Dragon Naturally Speaking Video 8 – Emulating the Mouse

This is Graham Armfield from Coolfields Consulting. In this video we’re going to look at how you can emulate mouse movement in Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

Previously we saw that it was not possible to use the click command to access the options link at the top right hand corner of this Google page. The reason for this was that the image that forms the link does not have any alternate text attached to it.

So in situations like this the Dragon NaturallySpeaking user is forced to use other means to access the link, and that is where the various mouse commands that Dragon features come into their own.

There are 2 ways of using the mouse pointer with Dragon:

The mouse grid function – where you can zoom in to a particular area and then issue a command, or moving the mouse directly using speech commands.

So firstly, mouse grid. After you have voiced the ‘Mouse grid’ command, a grid appears overlaying the screen. The screen is divided into 9 areas and you voice the number that contains the location where you want the mouse pointer to be. Each time you do this, a smaller grid appears and you voice further numbers until you have sufficient precision to put the mouse pointer exactly where it’s required. After that you can issue a command – the most common being ‘Click’. Let me show you how to access the options on this page.

Wake up, Mouse grid, 3, 5, 7, 1, Click, Go to sleep

So while it’s not as easy as voicing the name of the link to click, it still possible to place the pointer quickly, with practice.

The 2nd method involves moving the mouse across the page to the correct place and then issuing a command. Firstly, let’s move the pointer back towards the middle of the screen, and get rid of that dropdown. OK.

Wake up, Move mouse up, Move mouse up faster, Stop, Move mouse right, Move mouse right very fast, Stop, Move mouse right, Stop, Mouse click, Go to sleep

Dragon users won’t be happy if websites force them to do a lot of this.