Chapter 7

Proofreading and Listening to Your Text

In This Chapter

Using voice commands to play back

Proofreading and correcting with playback

Converting text to speech

On one hand, NaturallySpeaking never misspells a word. On the other hand, NaturallySpeaking can make some mistakes by choosing the wrong (if perfectly spelled) word. A person who writes to the bank, “I have trouble paying this year” rather than, “I am double paying this year” is going to have a big problem. No computerized grammar checker or other kind of checker is likely to catch that error. Proofreading is the only answer.

Of course, you don’t need to hear your text in order to proofread it, but in NaturallySpeaking, you can hear your dictation in one of two ways:

• Playback of your voice: NaturallySpeaking records your voice as you dictate and can play it back to help you proofread (not available in the Home edition).
• Reading the text: You can read what NaturallySpeaking has generated from your dictation — or of any other text that you bring into the NaturallySpeaking DragonPad or any other supported application. The NaturallySpeaking text-to-speech feature uses a computer-synthesized voice to convert any text into speech.

Why play your own voice back? For one thing, it tends to make the NaturallySpeaking errors stand out. If you read what NaturallySpeaking typed as you listen to your voice, the discrepancy between, say, the written word double and the word you spoke, trouble, becomes obvious.

Also, playback lets you know what you actually said, rather than what you think you said. Knowing what you actually said is important when you correct NaturallySpeaking. If NaturallySpeaking has typed fourth-quarter profits are down, for instance, and you think you said, “in the fourth quarter, profits are down,” you should correct NaturallySpeaking — even if you like its phraseology better! If, on the other hand, you really did say, “fourth-quarter profits are down,” do not correct NaturallySpeaking. Playing back your voice helps you do a better job of correcting NaturallySpeaking.

What about text-to-speech read back? Why listen to synthesized speech, instead of your recorded voice, when you proofread? Though not a perfect reader, Text-to-speech lets you hear what NaturallySpeaking actually typed. The NaturallySpeaking errors (wrong words) are sometimes more obvious when you hear them than when you see them.

Text-to-speech can be useful for other purposes. If you have a visual impairment, for example, you can verbally copy documents or e-mail messages to the NaturallySpeaking DragonPad and play them.

A quick way to access the commands to “Read That” or “Play That Back” is by going to the DragonBar, choosing Audio, and selecting the command from the menu items.

Using Voice Commands for Playback

The simplest form of playing back your voice is to speak the command “Play That” (or “Play That Back”) after you dictate some text. The “Play That” command reads back the last thing you said. “Play That Back” is just another form of the same command.

A more practical use of the “Play That” command is to proofread larger blocks of text than just your most recent utterance. You can select the text you want to proofread and then say, “Play That.” You can use any means you like to select the text: your mouse, your keyboard, or a NaturallySpeaking voice command such as “Select Document,” “Select Paragraph,” or “Select Line.” (See Chapter 5 for details of various selections.)

Instead of selecting text first and then giving the “Play” command, you can specify what chunks of text are to be played back, right in the command. Use any of the following commands; you can say either “Play” or “Play Back,” as you prefer (I only show the “Play” form here):

• “Play Line”
• “Play Paragraph”
• “Play Document”
• “Play Window”
• “Play Screen”
• “Play To Here”
• “Play From Here”

The “Play To Here” and “Play From Here” commands let you play everything up to the current typing cursor position (“here”) or from that position to the end.

Pressing Ctrl+Shift+S starts the playback from your typing cursor’s current position. (It’s the same as “Play From Here.”)

NaturallySpeaking stores about a half hour of dictated text. (Pauses don’t count.) Nothing you dictated before that point can be played back.

If you want to increase the size of the space used for storing dictated text, choose DragonBar⇒Tools⇒Options and click the Data tab.

Proofreading and Correcting with Playback

Voice playback is a nice feature for proofreading and editing your documents. NaturallySpeaking provides convenient buttons on the DragonBar and hotkeys on the keyboard for controlling the Playback feature as you proofread.

Note that playback doesn’t work for text entered in the following ways:

• Text that has been typed in
• Text that you didn’t dictate in the first place
• Text that you dictated, but later moved

To hear such text, use the NaturallySpeaking text-to-speech feature instead.

When you are ready to proofread your document and correct NaturallySpeaking errors, follow these steps:

1. Select the text you want to proofread.

   For instance, say, “Select Document,” or select text by using your mouse.

   You can select and play in one command by saying a command like “Play Document” or “Play Paragraph” instead. You can then skip to Step 3.

2. Say, “Play That.”

   Or press Ctrl+Shift+S or click the Playback link on the toolbar shown in Figure 7-1.

   

3. Scan the text with your eyes as your dictation plays back.

   At this point, poise your finger over the minus (–) key on the numeric keypad. (The numeric keypad is usually on the far right end of your keyboard.) Strike this key quickly when you hear an error! To help you follow the text, a yellow arrow points as it continues reading.

4. When you come to a NaturallySpeaking error, press the – (minus) key on the numeric keypad of your keyboard.

   The playback stops and the Correction menu box pops up, displaying the last four spoken words.

   You must press the minus key within four words or punctuation marks of when you hear the error, or you will overshoot the error.

5. Choose the correct interpretation from the list in the Correction menu box.

   (See Chapter 5 if you aren’t familiar with the Correction menu box.)

   When you make your choice, the Correction menu box closes and playback continues immediately. Continue correcting errors as in Steps 4 and 5 until you reach the end of the text to be played.

If you press the minus key too late, you’ll overshoot the error. That is, the Correction menu box displays a phrase after the one you want. Here are a few solutions for that issue and other related problems:

• If you realize you have overshot the error, but still haven’t pressed the minus key, press the left-arrow key (one of the navigation keys on the keyboard). This backs NaturallySpeaking up by about eight to ten words. Press the left-arrow key repeatedly until you catch the phrase you want. Alternatively, you can click the Begin Rewind button (with the|< symbol) on the toolbar.
• If you have already pressed the minus key and the Correction menu box pops up with the wrong phrase in it, you can use the left-arrow key to keep the correction box open. When you get to the error, correct it and start playback again from that point.
• Keep in mind that when you click the minus key, the Correction menu box displays only the last four words (or punctuation marks). If playback is already more than three words ahead of the error, press the left-arrow key to skip backward.
• A secret (well, undocumented) alternative to the minus key in the DragonPad is the down-arrow key (among the navigation keys on your keyboard). I find this key more convenient because it’s next to the left-arrow key. You can also change the hotkey for corrections to any key you like with the Tools⇒Options command in NaturallySpeaking. See Chapter 3 for details.

If you really like using Playback, you can make corrections more efficiently when using the Classic DragonBar, too. From the DragonBar menu, select Classic DragonBar. After the Classic DragonBar loads, select the small arrows on the far right side of the screen to show the Extras bar. There you find a set of buttons for Playback. Here’s what they do:

• Stop the playback: Click the Stop button (with the square) in the toolbar or press the Esc key (or Ctrl+1).
• Play back at high speed: Click the Begin Fast Forward button (with the |> symbol).
• Skip forward in your text: Press the right-arrow key until you reach your text.
• Skip backward at high speed: Click the Begin Rewind button.
• Skip backward in your text: Press the left-arrow key until you reach your text.

Using the Text-to-Speech Feature

The NaturallySpeaking text-to-speech feature is a great piece of wizardry. Although not perfect, it can help your PC do a reasonable job of turning text into speech. It might even be disconcerting if it sounded like a real person. Are you ready for that?

Text-to-speech isn’t limited to proofreading. It’s a general-purpose tool for listening to documents. For instance, you could play a document by copying it into the NaturallySpeaking DragonPad or any text window. A visually impaired person could do the whole job with the verbal copying and window-switching commands described in Chapter 15.

One reason for using text-to-speech is to help proofread your text. But which is better for proofreading — playback of your own voice or reading it with text-to-speech?

Many people find that playing back their own speech is the best way to find errors. With playback, you hear the correct text and spot errors with your eyes. Because you’re comparing the original dictation to the resulting text, playing back tends to be a more accurate way of proofreading.

If you’re an auditory learner, however — for instance, if you find you pay better attention to the spoken word than to the written word — you might try text-to-speech read back. With the reading back, you hear the text that NaturallySpeaking wrote and mentally judge whether that was what you intended. You aren’t presented with your original dictation, just the NaturallySpeaking interpretation. A second advantage of reading it back is that it works even if you edit text manually; playback can’t handle manual edits.

To start Read, select some text in the NaturallySpeaking DragonPad or any text window (using the mouse, the keyboard, or a voice command). Then, choose Audio⇒Read That from the DragonBar or speak the verbal command, “Read That.”

Read verbal commands are the same as Playback verbal commands, except instead of saying, “Play,” you say, “Read.” Here are the Read verbal commands:

• “Read That” (referring to text you have selected)
• “Read That Back” (same as “Read That”)
• “Read Line”
• “Read Paragraph”
• “Read Document”
• “Read Window”
• “Read Screen”
• “Read Up To Here” (where “here” is wherever your typing cursor is)
• “Read Down From Here”

You can stop reading back in the NaturallySpeaking DragonPad or other text window by pressing the Esc key. If you hear a NaturallySpeaking error during read-back, first stop the read-back, and then select the erroneous text any way you like (with your mouse and keyboard or a verbal command). With text selected, launch the Correction menu box in any of the usual ways, including pressing the minus key on the numeric keypad or saying, “Correct That.”

If you hear an error that you (not NaturallySpeaking) made, stop reading back first by pressing the Esc key. Then, select and edit your text any way you like (by speech or by using the keyboard and mouse).