Free(ware) software for..

I have two requirements, I am tired of typing texts and I want a speech-to-text software, which is available as freeware. Secondly, there are plenty of sofwares that convert any text files to PDF format. I am looking for an application that would convert pdf file to ms word .doc file, any software available?

I don't know any free software that can convert speech to text.But for converting .pdf to .doc use pdf995.
Get it from:*www.pdf995.com/download.html

MS office xp & above comes with inbuilt voice recongnizion function which will allow u to convert speech to text...
for pdf to word conversation i know a single software known pdf2word but available only as a shareware

I have xp and i found out and configured my voice, but how do I use it to create text out of my speech, where is the application?

Sridhar_Rao said:
I have xp and i found out and configured my voice, but how do I use it to create text out of my speech, where is the application?

forget abt speech s/w...the amt of time u will put in for the PC and urself to get use to it....u will choose typing eventually..so y waste time...in mean time take tuts on typing

Yes, I figured this out the hard way. The speech-to-text is in MS word. I tried it out and the error rate is 99%. Only 1% of what I spoke was typed correctly. We perhaps need an Indian software that can understand indian accent of english, until then typing is gold standard.

Sridhar_Rao said:
Yes, I figured this out the hard way. The speech-to-text is in MS word. I tried it out and the error rate is 99%. Only 1% of what I spoke was typed correctly. We perhaps need an Indian software that can understand indian accent of english, until then typing is gold standard.

u learnt that pretty fast..in around 1 hr....it took me 2-3 days to know that....1-2 years back

dunno abt free software but sometime back lotus smartsuite used to ship wid stripped down version of dragon naturally speaking indian version. my dad used to use it and the success rate was quite bearable... check it out... if u can get an old copy of smartsuite. shudn't cost much.. but the herculean task is to find it!!!

all freewares are useless! u'll mostly waste time training it then realise its of no use as everybody says!

Sridhar_Rao said:
Yes, I figured this out the hard way. The speech-to-text is in MS word. I tried it out and the error rate is 99%. Only 1% of what I spoke was typed correctly. We perhaps need an Indian software that can understand indian accent of english, until then typing is gold standard.

Did you train it?
The speech recognition can reach 75 -80% rate of accuracy provided that you train it and speak with an American accent.

I think OYu might be interested in these

*support.microsoft.com/kb/304860/

*office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/CH010714381033.aspx

Yes, I did train it, but not exhaustive, it was only one module. I shall try using all the available modules and give one final try. I don't have dragon software in old digit CD collection.

Regarding the PDF to word by pdf995 software, the conversion was extremely bad. Had I copied the text directly from PDF to clipboard and pasted on word, it would have been better. Downloading and trying PDF995 was waste of time, bandwidth and effort. Sorry, it might have been good to others, but it didn't serve my purpose.