08-08-2008, 05:29 PM

Hello:
I am new to this forum and hoiping that someone can help with some technical information. I have been using Dragon Naturally Speaking (Professional for Medical dictation) version 9 on an aging PC machine. I would have preferred using something that was compatible with the Mac since I have used Macs for almost 20 years but there was nothing that offered the features of Dragon. At this point I am looking at having to upgrade to another computer to continue running the dictation program and would much prefer to buy a new Mac and run Dragon/Windows through an environment such as Parallels but the consultant who has helped our practice with the voice dictation system strongly recommends staying with a PC. Is anybody using the Professional version of Dragon on a Mac in this way? Is the reliability good? I called MacSpeech but their new software based on Dragon will not let me transfer the specialized vocabularly, etc that I have been using on the PC.
Many thanks.

08-08-2008, 08:20 PM

Parallels with Windows is a fine solution for apps that don't place high demands on the OS or the hardware. Programs that demand a lot of the machine, like 3D games, rendering software like Photoshop, and so on, don't work so well. In the case of your dictation software, I'm inclined to believe that it falls somewhere in the middle. Unless someone comes along who has experience that says differently, I wouldn't recommend a virtual machine as an option.

Running it under Crossover would be a great option if it worked, but it doesn't work (yet) from what I can read on the Codeweaver's site. It does look like they are actively working on getting it to work... perhaps with version 8.0 it will. *shrug*