I have unfortunately managed to break my wrist and am stuck-slowly-typing with only my non-dominant hand. I need to type to work! Can anyone recommend any voice recognition software that actually works, and is free or cheap?

Ouch, sorry that had to happen to you Abbie! I wish I knew of some programs that could help you. I hope that heals fast and you can get back to typing!

As it happens that I know of Dragon Natural speaking, got given it for a free back in the day when I studied as part of having dyslexia back then being version 4/5. Something and it was brilliant though hiccupped with accents a little that said this was 10 years ago though they are still proclaimed as the best though they aren't cheap though it is intened to replace the keyboard entirely.

Hopefully you get better soon and wish you all the best with your recovery!

Their site: http://www.nuance.co.uk/naturallyspeaking/

Sorry to hear of your injury, yikes!

I tried voice recog on the Mac, and it's a lot of work to get it even sorta working. I think Dragon is better, but not dramatically better. Voice recog is not like regular software, you have to train it to your voice.

Not sure what to suggest. Might be a good time to take some time off, and do some serious reading on some subject you've been meaning to learn. You might come out of it with a whole new skill?

Sorry to hear about your wrist break. I hope you recover soon.

What version of Windows do you use, if you use windows.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 come with voice recognition built in. It's just not well publicized. It's as good as Dragon VR.

-> Click the Start button

->Click Control Panel

-> Click Ease of Access

-> Click Speech Recognition

->Click Take Speech Tutorial

Nice discovery on that Windows Speach - never tried it. Will have to plug in a mic and check it out.

I've used Dragon for years. There's a little bit of time needed on it's initial configuration to distinguish your voice etc, but I've used it for years when taking notes or phone call journals.

I never got into using it for browsing the web etc, but I know it can be done pretty easy. I use it for letters all the time. Heck, I SHOULD use it on these forums

Thank you for your recommendations. I am using windows seven, and if I'm honest the voice recognition is shockingly poor. I have been working at training it to recognise my voice for three days now and still it has only around 30 percent accuracy. Is it normal for it to be so bad after so many hours of training? If so I shall persevere.

For what it's worth people frequently compliment me on my clear enunciation so I do not believe the fault to be there.

thx for the tip Blue, going to have to play with that to see if it helps.

So sorry to hear about your broken wrist. I haven't seen much improvement over the years in speech recognition. The two recommendations above are still probably your best choice, although it seems you're frustrated with the accuracy.

That's sad to hear. I hope you get better soon. Voice recognition softwares/programs can be very frustrating. You train them with your voice for a couple of weeks, yet you only get 30-40% accuracy.

I set it up for a friend once on Vista and it worked quite well.

I haven't even attempted it on Win7 or any other computer other than that original one.
At the time I remember it being easier to train than the Dragon program which I had more experience with.
Of course things change, especially where MS is concerned.

I would recommend Dragon Naturally Speaking as suggested above, I've seen it in action and it is quite impressive!

Well finally I resorted to a new microphone and the situation is hugely improved! I'm now getting perhaps 90% accuracy consistently and some times-perhaps when my mood and hence my voice is at its best I get close to 100% accuracy other than the really unusual words. So thanks, things seem to be working out at last.