Loss of Select and Say in Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer (IE) and Dragon do not always play nicely together; particularly the latest version of IE.

Intermittent issues are the most difficult to track down, however, knowing that an issue exists is half the battle, and removes the need for you to wonder: “What did I do wrong?”. It’s not you… it’s IE and Dragon.

Even if an issue is determined, the next step is finding a resolution.  If there is no resolution, then a workaround must be conceived and used.  Such is the case with IE and Dragon.

Symptoms of IE and Dragon’s marital spat include:

• Loss of Select-and-Say in IE (the ability to select and correct text dictated into a text field),
• Loss of the ability to click on links by voice, and
• Loss of the ability to use IE specific commands such as “link” and “image”.

The bottom line? Dragon stops working in IE. Why?  Dragon forgets where it is; in other words, it no longer has IE registered as the active window so it has no reason to access any features with respect to IE.

The solution?

1. If you are a Speakeasy Solutions client who has purchased a speech recognition package, you will have a useful little command in your arsenal called “fix focus”.  “Fix focus” will fix Dragon’s focus, returning it to the window you know to be active (in this case, IE).  You should have full select-and-say as well as the IE commands once more at your disposal.
2. If you are not a client of Speakeasy Solutions, you can shift your computer’s active window focus to another window, and then back to IE.  Pressing < Alt > + < Tab > twice would work well if you have two windows open (including IE).

Is the above solution a permanent fix?  Sadly, no.  Depending on a host of factors, you may never need to resort to the above, or you may find yourself saying “fix focus” every few minutes.

At least you know it’s not anything that you are doing.  Good luck.

Related posts:

1. Dragon Disabled by MS Word (loss of functionality)
2. Dragon User Profiles: Have you Backed Up Lately?