Number Formatting

Last Modified: January 22, 2000

First introduced with Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 3.5 is a feature which automatically formats numbers, currency and related expressions. This makes it easier to dictate documents which contain numeric expressions.

For example, to dictate the string "$3.45", you used to have to say "dollar sign three point four five". But now, starting with Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 3.5 you can say "three dollars and forty five cents" and NatSpeak will automatically generate the correct written expression.

The following things should work:

• Numbers and currency up to 999 trillion. For example:
    "four hundred ninety five thousand and twenty two" -> 495,022
    "four hundred ninety five thousand and twenty two dollars" -> $495,022
    "two thousand dollars and five cents" -> $2000.05
    
• Fractions with denominators between 2 and 10 plus sixteen. For example:
    "seventeen and three fifths" -> 17 3/5
    "forty five and three sixteenths points" -> 45 3/16 points
    
• Standard US phone numbers. For example:
    "one eight hundred three seven seven oh five hundred" -> 1-800-377-0500
    "six one seven seven ninety six oh two four four" -> 617-796-0244
    
• Time expressions. For example:
    "seven twenty p.m." -> 7:20 p.m.
    "three oh 2 a.m." -> 3:02 a.m.
    
• Web and e-mail addresses. For example:
    "Joel G. at dragon systems .com" -> JoelG@dragonsystems.com
    "www dot natural speech .com" -> www.naturalspeech.com

Usually pauses do not impact the formatting. You can pause in the middle of a large number of phone number and it should still do the right thing.

This feature is really great for numbers and phone numbers. However, the web and e-mail formatting still remains somewhat of a gee whiz feature. The problem with web and e-mail expressions is that many of the words are not really words or are uncommon enough that recognition errors spoil the effect.

This web page (http://www.synapseadaptive.com/joel/NumberFormatting.html) was last modified on January 22, 2000. The contents of this page are (c) Copyright 1998-1999 by Joel Gould. All Rights Reserved. See Copyright Information for more details.