IBM ViaVoice 10.0 Standard Edition

Once installed, the ViaVoice VoiceCenter bar sits at the top of the screen and whatever you say into the supplied noise-cancelling headset is interpreted as either dictation or a command. The program works with Microsoft Word but if you use a different word processor ViaVoice's SpeakPad text editor will take dictation just as happily; you can then cut-and-paste into the application of your choice.

ViaVoice 10.0 Standard Edition understands a wide range of dictation-specific commands (such as "go to end of line" and "new paragraph"), and this will help you move around your document. You can work entirely by voice, but most people use a combination of dictation and mouse clicks for highest productivity.

No speech recognition system is completely accurate and to cope with the occasional mistake, ViaVoice 10.0 Standard Edition provides a correction window in which a numbered list of likely alternatives is shown. Saying "pick " substitutes the word or phrase at that position in the list.

When you first start using the program, you need to train it to understand your voice. This takes around 20 minutes, and further training can improve accuracy. Getting it used to your voice is only half the battle: getting it to understand your vocabulary is just as important, particularly if you use specialist words. ViaVoice 10.0 Standard Edition can search through your previous documents, adding new words to its already extensive vocabulary. This is a cunning shortcut to boosting accuracy. --Simon Williams