Speech Recognition Slow in Word 2013

Hello,

Word does not have any built-in settings to change the behavior or performance for speech recognition in Windows.

However, you may check in Word safe mode and see if speech recognition works fine.

 Let us open Word in its application safe following the steps mentioned below and check the performance.

Hold Windows key +R. Type the following command in the Open box, and then press Enter:  winword /safe

Note: There is a space between winword and /

Disable add-ins if Word safe works fine.  If the application works fine in safe mode, try disabling the Add-ins for the application and check the result.

Click the File tab.

Go to Options.

Click Add-ins.

Clear all the options.

Hope the above information is helpful, verify and let us know the result and we will be glad to assist you.

Thank you.

Speech recognition is running horribly slow in Word 2013.  It takes a long time to start up, causes the entire program to freeze, and is very spotty in recognizing what I am saying.

Are you starting WSR, Windows Speech Recognition, at startup? If you are starting Word before starting WSR, this can occur.

Marty

I had been opening speech recognition at startup, but am not sure if I was doing that when the behavior occurred.  Is it important to open it at startup, or just to start Speech Recognition before I open Word?  I prefer not to open programs at startup if I don't have to.

I've found when you close Word or WSR and then try opening one or both of these, the OS seems to often be confused and problems such as yours manifest themselves. There may be parts of these programs in cache that are not cleared.

Considering the severity of the problem, it is worth setting WSR to open on bootup and then see if the problem is cured. If it works great. If it does not work, disable WSR starting on boot.

Marty

Thanks - I restored initiation at startup and so far it's working fine! 

Great. Please check my posts that say you found the information helpful.

Thanks,
Marty Markoe, MyMSSpeech.com

Ugh - its happening again.  I have SR set to run at startup.  Opened a new file.  It takes a good 5-15 seconds between typing a letter and that letter appearing on the screen.  Unacceptable.  Any other ideas?

Had you closed Word and then opened a new file or were you working on a file, saved it and then the problem occurred on opening the new file? If you had closed Word, and then re-opened it, try leaving Word running.

Another thought has to do with the microphone. Are you turning the microphone Off or is it in Sleep mode ready to wake when you say Start Listening? When in Sleep mode the system is listening to all sounds while waiting for the specific Start Listening command. The Speech cache can fill up and cause delays as you describe.

Marty

I'm not what you mean by the first paragraph.  Speeh Recognition opens at startup, and I usually have mulitple Word files open.  So its open the entire time I have my Word documents open.  Incidentially, I am finding that Speech Recognition is horribly slow inputting in Word but not in other programs (like FileLocator Pro).  I do a combination of cutting and pasting, typing, and speaking so I constantly start Speech Recognition, put it to sleep or turn it off while my documents are open.

The behavior also occurs when I turn it off as opposed to putting it to sleep. 

Does Dragon cause this kind of slow behavior?  I could understand if a paid program works better in terms of accuracy, but its disappointing the MIcrosoft's internal program seems to also cause performance issues with its basic word processing software.