"Anne Brick" <annise@netspace.net.au> wrote in message news:mailman.3151.1202464555.4586.gencmp@rootsweb.com... > Soory I seem to have confused people - what I want to do is read large > quantities of letters to the computer and for it to produce me a text > file so that the contents of the letters can be shared amongst the family. I found your query perfectly clear. > I know there is a commercial program - Dragon naturally Speaking that does > this , it also has a lot of othher bells and whistles that I don't need , > so I was hoping there might be a simple shareware version. The problem with speech recognition is that the quality of the programme is very important, especially if vocabulary outside the normal run of daily life is concerned. Since I get RSI, I tried quite a few before settling on Dragon, but I must admit that I haven't treid the one that MS is packaging with some of their programmes. My office pc is running XP, and I see that it has it (go to the Control Panel and look for "speech". Dragon comes in a range of forms from very basic to profession (and expensive). What you could do is watch the discount bins at computer shops (or places like Amazon) for older versions - I'm currently using ver 7.3 which handles scottish place names, etc, very well. Lesley Robertson