try a free trial of a good program rather than use freebie software. Or maybe go ahead and play around with a freebie first just to see what that's like, as something to compare the good stuff against. I believe what I used was already pre-installed on my Mac, but not sure, it was a long time ago.
Oh, and you need to minimize or eliminate noises that could interfere in the room, like a fan or air conditioner etc. If you can't get rid of the noise things get a lot worse. Also, you need to pronounce words very carefully. Lol, you learn to enunciate extremely clearly.
It is a long time since I used speech to text software and I am aware it has improved a lot since then. It was unusable at that time 10+ years ago. You might like to have a look at this review https://uk.pcmag.com/software-services/140237/the-best-speech-to-text-apps-and-tools-for-every-type-of-user If it is correct - big if - then the free tools with Windows/Mac OS are as good as commercial. You might want to use the free tools to establish whether the concept suits your writing process. I found any form of dictation does not work for me. The words just do not flow.
It was somewhere in the vicinity of three or four years ago when I used it, and I think it was already pre-installed on my Mac, so it may well have been the newer generation that's supposedly as good as the pro stuff. I ultimately decided to just stick with typing. Using the dictation software resulted in the need for too much editing after the fact—so much that it was more work than if I had just typed it up if the first place.
By a weird coincidence I found a podcast on this subject yesterday. Just checked and it is behind a paywall now. Presenter seemed to be a trad author with multiple books published. I didn't recognise her but then she was in USA and I am in UK. She says STT doubled her output from 1500 words/hour average to 3000 words/hour average and from 2000/words/hour max to 4000 words/hour. She says she uses her phone with installed app - implied that most apps are now fine. Specifically said mic was not important. She said my problem ie can't get words to flow while speaking is almost universal because different parts of the brain are involved. She said it takes practice to overcome this and recommended practicing with non-fiction and transfer to fiction only after mastering the technique. Just out of curiosity I had a shot using Word STT reading from a book. Totally useless. As Xoic suggests error rate far too high. Perhaps something I am doing wrong because I know the reverse text to speech is now incredibly better than a few years ago and I would have expected STT to have a similar improvement. Not in my hands it doesn't!
I had to take a class on assistive technology while in library school. Ive used speech to text while in that class and i didnt like it all that much. As a person with a stutter, it was frustrating when it got it wrong. But some of them are really good that they "ignore" my prolonged words. But they do register my blocks as the end of a sentences. (Edit to add: i rarely use it for my writing. The only times i will use it is when im driving and cant pull over tonwrite the scene down. So ill open my notepad and dictate the scene. But, the same issues occur that i mentioned above. Its somewhat tedious to go back through what it thinks ive said) I recommend it to my patrons who dont know how to type and the ones who "type slow" (you'd be surprised by the amount of people who dont want to use a computer because they type slow... not because they CANT). Many of them have a google account, so i just pull up the google extension for them (google docs has a relatively new accessibility option that includeds speech to text). I dont remember the 2 we tested in school, though. And my new library has a subscription to a speech to text service, but thats not in my department soni dont know much about it
There's your problem right there! You use your hands for typing, shouldn't be using them for speaking. I don't think the software can read sign language yet.
