It’s quite funny to even be talking about something as seemingly simple as the microphone button when it comes to using Dragon. Surely it’s as easy as clicking on and clicking off? The microphone is active when green and inactive when red.
While this is how the mic button on the Dragonbar works in most cases, it’s worth investigating a bit further to make sure you’re getting optimal usage. After all, if you’re clicking that button 20 times a day, you want to make sure you’re doing it optimally and without delay.
Mic Hot Key
The mic button comes with a hot key. This means that you have a key on your keyboard assigned as a toggle to switch the mic on and off. This is one of the easiest and definite ways to operate the mic. It’s default setting is the plus (+) key, which is easier if you have a large plus key on your numberpad. You can adjust the hot key to another button on your keyboard, just make sure it’s not one you need for other frequent tasks or functions.
As part of our training we suggest that the quickest way is usually the best way, meaning that if you can press a button quicker than saying a command – do it. You don’t have to use your voice for everything and often it’s just so much quicker to drag and click a mouse than issue a command to reposition the cursor.
Click On/Off
One of the most common ways of managing your microphone is by clicking the microphone to get going and then clicking it again when you want to stop. While this method makes sense, the microphone button is a small target and requires time to zip up to the button and engage the mouse. You may be an expert at navigating your mouse arrow but this is better as a secondary option.
Voice Commands
You can say “Microphone Off” to switch your mic off, but you can’t say “Microphone On”. It’s a classic error people make in training, not realising that when the microphone is off, it’s not hearing you at all.
If you want to keep it in a standby mode, rather say “Go to Sleep” and “Wake Up”. This means it will keep listening out for the re-engage command but will ignore everything else you say. The only downside to using this is that your PC is dedicating memory to keeping this function running in the background, which can take away from other active tasks. If you’re not using the microphone actively, it’s a good idea to just switch off.