If you got here looking for where to buy Dragon NaturallySpeaking in Spanish, the short answer is an awkward one: the last home edition in Spanish, Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 13, is discontinued. What Nuance (owned by Microsoft since 2022) sells in Spain today is something else: Dragon Professional v16, Windows only, with no published price and sold through its sales team. The alternatives for dictating in Spanish are the free dictation in Windows and Word, a legal suite such as DigaLaw X or an AI dictation app such as ablalo, which also works on Mac.
In short: the home edition of Dragon in Spanish is discontinued; what is left is Dragon Professional v16, Windows only, with the audio on your computer and no published price. Win+H is fine for short notes and Word only dictates inside Word; neither of them processes the audio on your computer. ablalo: Spanish on Windows and Mac, voice on your computer, 22 to 29 euros a month plus VAT.
The Dragon alternative for what you do
There is no single replacement: it depends on what you used Dragon for. This is how it breaks down in October 2026:
- Notes, messages and short emails: Windows voice typing (Win+H), free and in any program.
- Dictating only inside Word, with Microsoft 365: Word's Dictate button.
- Controlling the computer by voice or staying in the Dragon family: Dragon Professional v16, Windows only and through Nuance's sales team.
- A legal dictation suite in Spanish, with installation and training: DigaLaw X.
- Long documents in Spanish, in any program on Windows or Mac and with your voice processed on your computer: an AI dictation app such as ablalo.
What happened to Dragon
For two decades Dragon NaturallySpeaking was the standard for professional dictation. Many law firms and medical practices built the way they work on top of it. Its decline was not a loud announcement but a gradual retreat:
- 2018, Mac: the last version was Dragon for Mac 6. Today all desktop versions of Dragon are for Windows.
- 2021 and 2022: Microsoft buys Nuance, the company behind Dragon, for about 19.7 billion dollars.
- 27 February 2023: Nuance stops selling the version 15 editions in English and German, among them Dragon Home (the home edition and the most affordable one), Dragon Professional Individual and Dragon Legal Individual, and warns that they will get no more updates or security patches. The successor is version 16, which is installed on the computer itself: in Spain, Dragon Professional v16.
- March 2025: Microsoft launches Dragon Copilot, a voice assistant for doctors that combines Dragon Medical One dictation with DAX ambient listening. It is made for medical consultations, not for a law firm, and Spain is not on the list of countries where Microsoft gave it as available in March 2026.
- Today, in Spanish: the home range in Spanish stopped at Premium 13, a product from the middle of the last decade. Nuance's Spanish website only lists Dragon Professional v16, whose documentation is also published in Spanish.
Microsoft presented the purchase, in April 2021, as a bet on the cloud for healthcare, and free dictation already comes inside Windows. For a professional who writes in Spanish and wants a desktop licence, that leaves a gap nobody has completely filled.
Before buying from a reseller: Dragon 13 licences still turn up in third-party shops and second-hand marketplaces. Bear in mind that this is software frozen years ago, with no updates or support, and that its activation depends on servers the manufacturer is not obliged to keep running indefinitely. Always confirm the current status of the product and of your language with Nuance or Microsoft before paying.
What Dragon alternatives are left on Windows and Mac
1. Windows voice typing (Win+H)
It is included, it is free and it turns on with a shortcut. For a quick note or a short message it does the job. The problem appears as soon as the text gets longer: in Spanish it tends to fall short on punctuation, on proper names and on any technical or uncommon term. You end up dictating fast and then correcting slowly, which is exactly what you were trying to avoid. We go into it in how to dictate in Word and where it falls short.
2. Microsoft Word dictation
If you have Microsoft 365, Word has its own dictation and it works better than the system one. The limitation is one of scope: it lives inside Word. As soon as you move to your email, the browser, a PDF or your case management software, you no longer have it, and a good part of office work happens outside Word. We compare the two free dictation tools with a paid app in ablalo versus Windows and Word dictation.
3. Dragon's professional lines
Nuance still sells Dragon Professional v16, optimised for Windows 11 and compatible with Windows 10, which also transcribes audio files. It does not publish the price: its Spanish website refers you to its sales team and to volume licensing. It is a serious option, but go in with your eyes open: there is no Mac version, Dragon Legal (the legal line) is not on the Spanish website and the dictation language of each licence has to be confirmed before buying, not taken for granted.
4. A legal dictation suite in Spanish
If what tied you to Dragon was the full package (licence, installation, training), in Spanish there is DigaLaw X, from SpeechWare. It presents itself as an “all in one” solution designed by lawyers, it also transcribes audio and video recordings of hearings and its licence includes remote installation on the PC and one-to-one training. Versions, prices and limits, in ablalo versus DigaLaw X.
5. Modern dictation apps
This is the category that has grown since AI voice models became good and lightweight. They work on top of any program, are paid by subscription instead of by licence and, in several cases, transcribe on the computer itself without sending the audio anywhere. Among the general-purpose ones is Wispr Flow, which processes your voice in the cloud (we compare it in ablalo versus Wispr Flow). ablalo is in this group (it is developed in Pamplona by the NAXIA team), and further down we explain what to look at to choose sensibly within it.
Quick comparison
| Win+H | Word | Dragon Pro | ablalo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Up-to-date Spanish | Yes | Yes | Confirm | Yes |
| Mac | No | Yes | No (last version, 2018) | Yes, native |
| In any program | Yes | Word only | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic punctuation | Limited | Partial | Yes | Yes |
| Custom vocabulary | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Audio on your computer | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Transcribe recordings | No | Separately, in the cloud | Yes | Yes, on your computer |
| Control the computer by voice | No | No | Yes | No |
| Try before paying | Included | With M365 | Ask | 14 days, no card |
| Cost | Free | With M365 | No published price | 22 to 29 €/month + VAT |
Public data from each manufacturer, checked on 17 October 2026 (the sources are at the end). Nuance does not publish prices on its Spanish website and refers you to its sales team; the dictation language of each Dragon licence has to be confirmed before buying. DigaLaw X, Wispr Flow and the other options, with their prices, are in the comparison of dictation software for lawyers.
What a Dragon replacement should have
If you come from Dragon, you already know that dictation is judged by how much you have to correct afterwards. These are the six points where it is decided:
It punctuates on its own
Nobody wants to spend half an hour saying «coma», «punto y aparte», «abrir comillas» (comma, new paragraph, open quotes). Modern dictation puts in the commas, full stops and capital letters by reading the rhythm and meaning of the sentence. It is the difference between a paragraph ready to send and a block of text you have to go over in full.
It cleans up the way we really speak
When we speak we say «eh», «o sea», we repeat ourselves, we correct ourselves halfway through a sentence. Literal dictation gives you all of that back as it was and you have to delete it by hand. What is useful is for it to remove the filler words and repetitions and give you the clean sentence, without it sounding like someone else.
It learns your vocabulary
This is where real work shows most. Uncommon surnames, acronyms, company names, the jargon of your specialty. Good dictation lets you add those terms once and never correct them again. Without that, every document drags along the same five mistakes.
The audio doesn't leave your computer
This point weighs differently depending on your work. If you dictate a shopping list, it doesn't matter. If you dictate about a client, a case file or a confidential matter, it does: it matters whether that recording travels to someone else's server or is transcribed on your own machine. Look at it before choosing, not after: in client confidentiality and the GDPR when using AI you will find the specific questions to ask.
With ablalo your voice is transcribed on your own computer: the audio is not uploaded to any server. If you turn on the Assistant mode, which rewrites and adjusts the text, only the text travels, and it goes to a European AI. You can read the details in the privacy policy (in Spanish).
It gets you finished sooner
It is the reason people buy dictation, and it is worth putting numbers on it. A person types at about 40 words a minute; speaking, they comfortably reach 160. That is four times faster, and that ratio doesn't depend on how well you type: it depends on the fact that speaking is what you have been doing all your life.
Translated into real work: a 2,000-word brief is about 50 minutes of typing, against just over 12 minutes dictating it (here is the full calculation). And we are not talking about getting it ready to file (the draft still has to be reviewed), but about getting to that draft four times sooner. Repeat the operation with the day's notes, emails and reports, and the time you get back each week stops being anecdotal.
That is why automatic punctuation and the cleaning out of filler words matter so much: if dictation is fast but leaves you a text you have to go over word by word, that 4x advantage evaporates in the correction. Real speed is not the speed of transcribing, it is the speed of finishing. How to dictate so that the draft comes out almost clean, we explain in the method for dictating legal briefs.
The price makes sense
Here the change from the Dragon era is a big one. Before, you bought a licence in one go, with the risk that the product would stop getting updates (which is exactly what ended up happening with the home edition in Spanish). Today most alternatives are monthly subscriptions (Wispr Flow Pro, for example, costs $15 a month, or $12 on annual billing, as of 12 October 2026), which changes the question: it is no longer “will I spend hundreds of euros on this?” but “does it save me more each month than it costs?”.
And that sum usually works out on its own. If an hour of your work is worth more than the monthly fee, getting back a single hour a month already pays for it. Most people who dictate every day get back a good deal more than that in the first week.
In short
Dragon has not disappeared, but in Spanish it has stopped being a reasonable option for most people: the home edition in Spanish is discontinued, and what is still on sale is a professional version for Windows only with no published price. If that is where you came from, you are not looking for a newer version of the same thing. You are looking for something that punctuates on its own, learns your words, works in all your programs and doesn't send your voice anywhere.
That is exactly the category that has filled the gap Dragon left.
Sources: Nuance, Dragon in Spain, Dragon Professional in Spain, Dragon Professional version 16 release notes (these three in Spanish) and product advisory notice on versions 14 and 15 (February 2023); Microsoft, announcement of the Nuance acquisition (April 2021), launch of Dragon Copilot (March 2025) and countries where it is available (March 2026); DigaLaw X, frequently asked questions (in Spanish); Wispr Flow, pricing (checked on 12 October 2026). The others, checked on 17 October 2026; prices and terms may change.
Frequently asked questions
Is Dragon NaturallySpeaking still available in Spanish?
Not under that name. The last home edition in Spanish, Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 13, is listed as discontinued. What Nuance offers today on its Spanish website is Dragon Professional v16, Windows only and with no published price; it publishes its documentation in Spanish, but check the dictation language of the licence with the manufacturer before buying.
What is the best alternative to Dragon NaturallySpeaking in Spanish?
It depends on the use. For short notes, Windows voice typing (Win+H), free. Inside Word, the Microsoft 365 Dictate button. To stay with Dragon, Dragon Professional v16, Windows only and with no published price. For a legal suite in Spanish with installation and training, DigaLaw X. And for long documents in Spanish in any program on Windows or Mac, with your voice transcribed on the computer itself, AI dictation apps such as ablalo.
What alternative to Dragon Legal is there for a law firm in Spain?
Dragon Legal is not on Nuance's Spanish website, which only offers Dragon Professional v16. With Spanish legal vocabulary there are DigaLaw X, a SpeechWare suite sold with installation and training, and ablalo, which recognises more than 30,000 legal terms out of the box, works on Windows and Mac and transcribes your voice on the computer. In ablalo versus Dragon Legal they are compared point by point.
What has Microsoft done with Dragon?
Microsoft bought Nuance, the company behind Dragon, in a deal announced in April 2021. On 27 February 2023 Nuance stopped selling the version 15 editions in English and German, Dragon Home included, and it keeps Dragon Professional v16 for Windows. In March 2025 Microsoft launched Dragon Copilot, a voice assistant for doctors, which is not a dictation program for law firms.
Is Windows voice typing good enough for work in Spanish?
Win+H works for short notes and messages, but in Spanish it tends to fall short on automatic punctuation, proper names and specialised vocabulary, which is where most time is lost correcting a long professional text.
Is there a free version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking in Spanish?
What you have for free today to dictate in Spanish is Windows voice typing (Win+H) and, if you pay for Microsoft 365, Word's Dictate button. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 13 can now only be found at resellers, with no updates, and Dragon Professional v16 is paid and has no published price. If you want something closer to Dragon without paying up front, several modern dictation apps have a free trial: ablalo's lasts 14 days and doesn't ask for a card.