Dragon NaturallySpeaking does some capitalization for you, as you dictate. For example, it generally capitalizes the first letter of a sentence. (Its cue to capitalize is that you have started a new paragraph or punctuated the end of a sentence.)

It also capitalizes words that it thinks are proper nouns or that it has been taught to capitalize in its vocabulary training or editing. In general, as long as you don’t do any manual typing between finishing one sentence and starting the next, NaturallySpeaking automatically takes care of the initial capitalization.

When NaturallySpeaking doesn’t capitalize for you, you have several ways to capitalize words yourself. The two best and easiest ways to capitalize are either before you speak a word or phrase or immediately afterward.

You can also select any text with your mouse or by voice and then apply capitalization and other formatting.

Here are the basics of capitalizing the initial letters of words:

  • To capitalize the first letter of any word, before speaking it say, “Cap” followed immediately by your word. Don’t pause between Cap and whatever the word is, or Dragon NaturallySpeaking will type cap instead of doing it!

  • After you say some words and NaturallySpeaking types them in your program window, say, “Cap That” or “All Cap That.” Cap means the initial letters are capitalized. All Cap means all the letters of a word are capitalized.

  • If you are about to speak a series of words that must be capitalized, say, “Caps On.” Speak those words (pausing for as long as you like anywhere in this process), and then say, “Caps Off.” To capitalize all the letters in a series of words (LIKE THIS) use the phrases All Caps On” and All Caps Off” instead.

“Caps On” and “Cap That” don’t really mean, “Capitalize the first letter of every word.” A more accurate interpretation would be, “Capitalize the first letter of every important word.” NaturallySpeaking tends to omit initial capitals for prepositions, articles, and all those other little words.

Even though NaturallySpeaking is probably being editorially correct according to the Chicago Manual of Style or other such authority, such selective capitalization may not be what you have in mind. If you want NaturallySpeaking to capitalize absolutely all the words, you have to say the command “Caps” before each word.