Windows Speech Recognition

Windows Speech Recognition is a new programs that allows you to dictate to your computer and it will recognize what you say and turn that into text. You can also issue command to Windows to control your windows session, such as saving documents, closing documents, opening programs, surfing on the internet, etc. You can open Speech Recognition from the Start Menu under Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Ease of Access - > Windows Speech Recognition. Once it is open you will see a small window unique to Windows Speech Recognition. The first time you run Windows Speech Recnogition, you will be required to enter some information about the type of microphone you are using, along with reading a sentance out so your voice can be better recognized. You can also allow the Speech Recognizer to search through your documents to learn about the way you construct sentances to better understand your speech, however this is optional.

Select the type of microphone that you have connected up to your pc. If you have an in built microphone on your laptop you should select the third option. Click Next to continue.

Next make sure that the microphone is connected up properly to the computer and that you have it nearby for the voice training. You will need to dictate a sentance to the computer and if it can hear you correctly you can proceed. Once the setup is complete you will see the speech recognition dashboard that can dock to the top of the screen as seen below:

You can start issuing commands! Youmay wish to view the speech reference card that contains a list of different commands that the computer will recognize. To open the speech reference card, right click on the Speech Recognition Dashboard and select Open Speech Reference Card.

There are many command availble such as saying "click Start" which will open up the start menu or when you have an explorer window open for example you can say "File" which will open up the file menu. An interesting command is saying "What can I say?" which brings up a long list of commands which can be used. You can also set the Speech Recognition to sleep, say if you are on the phone or you are listening to music, this can be done by saying "Stop Listening" - in order to turn in back on from this sleep mode you need to say "Start Listening" - You will known when it is in sleep mode as it will say 'sleeping' on the dashboard, as seen below:

At the bottom of this page you will find a list of more commands that you can issue with Speech Recognition. There are some more configuration options available through the right click menu, however you may wish to go through control panel when configuring other programs as well as Speech Recognition. This can be done by going through control panel and then clicking on the Ease of Access option and then Speech Recognition. You will see the same window as shown below:

You can view the Speech Reference Card at the bottom of the list of links amongst the Speech Recognition Options as well as access Advanced options from the top left of the window. The Advanced options are shown below:

You can select the language that you would like the Speech Recogniser to recognize, this can be done through the drop down box at the top. The list will contain the recognition options available for your language pack, in the case above, UK and US. You can also create a new profile which can be used for another user if you wish and you can train that profile to recognize the voice from that user. You can also select to run speech recognition at startup so you will not have to manually open it. The option to allow windows to review your documents and mail to improve speech recognition accuracy can be chosen here also. You can select the number of spaces to insert after punctuation also for writing documents. The final option is to do with the microphone settings which can be used to reinitialize the microphone or choose another input hardware device.

When you select the voice training, which can be done through the Speech Recognition Options in the control panel window, you will see the various windows shown below:

Cilck Next and you can start the voice training by reading out the sentence on the screen.

Speech Reference List

Click any item by its name
File; Start; View

Click item
Click Recycle Bin; Click Computer; Click File

Double-click item
Double-click Recycle Bin; Double-click Computer; Double-click File

Switch to an open program
Switch to Paint; Switch to WordPad; Switch to program name; Switch application

Scroll direction
Scroll up; Scroll down; Scroll left; Scroll right

Insert a new paragraph or new line in a document
New paragraph; New line

Select a word in a document
Select word

Select a word and start to correct it
Correct word

Select and delete specific words
Delete word

Show a list of applicable commands
What can I say?

Update the list of speech commands that are currently available
Refresh speech commands

Make the computer listen to you
Start listening

Make the computer stop listening
Stop listening

Move the Speech Recognition microphone out of the way
Move speech recognition

Minimize the microphone bar
Minimize speech recognition

Dictation
Commands for working with text

Insert a new line in the document
New line

Insert a new paragraph in the document
New paragraph

Insert a tab
Tab

Insert the literal word for the next command; for example, you can insert the word "comma" instead of the punctuation mark
Literal word

Insert the numeral form of a number
Numeral number

Put the cursor before a specific word
Go to word

Put the cursor after a specific word
Go after word

Do not insert a space before the next word
No space

Go to the start of the sentence that the cursor is in
Go to start of sentence

Go to the start of the paragraph the cursor is in
Go to start of paragraph

Go to the start of the document
Go to start of document

Go to the end of the sentence that the cursor is in
Go to end of sentence

Go to the end of the paragraph the cursor is in
Go to end of paragraph

Go to the end of the current document
Go to end of document

Select the word in the current document
Select word

Select the word range in the current document
Select word range; Select word through word

Select all text in the current document
Select all

Select the 1-20 words before the location of the cursor
Select previous 1-20 words; Select previous 10 words

Select the 1-20 words after the location of the cursor
Select next 1-20 words; Select next 10 words

Select the last text you dictated
Select that

Clear the selection on the screen
Clear selection

Capitalize the first letter of the word
Caps word

Capitalize all the letters of the word
All caps word

Make all the letters in the word lowercase
No caps word

Change the next number of words to uppercase
Change next number of words to uppercase

Change the next number of words to lowercase
Change next number of words to lowercase

Delete the previous sentence
Delete previous sentence

Delete the next sentence
Delete next sentence

Delete the previous paragraph
Delete previous paragraph

Delete the next paragraph
Delete next paragraph

Delete the selected or last dictated text
Delete that

Keyboard keys

Press any key on the keyboard
Press keyboard key; Press a; Press capital b; Press SHIFT plus a; Press CTRL plus a

Press certain keyboard keys without saying "Press" first
Delete; Backspace; Enter; Page Up; Page down; Home; End; Tab

Notes
You can also use the ICAO\NATO phonetic alphabet to say the keyboard keys to press. For example, you can say "Press alpha" to press "a" or "Press bravo" to press "b."

Using Speech Recognition to press keyboard keys will only work with Latin alphabets.

Punctuation marks and special characters
Commands for punctuation marks and special characters
The following table shows commands for using Speech Recognition to insert punctuation marks and special characters. Words in italic font indicate that you can say many different things in place of the example word or phrase and get useful results.

To make this appear

Say this

,
Comma

;
Semicolon

.
Period; Dot; Full stop; Decimal point

:
Colon

“
Open double quote; Open quote; Open inverted commas

”
Close double quote; Close quote; Close inverted commas

'
apostrophe

‘
Open single quote

’
Close single quote

>
Greater than sign

<
Less than sign

/
Forward slash

\
Backslash

~
Tilde

@
At sign

!
Exclamation mark; Exclamation point

?
Question mark

#
Number sign; Pound sign; Hash sign

$
Dollar sign

%
Percent sign

^
Caret

(
Open parenthesis; Open paren

)
Close parenthesis; Close paren

_
Underscore

-
Hyphen; Minus sign; Dash

–
En dash

—
Em dash; Double dash

=
Equal sign

+
Plus sign

{
Open brace; Open curly bracket

}
Close brace; Close curly bracket

[
Open bracket; Open square bracket

]
Close bracket; Close square bracket

|
Vertical bar

:-)
Press smiley face

:-(
Press frowny face

;-)
Press winky face

™
Trademark sign

¾
Three quarter sign

¼
One quarter sign

½
One half sign

£
Pound sterling sign; pound; pound sign

&
Ampersand; and sign

*
asterisk

//
Double slash

`
Back quote

<
Open angle bracket

>
Close angle bracket

±
Plus or minus sign

«
Open angle quote

»
Close angle quote

×
Multiplication sign

÷
Division sign

¢
Cent sign

¥
Yen sign

§
Section sign

©
Copyright sign

®
Registered sign, Registered trademark sign

°
Degree sign

¶
Paragraph sign

…
Ellipsis; Dot dot dot

ƒ
Function sign

Controls

Click any item by saying its name
File; Edit; View; Save; bold

Click any item
Click File; Click bold; Click Save; Click Close

Double-click any item
Double-click Computer; Double-click Recycle Bin; Double-click Folder name

Right-click any item
Right-click Computer; Right-click Recycle Bin; Right-click Folder name

Minimize all windows to show your desktop
Show Desktop

Click something you don't know the name of
Show numbers (Numbers will appear on the screen for every item in the active window)

Click a numbered item
19 OK; 5 OK

Double-click a numbered item
Double-click 19; Double-click 5

Right-click a numbered item
Right-click 19; Right-click 5

Windows

Open a program
Open Paint; Open WordPad; Open program name

Switch to an open program
Switch to Paint; Switch to WordPad; Switch to program name; Switch application

Close a program
Close that; Close Paint; Close Documents; Close Internet Explorer (only works with the active window)

Restore
Restore that; Restore Paint; Restore Internet Explorer (only works with the active window)

Minimize
Minimize that; Minimize Paint; Minimize Internet Explorer (only works with the active window)

Maximize
Maximize that; Maximize Paint; Maximize Internet Explorer (only works with the active window)

Cut
Cut that; Cut

Copy
Copy that; Copy

Paste
Paste

Delete
Delete that; Delete

Undo
Undo that; Scratch that; Undo

Scroll direction
Scroll up; Scroll down; Scroll right; Scroll left

Scroll an exact distance in pages
Scroll down 2 pages; Scroll up 10 pages

Scroll an exact distance in other units
Scroll up 5; Scroll down 7

Go to a field in a form or a program
Go to field name; Go to Subject; Go to Address; Go to Cc

Click anywhere on the screen

Show the mousegrid
Mousegrid

Move the mouse pointer to the center of any mousegrid square
number—or numbers—of the square; 1; 7; 9; 1, 7, 9

Click any mousegrid square
Click number of the square

Select an item to drag with the mousegrid
number—or numbers—of the square where the item appears; 3, 7, 9 (followed by) mark

Select an area where you want to drag the item with the mousegrid
number—or numbers—of the square where you want to drag; 4, 5, 6 (followed by) click