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No more excuses for reverting to type

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Jamie Carter

Are you a tour, or a type? (Sorry, that's not what I meant.) By your talk or a type? (No, not even close.) Are you a talker or a tighter?

Welcome to the world of voice recognition software. I'm speaking into my computer using the new Nuance, Dragon Dictate 2.5 for Mac (HK$1,600). This paragraph is going better than my first sentence, which was meant to read: are you a talker or a typer?

While some people spend all day on the telephone, internet and e-mail, I spend most of my time typing. So much so, in fact, that recently I've been aware of creeping tendinitis in my wrists.

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That's bad for a writer. A holiday is a great short-term solution, but what about when you have a deadline for your 1,000 words?

With Dragon loaded into my Mac, I wanted to see how long I could go without touching my keyboard. Can I go a whole week without a single keystroke?

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The short answer is no, but Dragon has changed the way I work. It could even extend my career, or at the very least, make writing a pain-free experience. (You'll no longer find a 'tortured artist' in my office.)

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