Chapter 6

Basic Formatting in Text-Editing Applications

In This Chapter

Using left and right alignment

Centering a paragraph

Creating numbered or bulleted lists

Using italic, bold, and underlined text

Changing font size and style

Text that is all the same font, size, and style can be pretty boring. Because of advances in web design, everyone’s expectations for design are higher. Formatting puts some zing into your content and makes it exciting. Your favorite applications are, most likely, loaded with formatting buttons and icons. You can, of course, continue to use them, but NaturallySpeaking lets you produce many of the same results with voice commands.

In this chapter, I tell you about voice commands especially for formatting, like “Bold That.” As Chapter 20 discusses, you can also choose formatting commands from the Learning Center by using general-purpose voice commands, but those take longer. Save those for other applications. In the NaturallySpeaking DragonPad (and specific other applications), you can get the job done quickly with formatting commands.

Knowing the Short Formatting Commands

NaturallySpeaking provides several different commands for most actions. These commands fall into two basic types. On one hand, you can use short, very specific commands for most actions, such as “Underline That” for underlining text or “Center That” for centering a paragraph. Table 6-1 shows the short formatting commands.

Table 6-1 The Short Formatting Commands

On the other hand, you can use the slightly longer but more general commands “Format” and “Set” to do almost anything if you know the correct syntax. For example, “Format That Bold” and “Format That Centered” bolds or centers text, respectively, whereas “Format That Courier 18” changes the font to 18-point Courier. Whether you find it easier to remember a lot of short commands or a general family of longer commands that follow predictable patterns is largely a matter of preference.

Left, Right, and Center: Getting into Alignment

To change the alignment of a paragraph, move the cursor into the paragraph and use one of the following commands:

• “Center That”
• “Left-Align That”
• “Right-Align That”

(If you’re currently dictating a paragraph, you don’t have to move the cursor; it is already in the correct paragraph. Just speak the command.)

To change the alignment of up to 20 consecutive paragraphs, follow these steps:

1. Move the cursor to the beginning of the first paragraph.
2. Say, “Select Next <number> Paragraphs,” where <number> is the number of paragraphs you want to realign.

   For example, say, “Select Next Two Paragraphs.”

3. Say, “Center That,” “Left-Align That,” or “Right-Align That.”

   In Figure 6-1, you see what happens when you select two paragraphs and say, “Right-Align That.”

To change the alignment of the entire document, follow these steps:

1. Say, “Select Document.”
2. Say, “Center That,” “Left-Align That,” or “Right-Align That.”

You can use the “Format” command to substitute for any of the alignment commands:

• “Format That Centered” gives the same result as “Center That.”
• “Format That Left Aligned” gives the same result as “Left-Align That.”
• “Format That Right Aligned” gives the same result as “Right-Align That.”

Using Bullets and Numbered Lists

Clear, concise writing requires more than just simple paragraphs. For example, For Dummies books just couldn’t exist without

• Bullets
• Numbered lists

Or perhaps I should say that these books couldn’t get by without

1. Numbered lists
2. Bullets

How can you create bulleted lists with voice commands? In Natural Language and Full Text Control applications, dictate the text that you want a bullet next to and then say, “Format That Bullet Style.” To get a second bullet, say, “New Line.”

In this chapter, I give commands for dictating in the NaturallySpeaking window. (The same commands also work in Full Text Control applications, including Natural Language Commands in Word or WordPerfect, for example.) This command doesn’t work in all applications. If your document is in an application that doesn’t support Full Text Control, make the bulleted list in the DragonPad and then copy and paste it into your document.

Like “Bold That” and “Italicize That,” the “Format That Bullet Style” command undoes itself. In other words, you can turn a bulleted paragraph back into regular text by moving the cursor to that paragraph and saying, “Format That Bullet Style.” You may think that this doesn’t make sense — but that’s the way it works. (See the “Commands that undo themselves” sidebar, later in this chapter.) Use this technique to end the bulleted list: After the last bulleted paragraph is done, say, “New Paragraph” and then, “Format That Bullet Style.” The new paragraph is now in regular style.

The NaturallySpeaking DragonPad doesn’t provide a means for generating numbered lists automatically. You have to construct them yourself. For example, say, “New Line. One period. Cap this is the first entry on my numbered list. Period. New Line. Two period. Cap this is the second entry. Period.” The result is

1. This is the first entry on my numbered list.
2. This is the second entry.

Changing Font

NaturallySpeaking provides commands like “Bold That” to change the style of a font. You can use the “Set” or “Format” commands to change the size or style of a font, to choose a new font family, or to change everything at the same time.

Changing your style: Bold, italic, and underlined text

One way to create bold, italic, or underlined text is to select the text and then say, “Bold That,” “Italicize That,” or “Underline That.”

These three commands are equivalent to clicking the corresponding buttons (B, I, or U) on the toolbar. An unusual effect of making them work like the buttons is that these commands undo themselves. For example, if you select some underlined text and say, “Underline That,” the underlining is removed. See the “Commands that undo themselves” sidebar, later in this chapter.

To dictate bold, italic, or underlined text, follow these steps:

1. Move the cursor to the place in the document where you want the text to be.
2. Say, “Bold That,” “Italicize That,” or “Underline That,” depending on what kind of text you want to produce.
3. Dictate your text.

When text is already bold, italic, underlined, or some combination of all three, you can change it back to plain Roman text by selecting it and saying, “Restore That.”

The “Format” and “Set” commands can substitute for any of these commands. For example, the following three commands have the same effect:

• “Bold That”
• “Format That Bold”
• “Set Font Bold”

You can also use “Format That” or “Set Font” with “Italics,” “Underline,” or “Regular.” For example,

• “Set Font Regular” and “Format That Regular” are equivalent to “Restore That.”
• “Set Font Bold” and “Format That Bold” are equivalent to “Bold That.”

In version 13, you can also use Quick Voice Formatting commands for Bold, Underline, Italicize, Capitalize, Copy, Delete, and Cut by saying, “Select <text>” or “Select <start> through <end>,” saying the command (for example, “Bold”), and then saying the words to which you want to apply the command.

Changing font size

To change the size of a font, you must know the point size that you want. If, for example, you want to change some text to 18 point, you can select it and say

• “Set Size 18.”
• “Format That Size 18.”

In Figure 6-2, the “Format That Size 18” command is given.

Not all point sizes exist for all font families. If you request a nonexistent point size, your command is ignored.

If you want to start dictating in a new font size, move the cursor to the place where you want to begin dictating and give a “Set Size” or “Format That Size” command. For example,

• “Set Size 10.”
• “Format That Size 24.”

When you begin to dictate, the text appears in the size type that you requested, if that size exists in the current font family.

Changing font family

Who said you can’t choose your family? NaturallySpeaking recognizes most font families. You can use the “Set” or “Format” command to change from one of these font families to another. For example,

• “Set Font Times.”
• “Format That Times.”

Both change the current font to Times New Roman on any text that was selected when you issued this command. If you did not select any text, any new text you dictate at the insertion point will be in Times New Roman font.

If you want to use a font whose name NaturallySpeaking doesn’t recognize, you must choose it from the menu, either by voice or using the mouse. See Chapter 15 for a discussion of controlling the menus by voice.

Changing everything at once

The “Format” and “Set” commands demonstrate their full power when you want to change font, size, and style all with one command. For example,

• “Format That Courier 14 Italic.”
• “Set Font Courier 14 Italic.”

These are equivalent commands that change the font to Courier, the font size to 14, and the style to italic. Tables 6-2 and 6-3 tell you how to speak a Format or Set command.

When you put something in angle brackets and italics, like <style>, it is a placeholder. You don’t literally say that word; instead, you replace it with your own particular choice of word from a list of styles that I give you.

“Plain,” “Plain Text,” and “Regular” mean the same thing: not bold and not italic. They do not remove underlining. To undo underlining, see the earlier section, “Changing your style: Bold, italic, and underlined text.”

You can change color with the “Font” commands in the NaturallySpeaking DragonPad. Also, you can say, “points” as part of the command, too. For example, “Set size 20 points.”

Understanding Smart Formatting

In version 13, there is a feature that you likely will come across during dictation. It’s called the Smart Format Rules box. This box pops up when you change the format of a word that already has a standard format setting.

For example, say you dictate the sentence “Continue knitting for 25 inches.” The word inches would display as “inches,” as shown in Figure 6-3.

If you want to change the format to something nonstandard, like “in.” By choosing “2,” the Smart Format Rules box pops up, as shown in Figure 6-4, and asks if you want to make this new format the alternate written form. If you want to accept this change, say, “1.”

You may see this box pop up when you are using either the Correction menu or the Spelling Window. You are not required to select anything when the box comes up. It’s up to you whether a format should be changed. You can simply click the x in the window, say “Cancel,” or just keep dictating and the box will disappear.

If you want to disable this feature, you will find it under the DragonBar in Tools⇒Options. Just deselect the box where it says, Show Smart Format Rules.

As a rule of thumb, it’s helpful to understand that smart rules apply to such things as e-mail addresses, phone numbers, dates, or anything that has a format convention.