Ac Us Ma cess ser T anua s2G Tools al Go s

Accesss2G
Go
T s
Usser Tools
Ma
anua
al
June 2
20
2010
This doccument is inttended to prrovide inform
mation on the
e features off the open so
ource
software
e contained in
i the Acces
ss2Go Flash Drive. While every effo rt has been made
to ensurre that the in
nformation an
nd content within
w
this ma
anual is acccurate, up-to--date
and relia
able, FAAST
T, Inc. canno
ot be held res
sponsible fo
or inaccuraci es or errors.
FAAST, Inc. · Florida Alliance fo
or Assistive Services
S
and
d Technolog
gy
3333 We
, Florida 323
est Pensaco
ola Street Bu
uilding 100, Suite
S
140 · Tallahassee
T
304-2800
(850) 48
87-3278 ·Tolll Free 1-888
8-788-9216 · TDD 1-877
7-506-2723 F
FAX: (850) 5
575-4216
Table of Contents
Antivirus .......................................................................................................................................................................... 4
ClamWin.............................................................................................................................................................................. 4
Audio Processing .............................................................................................................................................................. 10
Express Scribe .................................................................................................................................................................. 10
Computer Access .......................................................................................................................................................... 19
Dwell Clicker ..................................................................................................................................................................... 19
eViacam ............................................................................................................................................................................ 24
Dasher .............................................................................................................................................................................. 29
LetMeType ........................................................................................................................................................................ 37
FXC Sonar ......................................................................................................................................................................... 39
Team Viewer ..................................................................................................................................................................... 40
Open Office ....................................................................................................................................................................... 40
Deaf/HOH/Telecommunications ................................................................................................................................. 41
NexTalk ............................................................................................................................................................................. 41
Skype ................................................................................................................................................................................ 42
Trillian ............................................................................................................................................................................... 45
Learning ........................................................................................................................................................................ 47
T-Bar .................................................................................................................................................................................. 47
Vu Bar ............................................................................................................................................................................... 47
MathTrax ........................................................................................................................................................................... 48
Word Flash Reader .......................................................................................................................................................... 58
Magnification ................................................................................................................................................................ 64
Desktop Zoom .................................................................................................................................................................. 64
Fatbits ............................................................................................................................................................................... 65
Lightening Plus ................................................................................................................................................................. 67
Optical Character Recognition ..................................................................................................................................... 79
Simple OCR....................................................................................................................................................................... 79
Top OCR ............................................................................................................................................................................ 81
Organization .................................................................................................................................................................. 84
Thunderbird 3................................................................................................................................................................... 84
Speech Communication ............................................................................................................................................... 91
Speech Monitor ................................................................................................................................................................ 91
Table of Contents
Speech Recognition ...................................................................................................................................................... 93
Speech Profiles and Speech Profile Manager................................................................................................................ 93
Text-to-Speech ............................................................................................................................................................102
Click Speak .................................................................................................................................................................... 102
AMIS ............................................................................................................................................................................... 105
Fire Vox .......................................................................................................................................................................... 112
NVDA .............................................................................................................................................................................. 116
Balabolka ....................................................................................................................................................................... 131
DSpeech ........................................................................................................................................................................ 134
WordPrediction ...........................................................................................................................................................136
Quick Input .................................................................................................................................................................... 136
Antivirus
ClamWin
http://www.clamwin.com/
ClamWin is a Free Antivirus program for Microsoft Windows 7 / Vista / XP / Me / 2000 / 98 and Windows Server 2008 and
2003.
ClamWin free Antivirus is used by more than 600,000 users worldwide on a daily basis. It comes with an easy installer and
open source code. You may download and use it absolutely free of charge. It features:
 High detection rates for viruses and spyware
 Scanning Scheduler
 Automatic downloads of regularly updated Virus Database
 Standalone virus scanner and right-click menu integration to Microsoft Windows Explorer
 Adding to Microsoft Outlook to remove virus-infected attachments automatically
The latest version of ClamWin Free Antivirus is 0.96.0.1
Please note that ClamWin Free Antivirus does not include an on-access real-time scanner. You need to manually scan a file
in order to detect a virus or spyware.
You can use ClamWin Free Antivirus in a popular archiver WinZip. You can scan files inside archives by selecting Virus Scan
from Actions menu or by pressing Shift-S
Open WinZip and go to Options-Configuration Menu, then click on Program Locations tab.
Then specify the following parameters:


Scan Program C:\Program Files\ClamWin\bin\ClamWin.exe
Parameters --mode=scanner --path="%d" –close
4
ware Resourcces
Anti Malw
NOTE:
1. The CllamWin team
m presents th
his list of anti-malware ressources as a public servicce.
2. We en
ncourage peo
ople with perssistent malware to first co
ontact their ccurrent antivirus vendor.
3. This iss only a work in progress and
a does nott include all anti-malware
a
e resources.
4. We ha
ave tried to lisst only free and
a current re
esources, but some may be partly com
mmercial or o
out-of-date.
5. We do
o not endorse
e or assume any responsiibility for the listed sites aand their infoormation.
6. Good removal tools are availab
ble, but we be
elieve the best disinfectioon is to "reforrmat and rein
nstall."
7. Please
e contact us to suggest additions/corrrections to th
his list.
If you wo
ould like to viisit any of the
e web sites lissted below, and
a then plea
ase paste the link into yo
our web brow
wser.
Free Resscue Scanners (For Use When
W
Malwarre Has Disabled A Compu ter)
Get one of these and
d learn to use
e it before you
u need it!




A
Avira's bootab
ble CD scann
ner program (daily
(
manua
al signature u
updates) is att http://www
w.brothersoft..com/aviraa
antivir-rescue
e-system-197
7951.html
D
Dr. Web's cap
pable bootab
ble CD scanne
er program (d
do a manual signature up
pdate before
e scanning) iss at
h
http://www.frreedrweb.com
m/livecd
F
F-Secure's bo
ootable CD sccanner program (updatess when run) iss at http://www.brotherso
oft.com/f-seccure-rescue-c
cd1
198321.html
K
Kaspersky's bootable
b
CD scanner proggram (occasional manuall updates) is at
5


http://www.brothersoft.com/kaspersky-rescue-disk-197959.html
Sunbelt's Vipre rescue program (download and put on computer or USB drive--a bootable CD is in the works) is at
http://live.sunbeltsoftware.com/
Comprehensive Resources
Castle Cops is out of business.


Bleeping Computer has downloads, forums, assistance, and information at http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/
Malwarehelp Org has information, security news, links, and a blog at http://www.malwarehelp.org/
Where To Submit Infected/Suspected Files
ClamWin users should send undetected viruses and false positives to Clam.



Clam Antivirus accepts files it doesn't detect and false positives at http://cgi.clamav.net/sendvirus.cgi
Jotti online file scanning service at http://virusscan.jotti.org/ - All participating AVs will get a copy
VirusTotal online file scanning service at http://www.virustotal.com/ - All participating AVs will get a copy
Dependable On Line Antivirus Scanners
These on line scanners do not replace resident updated antivirus/antispyware scanners.





ESET (NOD32) malware scan is at http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/index.php
Microsoft's Live One Care has several types of scans at http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm
Panda ActiveScan is at http://www.pandasecurity.com/usa/homeusers/solutions/activescan/default.htm
SuperAntiSpyware's research center provides free scans of running computer processes at
http://www.fileresearchcenter.com/
Trend Micro's Housecall scan for malware is at http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
Experienced Online Malware Removal Assistance
Be patient - they don't do this full time.




Alliance Of Security Analysis Professionals is a good starting place at http://asap.maddoktor2.com/
A-Squared (Emsisoft) (with initial self help) at http://forum.emsisoft.com/Default.aspx?g=topics&f=38
Malwareteks (same personnel as Emsisoft with initial self help) at http://www.malwareteks.com/forum.html
Spyware Warrior has free help and a list of rogue antispyware products to avoid at
http://www.spywarewarrior.com/index.php
Downloadable Malware Removal Tools
These tools do not replace resident updated antivirus/antispyware scanners.



Alwil Software has a free cleaner tool, Avast Free Virus Cleaner, at http://www.avast.com/eng/programs.html
AVG has free removal tools (including VCleaner) at http://free.grisoft.com/doc/virus-removal/us/frt/0
CureIt from Dr. Web is a capable free scanner that can be updated manually at http://www.freedrweb.com/


works) is at http://live.sunbeltsoftware.com/
6
Comprehensive Resources
Castle Cops is out of business.


Bleeping Computer has downloads, forums, assistance, and information at http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/
Malwarehelp Org has information, security news, links, and a blog at http://www.malwarehelp.org/
Where To Submit Infected/Suspected Files
ClamWin users should send undetected viruses and false positives to Clam.



Clam Antivirus accepts files it doesn't detect and false positives at http://cgi.clamav.net/sendvirus.cgi
Jotti online file scanning service at http://virusscan.jotti.org/ - All participating AVs will get a copy
VirusTotal online file scanning service at http://www.virustotal.com/ - All participating AVs will get a copy
Dependable On Line Antivirus Scanners
These on line scanners do not replace resident updated antivirus/antispyware scanners.





ESET (NOD32) malware scan is at http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/index.php
Microsoft's Live One Care has several types of scans at http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm
Panda ActiveScan is at http://www.pandasecurity.com/usa/homeusers/solutions/activescan/default.htm
SuperAntiSpyware's research center provides free scans of running computer processes at
http://www.fileresearchcenter.com/
Trend Micro's Housecall scan for malware is at http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
Experienced Online Malware Removal Assistance
Be patient - they don't do this full time.




Alliance Of Security Analysis Professionals is a good starting place at http://asap.maddoktor2.com/
A-Squared (Emsisoft) (with initial self help) at http://forum.emsisoft.com/Default.aspx?g=topics&f=38
Malwareteks (same personnel as Emsisoft with initial self help) at http://www.malwareteks.com/forum.html
Spyware Warrior has free help and a list of rogue antispyware products to avoid at
http://www.spywarewarrior.com/index.php
Downloadable Malware Removal Tools
These tools do not replace resident updated antivirus/antispyware scanners.









Alwil Software has a free cleaner tool, Avast Free Virus Cleaner, at http://www.avast.com/eng/programs.html
AVG has free removal tools (including VCleaner) at http://free.grisoft.com/doc/virus-removal/us/frt/0
CureIt from Dr. Web is a capable free scanner that can be updated manually at http://www.freedrweb.com/
F-Secure's free Easy Cleaner is at http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/onlineservices/fsec/fsec.shtml
F-Secure also has specific removal tools at http://www.f-secure.com/security_center/malware_removal_tools.html
Malwarebytes has a freeware version of their capable Anti-Malware program at
http://www.malwarebytes.org/index.php
Malwareteks has do-it yourself removal guides at http://www.malwareteks.com/forum-t408.html
Microsoft's Malicious Removal Tool (updated monthly on Patch Tuesday) is at
http://www.microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.mspx
Norman has a capable Malware Cleaner (use in Safe Mode) at
http://www.norman.com/Virus/Virus_removal_tools/24789/en-us
7







Smitfraud/Antivermins removal tools are at http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic69886.html
Softpedia has some tools at http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Malware-Removal-Tool.shtml
SuperAntiSpyware has a capable free on-demand antispyware program for home users at
http://www.superantispyware.com/
Symantec has individual malware removal tools at
http://www.symantec.com/business/security_response/removaltools.jsp
Trend Micro's HijackThis can be used to locate malware at http://www.trendsecure.com/portal/enUS/tools/security_tools/hijackthis
Various dedicated anti-malware tools are available at http://www.smokey-services.eu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2026
Various spyware/adware removal tools are available at http://www.pchell.com/support/spyware.shtml
Manual Disinfection Information
Get experienced assistance if this doesn't work.











About Dot Com's removal/prevention guide is at http://antivirus.about.com/od/windowsbasics/a/virusremoval.htm
AVG's free anti-malware site has a removal guide at
http://forum.grisoft.cz/freeforum/read.php?4,27725,backpage=
Bleeping Computer has a removal/disinfection guide at
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial101.html
Bleeping Computer also has removal instructions for specific rogue spyware programs at
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/malware-removal/
Major Geeks has a list of rogue security programs at http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=79754
Spyware Techie has spyware removal information/links at http://www.spyware-techie.com/
Large antivirus vendors offer free manual disinfection information, including:
F-Secure has malware search/descriptions at http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/
Kaspersky has general information at http://www.viruslist.com/en/viruses/encyclopedia?chapter=153280800
McAfee has threat resources at http://vil.nai.com/vil/default.aspx
Symantec has current threat information at
http://www.symantec.com/business/security_response/threatexplorer/threats.jsp
Trend Micro's virus encyclopedia is at http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/
Portable ClamWin on a USB or Removable Drive
You may use a pre-built portable ClamWin made available by PortableApps.com. You can get it by clicking on this link.
Alternatively follow this guide to make your own portable ClamWin. You can take ClamWin Free Antivirus with you on a USB
pen drive, CD or DVD.
1. Install ClamWin on a host PC with Windows XP or higher
2. Copy all the files from "c:\program files\clamwin" to a "clamwin" folder on a removable drive. unins000.exe and
unins000.dat files are not needed
3. Copy the following files:
o Microsoft.VC80.CRT.manifest
o msvcm80.dll
o msvcm80.dll
o msvcr80.dll
from "c:\program files\clamwin\bin\Microsoft.VC80.CRT" to the "clamwin\bin" folder on your removable drive.
8
Copy this ClamWin.conf (rright-click to Save)
S
file to "clamwin\bin
"
n" folder on tthe removable drive (note
e Standalone=1
4. C
ssetting)
5. C
Create the following folders on the rem
movable drive
e:
o "clam
mwin\log"
o "clam
mwin\db"
o "clam
mwin\quaranttine"
6. C
Copy the data
abase files (m
main.cvd and
d daily.cvd) frrom your dataabase directoory on the ho
ost PC (defau
ult location is
"C:\Documen
nts and Settin
ngs\All Userss\.clamwin\d
db") to the "cl amwin\db" ffolder on the removable d
drive.
e from clamw
win folder on your remova
able drive.
7. TThat's it; you can now run clamwin.exe
Notes:


Itt may take a while to load
d ClamWin.exxe depending
g on the rem
movable drive speed
Iff you use Cla
amWin Free Antivirus
A
on a read-only drive
d
(CD or D
DVD) your neeed to burn th
he latest data
abase before use
a
and won't be able to chan
nge preferencces.
9
Au
udio Proces
P
ssingg
Express Scribe
S
e
Express S
Scribe includ
des special audio processsing tools to help
h
clarify soome audio reecordings if tthey are of lo
ow quality. These
options ccan be found
d from the File menu.
Express S
Scribe is idea
al for playbacck of recordin
ngs created with
w Express Dictate or Pocket Dictate
e. See
www.nch
h.com.au/exp
press and ww
ww.nch.com.a
au/pocket orr nearly any oother dictatioon and voice recorder.
Rememb
ber that for more
m
informattion on these
e features an
nd others theere is a comp
prehensive He
elp Manual. Y
You can view
w the
manual a
at any time pressing
p
F1 key
k or selectin
ng Help Conttents from th
he Help menu
u on Express Scribe.
Support is also availa
able from Exp
press Scribe Support and Express Scr ibe FAQs
You have
e now finishe
ed the NCH Express
E
Scribe Tutorial
Scribe Foot Pedal
P
Controls
Express S
There are
e three typess of foot peda
als that can be
b used with Express Scriibe on a PC oor Mac. First there are pro
ofessional 3 foot
pedal controls that co
onnect directt to the comp
puter's game, serial or US
SB port. Secoond, there are
e game contrroller "rudderr"
style ped
dals. You can
n also make a custom cab
ble to wire alm
most any oth
her pedals (egg. Radio Shack) to the ga
ame or serial
port.
Scribe workss with almostt all professio
onal transcrip
ption pedals that connectt to a PC's ga
ame or serial port. Refer to
Express S
the Help screen for setup instructtions.
Option 1
Professio
onal Three Pe
edal
Foot Con
ntroller
S
offe
ers two pedals that you caan purchase online and tthey are available for
NCH Software
both serial
s
and US
SB ports. Botth USB foot p
pedals are coompatible witth Windows a
and Mac OS
X. The
ese are high quality 3 ped
dal controllerrs made for p
professional ttranscription
n work that
cost around
a
$US7
70 and can be shipped woorldwide. Thee VEC foot pe
edal is also a suitable
altern
native for oth
her transcripttion players.
More Information | Purchase Online
O
10
Option 2
ontroller Pedal
Game Co
e are pedals made for games. The advvantage is th
hat they are ccommon and available
These
at mo
ost computerr stores so if you
y really neeed a foot con
ntrol today, this may be yyour only
option
n. They should cost aroun
nd $US70. Th
he disadvanttages are tha
at they are on
nly 2 pedal
controllers and that you may need
n
to keep a steering w
wheel or joysttick under your desk!
If you have game or serial portt pedals but yyour computer does not h
have an available game
or serrial port (eg. a laptop) you
u can use a U
USB - game p
port adapter llike the Rockkfire USB
Nest Joystick
J
Converter or the RadioShackk item 26-164
4 to connect your gamepo
ort pedals
or you
u can also usse a serial po
ort USB adap ter to connecct serial port pedals. Refe
er to the
Help screen
s
for se
etup instructiions.
This is by far the cheapest
c
opttion, but you w
will need to m
make your ow
wn cable/plu
ug. With a
special cable you can use the Radio Shackk (Tandy) Ped
dals (Radio Shack Item 44
4-610C).
The
need
a
speci
onnect to
pedals
p
should
d
cost
around
d
$US12
eac
ch.
You
then
ial
cable
to
c
dify an
Wire your own or mod
your
game
g
or
seria
al
port.
The
wiring
w
details
s
are
listed
on
n
the
Pedal
W
Wiring
Instruc
ctions
Page.
old-style pedal
Option 3
Altern
natively, if you have pedals for old-stylle microcasseette transcrip
ption units, the plugs
can often
o
be modified for only a couple of d
dollars. Again
n you will nee
ed to be handy with a
solde
ering iron and
d refer to the wiring inform
mation listed on the Foot Pedal Contro
ol pages of
the Exxpress Scribe
e Help Screens.
11
Write your Own Pedal Driver
If you are a pedal manufacturer or distributor you can write your own pedal driver. For details please see Writing a driver for
an unsupported controller. Also, if you find any other foot pedal controllers that work with Express Scribe or are a foot pedal
manufacturer or reseller and would like to add your information to this page, please Contact Us.
Foot Pedal Setup Instructions
Setup instructions for footpedals being used with Express Dictate v5.12 or later and Express Scribe v4.36 or later can be
found here: www.nch.com.au/kb/10225.html.
These instructions might work with serial and gameport pedals from other manufacturers but probably will not work with
USB pedals from other manufacturers.
Foot Pedal and Hand-Held Controller Setup Guide
This information applies to Express Dictate v5.12 or later, and Express Scribe v4.36 or later.

Verify that your controller is compatible
Open the Options dialog and select the Controller tab. Click the "List of compatible controllers" link and verify that
your controller is listed.

Run the "Controller Setup Wizard"
Open the Options dialog and select the Controller tab. Ensure that the "Enable hand-held or foot pedal controller"
check-box is checked, then click the "Controller setup wizard..." button.
o
Step 1: Connect Controller page
If any drivers were provided with the controller, please install them according to thecontroller manufacturer's
instructions.
Ensure the controller is connected to the computer, then click Next.
o
Step 2: Detection Method page
If your controller appears in the pull-down list of automatically detected controllers then ensure "Use a
detected controller" is selected, select the desired controller from the pull-down list, click Next and skip to
"Step 4: Controller Properties page".
If your controller doesn't appear in the pull-down list, select "Select a controller type manually" and click
Next.
o
Step 3: Controller Type page
Manually select the controller type here if the controller is not plug and play compatible, then click Next.
o
Step 4: Controller Properties page
12
Verify that the controller description matches your actual controller.
You may also need to configure the controller:



For specific serial controllers, you will need to configure the serial port.
For generic serial controllers, you will need to configure the number of buttons / pedals, and the
serial port.
For custom driver controllers, you will need to configure the number of buttons / pedals, and the file
path to the driver library.
Click Next.
o
Step 5: Controller Button / Pedal Detection page
If you have selected a generic or custom controller type, the application will need to detect each of the
buttons or pedals. Press and release each of the buttons or pedals as prompted.
o
Step 6: Controller Command Map / Test page
Here you will see a list of the controller's buttons or pedals.



The first column shows the name of the button or pedal.
The second column shows the application command that will be run when this button or pedal is
pressed. Click on the command and select from the pull-down list that appears to select a different
command.
The third column is used to test the controller configuration by showing if each button or pedal is
currently pressed.
Click "Reset to default commands..." to reset the command mappings for each button or pedal to their
original state.
Click Finish to close the wizard.
See how Switch can work for you:
http://www.nch.com.au/switch/
Convert and encode sound files on Windows and Mac
Switch sound format converter can convert a variety of different audio file formats including wav, mp3, ogg, flac, aac, wma,
au, aiff, ogg, msv, dvf, vox, atrac, gsm, dss and other formats into mp3 or wav.
13
Options: Overwrite
14
Options: Conversionss
15
Options: CD Tracks
16
Mp3 Enccoder Setting
gs
17
at you see?
Like wha
Downloa
ad Switch herre:
Downloa
ad Now
Audio co
onverter for Windows
W
or Mac
M OS X. Con
nvert audio files from ma ny different ffile formats tto
mp3, wa
av or wma. Fo
or example co
onvert wav to
o mp3, mp3 to
t wav, wma to mp3 or m
many other
formats.
18
Co
omputer Acccesss
Dwe
ell Cliccker
http://se
ensorysoftwa
are.com/dwellclicker
http://ww
ww.naturalpo
oint.com/smartnav/
Introducttion
The conccept behind dwell
d
clicking
g is to allow total hands frree control off a computerr for people w
who currentlyy have difficulty
accessin
ng a standard
d mouse or keyboard. On
nly the SmarttNAV head poointing devicce can be use
ed to control the cursor on
your scre
een. This secction will outliine how to usse the dwell click
c
option aavailable with
h our SmartN
NAV AT mode
el to perform
mouse click operations. When this feature is active,
a
holdin
ng the cursorr still for a user defined am
mount of time .2-2 seconds,
will produce a Left Click, Double Click,
C
Drag an
nd Drop, or Right
R
Click.
(Please n
note that Dw
well Clicking iss only availab
ble with the SmartNAV
S
ATT model)
How Sm
martNAV worrks
SmartNA
AV uses an in
nfrared (IR) ca
amera to tracck your head movementss.
Where d
do I put the SmartNAV?
SmartNA
AV mounts on
n top of your monitor, lapttop or communication deevice facing yyou. SmartNA
AV can also b
be threaded onto
o
a mini triipod and sit next
n to your computer.
c
Th
he device can
n be placed aanywhere as long as it can see the refflective
accessorry you've cho
osen to wear.
19
Enable Dwell Clicking
How to E
The dwell click toolba
ar (shown above) allows a user to left click, doublee click, drag a
and right click by holding the cursor sttill
over an icon or button, hence the term ‘dwell click’.
c
The Dw
well Clicking feature is fully compatible with all virttual keyboard
ds
and othe
er Windows based
b
accesssibility feature
es. While thiss method of cclicking doess take some ggetting used to, once a us
ser
is experie
enced and has all their preferences set it becomes second natture.
The first step is to enable dwell clicking from the
t SmartNAV
V software; t his can be doone two wayss:
1.
2.
After you
u enable the dwell clicking
g toolbar you should see the
t actual tooolbar pop up
p.
It will loo
ok like this:
20
c
toolbar is program
mmed to ‘Alw
ways Be on Toop’ not all pro
ograms adhe
ere to this
Please note that while the dwell clicking
e and it is posssible for the
e toolbar to pop
p under a window.
w
If you
u do not see the toolbar a
after you havve clicked and
guideline
enabled dwell clicking from within
n the SmartN
NAV software,, check your windows task bar and ve
erify it is running, then
minimize
e all programs and it will appear.
a
Configuring the Toolb
bar
As noted
d above the basic
b
conceptt of dwell cliccking is that you
y move thee cursor overr the item you
u want to "click", and the
dwell clicck software automatically
a
y does the mo
ouse clickingg for you. How
wever for ma
aximum comffort and effecctiveness the
ere
are several configura
ation options and featuress that should
d be known a bout before sstarting to usse the softwa
are.
Configuring the Dwell Click Toolba
ar
To open the Dwell Clicking Option
ns box, click on
o the sixth button
b
from tthe left on thee Dwell Clickking tool bar. It has a
hammer & wrench on
n it. A pop-up
p box will ope
en which allow
ws you to adjjust how longg you must hold the curso
or in one
position before the syystem clicks, and how mu
uch movement you are al lowed to make while tryin
ng to hold the
e cursor still.
Click Tim
me slider bar
The ‘Click Time’ setting is the amo
ount of time you must hold still beforee the softwarre will
produce a click. This slider bar allows you to set the Dwell Click time in terval from 0
0.2 to 2
seconds for maximum
m control and
d comfort. Click time is also shown graaphically in a green
bar to the right of the
e Click Time slider
s
bar.
Moveme
ent Threshold
d slider bar
Some ussers may have trouble hollding the poin
nter motionle
ess for the en
ntire dwell tim
me and
the move
ement thresh
hold slider allows a user to
t compensate for minor movement b
by
allowing a dwell click
k to occur as long as the cursor
c
movem
ment stays w ithin the movvement thresshold for the dwell click time.
This esse
entially increases the amount of move
ement the prrogram will iggnore before performing a click. This sslider bar allo
ows
you to ad
djust the Movvement Thresshold from 2 pixels to 20 pixels. The M
Movement Th
hreshold is also shown ass a red targett to
the right of the Movement Thresh
hold slider bar.
Click Sou
und check bo
ox
When this box is checcked, the sysstem will prod
duce a clickin
ng sound wh enever a Dw
well Click is re
egistered.
Button B
Bar size selecctor
Use this menu to cha
ange the size of the Dwell Clicking buttton bar.
Pausing Dwell Click
A necesssary feature of
o the Dwell Click
C
software is the abilitty to easily tu
urn it on and off. The Dwe
ell Click softw
ware is active
e
every tim
me the pointe
er comes to re
est, once the
e predetermin
ned dwell tim
me is up, a cliick will occurr. This can lea
ad to
unintentional clicks while
w
the Sma
artNAV user is doing something away from their coomputer, as tthe pointer w
will continue to
t
move the
e mouse poin
nter and perfform unintended clicks.
Therefore, the pause//active butto
on (shown at right) which is the button
n furthest to tthe left of the
e toolbar is
included to turn dwelll clicking on and off. Whe
en the button
n is green, dw
well clicking is on for the e
entire screen
n,
21
e button is re
ed, only the re
ed button is dwell sensitivve. This allow
ws the dwell ttoolbar to be
e un-paused b
by simply
when the
dwelling on the red circle.
What kin
nd of click do you want to perform toda
ay?
The Dwe
ell toolbar gives you the op
ption to (in order of appea
arance); Pau se Dwell Cliccking, Single Click, Double
e Click, Drag,,
Right Clicck, change Dwell
D
Clicking
g options, Clo
ose Dwell Cliccking, and moove/drag thee Dwell Clicking button/to
ool bar to ano
other
location. We have alrready discusssed what the ‘pause’ and ‘dwell clickin
ng options’ b
buttons do an
nd will now discuss the
differentt clicking options.
Dwell Clicking button Color Codess
Each diffferent click option
o
on the dwell toolbar has three different
d
statees that it can
n be in:
Unselectted
The funcction represented by this button
b
has not been selected as eitheer the defaultt or a single u
use action an
nd will not be
e
performe
ed.
Green
If an icon
n on the dwell toolbar is represented
r
by
b this button
n then it has been selecteed for a single use action
n and will onlyy be
performe
ed once.
Grayed o
out
The funcction represented by this button
b
has been selected
d as the defa ult action.
Locking a Dwell Click
king function
When yo
ou start the Dwell
D
Clicking
g application, you will noticce that the ssingle left clicck button is ggrayed out. Th
his indicates that
Single Le
eft Click is the default/loccked function
n. This meanss that when yyou dwell on an object with this button locked, the
e
system w
will produce a single left click.
c
To lock a
another butto
on in order to
o continuously double clicck, right click,, or drag; higghlight that bu
utton, move o
off of it for a
second a
and click on it
i again. Whe
en the button
n turns gray, you
y know it h
has been lockked and will now be the d
default action
n.
If the buttton is green then it will perform
p
the clicking
c
function only oncee and then affter you have
e performed tthis action,
clicking w
will revert back to the locked (grayed out)
o button.
Lets assume you wan
nt to select a right single click,
c
the you
u would simp
ply move the ccursor over ttop of the
symbol that represen
nts the right single
s
click (sshown at righ
ht) and wait foor a second oor two (reme
ember the dw
well
time is adjustable) un
ntil the right click
c
is autom
matically sele
ected. Then yyou can movee the cursor o
over any item
m
on the sccreen and wa
ait and a righ
ht single click
k action will occur
o
at that position.
To changge the mouse
e action to a double left click,
c
simply move
m
the currsor over top of the symbo
ol that repressents the dou
uble
22
s
until it is selected,, remember if it is grayed out then it w
will be the default, if it is ggreen then it will
left click and wait a second
only be p
performed on
nce. Then as before, move
e the cursor over any spoot on the screeen and afterr a moment a double left click
will occur.
Each fun
nction represented on the
e Dwell Clickiing button ba
ar can be lockked (grayed out) for contiinuous use.
Single Cllick button
The seco
ond button (sshown at right) looks like a single curssor arrow. Thiis button is u
used for single left clickingg.
When this button is green,
g
the sysstem will singgle click the next
n
time you
u dwell on an
n object. Whe
en this button
n
appears gray, it is loccked and you may single click
c
continuo
ously withoutt highlightingg the button e
each time.
Double C
Click button
The third
d button (sho
own at right) looks like two
o overlapped
d cursor arrow
ws, and is ussed for double
e clicking. When
this butto
on is green, the
t system will
w double click the next time you dweell on an object. When thiss button
appears gray, it is loccked and you may double click continu
uously withou
ut highlightin
ng the button
n each time.
Drag buttton
The fourtth button (sh
hown at right)) looks like a cursor arrow
w connected tto three dotss, and is used
d for dragging.
When this button highlights, the system
s
will alllow you to drrag the next ttime you dweell on an icon
n. When this
button appears gray, it is locked and
a you may drag continu
uously withou
ut highlighting the button each time.
Right Clicck button
The fifth button (show
wn at right) lo
ooks like a mouse
m
with th
he right click button shadeed. When this button
highlightts, the system
m will right cliick the next time
t
you dwe
ell on an icon
n. When this b
button appea
ars gray, it is
locked and you may right
r
click continuously without highligghting the bu
utton each tim
me.
Still More
e Buttons
Close Bu
utton
The seve
enth button (sshown at righ
ht) displays an
a X-box. Clicck on this buttton to close the Dwell Cliicking applica
ation.
Move Toolbar button
The eighth button (sh
hown at right) furthest to the
t right of th
he toolbar sh
hows four arrrows. This bu
utton is used to drag the dwell
d
clicking ttoolbar. To drag the toolbar; highlight the drag buttton, click on the Toolbar Dragging buttton and movve to the desired
location.
23
eVia
acam
eViacam
m is a mouse
e replaceme
ent software
e that move
es the pointeer as you moove your head. It workss on standarrd
PCs equ
uipped with a web came
era. No additional hardw
ware is requ
uired. You d
do need to m
make sure yyour web
camera works before beginning. If it does not work wiith its nativee application
n or within a
another app
plication it will
w
not workk with eViaccam.
Fire up tthe applicattion and you
u will see a screen
s
simillar to this:
Hit the ggreen check
k mark (it wa
as already clicked
c
in the
e above shoot as the red
d x is now avvailable to sstop it). If
everything is set up
p with the de
efaults you will
w be able to move you
ur cursor with your face
e. Even the sslightest
moveme
ent is recognized and moves
m
the mouse.
m
You can
c stare att an object tto click on itt and set oth
her options as
well.
Here is a quick vide
eo before we
e go further…
24
Now let’’s see what we can con
nfigure:
Clickingg on the configuration menu
m
and th
hen options will give you
u the followiing choices.. We will sta
art with gene
eral
options::
25
That is w
where we ca
an modify what
w
camera
a to use, langguage and p rofile settin
ngs so more
e than one person can use
this app
plication sea
amlessly.
26
Using th
he first motio
on tab you can
c play with how smoo
oth and how
w fast (accelleration) the
e mouse mo
oves and pic
cks
up spee
ed. Feel free
e to mess around with the options. Hit OK and see what w
works best fo
or you.
The clickk tab showss how long you
y need to stare at a ittem before iit clicks. You
u can also h
have it beep
p on click and
allow for multiple click (double or triple clicck). The Clicck windows behavior I ffound worke
ed best on F
Fast mode. But
B
your mileage may vary.
v
27
The Starrtup tab spe
eaks for itse
elf and simp
ply allows yo
ou to set startup optionss.
The advvanced tab allows
a
you to
o have the application
a
find
f
your facce automatically or to m
make you ch
hoose it
manually with your mouse. The bottom se
election lets you choosee a differentt on-screen keyboard th
han the one
bundled
d with Windo
ows. This alllows you to type with yo
our mind as well!
28
Dasher
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/
Dasher is an information-efficient text-entry interface, driven by natural continuous pointing gestures. Dasher is a
competitive text-entry system wherever a full-size keyboard cannot be used.
Dasher
Special Needs
Dasher is highly appropriate for computer users who are unable to use a two-handed keyboard. One-handed users and
users with no hands love Dasher. The only ability that is required is sight.
Dasher can be driven using a mouse, a trackpad, a touchscreen, a rollerball, or a joystick - any two-dimensional pointing
device that can take over the role of a mouse. A foot mouse and a head mouse are additional options.
It can also be driven using a gazetracker, giving a completely-hands-free writing system. After one hour's practice, some
users are able to write at more than 20 words per minute using Dasher with an gazetracker. Experienced users reach 30
words per minute. We got these results with the Quick Glance gazetracker from EyeTech Digital Systems.
For a movie demonstrating Dasher with an gazetracker, see the demonstration page.
Compared to a gazetracker + on-screen keyboard, Dasher is



faster
more accurate
more fun
Further information
Headmouse information
UK contacts
The Dasher project enjoys links with the ACE Centre in Oxford, and with Ability Net. Ability Net has 11 centres around the
country who can help disabled people use whatever technology is appropriate for them, including Dasher. The ACE centre
specializes in children with severe disabilities.
Frequent questions
I am paralyzed from the shoulders down. What do I need to make Dasher work for me?
Do you have a PC? (Linux or Windows) Can you use a head-mouse? Or any other sort of mouse? Perhaps a mouthstick that controls the mouse coordinates? If so, simply download the latest version of Dasher, and you should be
able to write with Dasher.
If standard mice and head-mice are not an option, then you'll need an gazetracker that can take over control of the
mouse.
We used a system from Eyetech called Quickglance. See below for links to other gaze-trackers.
29
Hardware options
Here are some links giving information about non-standard mouse devices.
















Keyboard alternatives have Many mouse devices and a detailed Pointing device compatibility chart. They have now
moved to Solutions for Humans.
Head mouse, Highly recommended: Smart-Nav Head mouse from NaturalPoint (formerly sold as the TrackIR; don't
buy a TrackIR now, however, as the current (2005) TrackIR is now specialised for gaming) Costs about $150-$300,
uses one reflective dot stuck to your head and a small camera attached to your windows machine. (No linux version
is currently available, but if NaturalPoint hear there is demand, I think they might respond!)
We recommend this device because it is cheap, easy to set up, and versatile. Here's a review of this head mouse.
You can stick the dot on your finger or toe to make a finger-mouse or toe-mouse. We got best results by putting the
dot on an extension so as to get accurate amplification of the body motion. Equivalently, put the reflective dot on the
tip of a baseball hat. SETTINGS - for our first TrackIR, bought about 2002: We put Natural Point's "speed" control at
its maximum (but not 2x) and its "smooth" control towards "-". For the smartnav3, we put the smoothing control to its
smallest value (slider to the left), and the speed controls (for x and y amplification) in the middle; I wasn't sure
whether I preferred Relative or Absolute mode. Further advice from users.
Other headmice: We very highly recommend the Origin Instruments HeadMouse Extreme , which feels a lot like a
Navpoint smartnav to use, but has the advantage that it works instantly as a USB mouse, requiring no software at
all. So it works on linux and mac too! The price is about $1000 - pretty steep! But a very good product.
ACE is a UK centre of information, support, and training for parents and professionals in the use of technology for
young people in education who have communication difficulties, both in speaking and/or writing.
Skipper (http://home.freeuk.net/skipperproject) includes advice about making your own custom hardware to enable
control of your on-screen mouse and other other aspects of your computer. Free software is included for linux
machines.
Head-mouse From MouseVision Inc: VisualMouse (VM) software - widely used by disabled people, can be
downloaded from www.mousevision.com free of charge. VM is a pointing device using a webcam that recognizes
head motion (with no gear on the head). It works with Windows 98/ME/2000. [23/8/02.]
A free headmouse. It runs under Windows.
GyroMouse - Free space mouse - good for people with limited reach - and could probably be used as a head mouse
or foot mouse.
Carpal tunnel-friendly mouse: One Dasher-user recommends the hand-held IBM GlidePoint mouse.
Gazetrackers: Eyetech - we used their Quickglance gazetracker, which costs about $3000. Very good value. We
used the following settings: Setup->More Options->Update Rate 30, Smoothing Factor 1 or 2. (in contrast to
the defaults which are 10, 7). Further info about the system is provided here.
Gazetrackers: Applied Science Laboratories
Gazetrackers: Eyegaze (LC) A high-quality tracker, and very easy to use. Works with Dasher, Though LC technologies
have not pushed this opportunity (as of Oct 2005).
Eye response Erica A high-quality tracker, and easy to use. Comes with sensible patented features such as an
automated zoom whenever you dwell-click on a small piece of the windows display. Works with Dasher, and Eye
response ship their product with Dasher. They are actively working (as of Octo 2005) on making their gaze tracking
software change its behaviour when you are using Dasher (very responsive behaviour is good for Dasher). ($8000
for a complete system based on a tablet PC)
Tobii's MyTobii -- the king of gaze-trackers - this one tracks both eyes and is robust to enormous head motions. Very
impressive. About $25,000.
Metrovision, who make Visioboard I have used Dasher with the visioboard. It is a good gazetracker, incorporating a
second camera that does head-tracking. Another good feature is the well-designed user interface. Recalibration of
the gazetracker happens automatically if the system detects a drastic problem (eg a huge head movement). So I
think this system is good for a lone disabled person to use. It is a large system, made up of a screen on a stand and
two computers, one for eyetracking and one for you to run windows on. When you make a big head movement, the
quality of tracking is not so good.
More about gaze control: see the Cogain site for Gazetalk software that works with Dasher.
Foot-control: Vik writes:
"I thought you might like to know that I have been running the Linux version of Dasher on the Sony Playstation 2. I
30


u
used the Son
ny "Dance Ma
at" controller to control Da
asher with m y feet. This iss a relatively low-cost plattform with a
vvariety of con
ntrollers availlable, some of
o which mayy suit certain disabilites."
TTrackers and software fro
om Madentecc
U
Usernomics ergonomic-pr
e
roducts webssite
Speech ssynthesis and Dasher (un
nder Linux)
Skipper ((http://home
e.freeuk.net//skipperproje
ect) is being integrated wi th Dasher. [S
Skipper proviides full (and
d practical)
access to
o everything in Linux and the Internet for people with
w severe p hysical disab
bilities.]
Speech ssynthesis (un
nder Window
ws)
Mon 2/5
5/05 Today I learnt aboutt a system that can be use
ed to capturee someone's speech, then synthesize
e speech thatt
sounds like theirs: ModelTalker se
eems to be free software, and I believve there are vversions for b
both Linux an
nd Windows.
Speech ssynthesis and Dasher (un
nder Windows
ws)
Thu 12/1
12/02: Ronn
nie Love's directions for getting Dashe
er to "talk on stop" with a variety of speaking systems.
Tue 1/10
0/02: cliffn has
h written a front end for dasher v1.6
6.8 in VB5 wh
hich allows to run Dasher, allows one
e click to save
e the
text into a file, and alllows the file to be read aloud. With a shortcut to tthe text file oon your deskttop it is easy to edit and copy
c
and pastte to anotherr app.
Tested o
only on Win 2000 but available for dow
wnload with a right click oon the file na
ame (StartDasherFS.exe) from:
www.dattasolutions.co
o.nz/Download; this exe file
f should be
e put in the d
dasher folderr alongside d
dasher.exe.
This text file gives Ma
argaret Cottss's instruction
ns for using Macro
M
Expresss to connectt Dasher 1.6.8 to etriloqu
uist, and furth
her
informattion submitte
ed by other ussers.
This text file gives infformation from R. Love ab
bout making Dasher talk.
In due co
ourse, one off the Dasher developers plans
p
to conn
nect Dasher vversion 3 directly to FreeTTTS.
Web-browsing and Da
asher
We have
en't connectted Dasher to a web-browser yet. Andras
A
Lorin
ncz drew our attention tto Coraler (fformerly
www.coraler.com), which offerss a nice Dassher-like hyp
pertext navi gation envirronment. A beautiful prrototype. I th
hink
the idea
a is that web
bsites should be written
n in the style
e of Coraler to make them more disabled-frien
ndly.
Dasher
ou point wherre you want to
t go, and thee display zoooms in wherever you pointt. The world into
Dasher iss a zooming interface. Yo
which yo
ou are zoomin
ng is painted with letters, so that any point you zooom in on corrresponds to a piece of texxt. The more you
zoom in, the longer th
he piece of te
ext you have written. You choose whatt you write byy choosing w
where to zoom
m.
In the exxample to the
e right, the usser is writing "Hello,_how_
_are_you?".
To make
e the interface
e efficient, we
w use the pre
edictions of a language m
model to
determin
ne how much
h of the world
d is devoted to
t each piece
e of text. Prob
bable pieces
of text arre given more
e space, so they are quick and easy to
o select. Imp robable
pieces off text (for exa
ample, text with
w spelling mistakes)
m
are
e given less sspace, so
they are harder to write. The language model learns all the
e time: if you use a novel
word oncce, it is easie
er to write nexxt time.
31
asher over otther predictivve text-entry interfaces th
hat offer word
d-completion
ns to the userr is that it is
A big advvantage of Da
mode-fre
ee: the user does
d
not nee
ed to switch from a writingg mode to an
n "accept-mod
del-prediction
ns" mode.
Another advantage iss that it is eassy to train the
e model on any
a writing sttyle: simply looad up an example file, th
hen write awa
ay!
ossible bookss, ordered alp
phabetically on a single sshelf. Books iin which the first letter is "a"
Imagine a library containing all po
are at the left hand side.
s
Books in
n which the fiirst letter is "z" are at the right. In picture (i) below,, the shelf is shown vertic
cally
with "leftt" (a) at the to
op and "rightt" (z) at the bo
ottom. The first book in th
he "a" section
n reads "aaaaaaaaaaaa..."; somewhere to
its right a
are books tha
at start "all good
g
things must
m
come to an end..."; a tiny bit furth
her to the right are books that start "all
good thin
ngs must com
me to an ene
ema...".
(i) (ii)
(
(iii)
When so
omeone write
es a piece of text,
t
their choice of the te
ext string can
n be viewed a
as a choice o
of a book from
m this library of
all bookss - the book that
t
containss exactly the chosen
c
text. How do they choose thatt book? Let's imagine theyy want to writte
"all good things..."
ey walk into the "a" section of the libra
ary. There, the
ey are confroonted by books starting "a
aa", "ab", "ac,,.... "az" [Picture
First, the
(ii)]. Lookking more clo
osely at the "al" section, they can find books startin
ng "ala", "alb",... "alz" [Picture (iii)].
By lookin
ng ever more
e closely at th
he shelf, the writer
w
can fin
nd the book ccontaining the text he wisshes to write. Thus writing
g can
be descrribed as zoom
ming in on an
n alphabetica
al library, stee
ering as you go.
This is exxactly how Da
asher works, except for one
o crucial po
oint ...
This is exxactly how Da
asher works, except for one
o crucial po
oint: we alterr the SIZE of tthe shelf spa
ace devoted tto each book
k in
proportio
on to the probability of the correspond
ding text. Forr example, noot very many books start w
with an "x", sso we devote less
space to "x..." books, and more to
o the more pla
ausible book
ks, thus makiing it easier tto find bookss that contain
n probable te
ext.
Here is the correspon
nding sequen
nce of picture
es of the libra
ary in Dasherr. (The character "_" deno
otes the spacce character.)
32
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
ed on examples of any writing style, an
nd it learns a ll the time, p
picking up you
ur personal turns of phras
se.
Dasher ccan be traine
The imagge below sho
ows the state of the Dashe
er interface while
w
the useer is writing th
he word `objjection'; alterrnative words
s
that coulld easily be written
w
at thiss point includ
de `objective
e', `objects_', and `objectt_oriented'.
If you find Dasher hard to imagine
e based on th
hese static pictures, pleasse take a loook at the movvies below. W
When you wattch
someone
e else steerin
ng Dasher, yo
ou may find it
i looks difficult, but be asssured: it is a
actually very easy; it's a lo
ot like driving
ga
car.
You can try Dasher right now, in your
y
browser,, if your browser is Java-e nabled.
33
When you try Dasher for the first time, please read the tips for novices.
Streaming movies, presentations
By the Dasher team
Dasher - information-efficient text entry (19th April 2007)
Google tech talk (54 minute video) by David MacKay at Google Inc, Mountain View
By other people
Augie, an ALS-sufferer, is featured on this MSNBC article - we see him driving Dasher with his feet.
Google video by Paul Tingey showing Dasher hooked up to RoboRealm (machine vision software)
"Writing sentences with a red plastic ball"
Movies
Simple movies
File size
Animated gif of Dasher version 3, should work in
any browser
300K
Animated gif of Dasher version 3, identical to the
560K
above, but higher quality animation
Animated gif of Dasher version 1, should work in
any browser
81K
Animated gif of Daishoya (Japanese Dasher
version 1).
Further information in Japanese
300K
Flash movie (will play in your browser if flashenabled) showing Dasher in Persian
by Behdad and
the FarsiWeb
Project
Movies for Windows systems
File size
Streaming video demonstration (1.5 mins asf)
including audio commentary.
The text of the commentary is available.
2.7 M
3 minute demonstration of Dasher, with a
commentary. The demonstration uses lotus
screen cam software (included in the zip file)
which runs on windows 95 systems.
This movie is highly recommended as the
commentary explains how Dasher is used.
5M
34
The text of the commentary is available.
mpeg Movies
4K
File size
Dasher with an eye-tracker: enhanced eyetracking
28 M
mode (Aug 2005)
Dasher with an eye-tracker (November 2001)
6M
Dasher running on a Compaq iPAQ
[In this movie, David hits the space bar to start the
program going, and after that he uses nothing but eyes;
he's using Dasher version 1.6. In Dasher versions 3 and
4, we can start and stop Dasher without cheating in this
way.]
9M
Dasher with an eye-tracker: enhanced eyetracking
mode, demonstrating autocalibration, within ten
17 M
seconds or so, of a hugely-miscalibrated
eyetracker (September 2004)
Dasher with an eye-tracker: enhanced eyetracking
9M
mode, demonstrating use of control mode
(September 2004)
Breath Dasher, including control mode
demonstration (September 2004)
25 M
Keith Vertanen's Speech-Dasher prototype (mpg)
13 M
(avi)
Large MOV Movies
File size
Large AVI Movies
File size
Dasher with an eye-tracker (November 2001)
54 M
AVI of Dasher running on a Compaq iPAQ
4M
Very large AVI of Dasher running on a Compaq
iPAQ
90 M
AVI by Alexandre-Alapetite showing Dasher being
3M
used to write rich text into a Wiki
Daniel Jalkut's movie of Dasher on a Mac can be
found on this blog
28M
More screenshots with captions can be found here and here. For further demonstrations, movies and screenshots see
David Ward's Dasher site; also Keith Vertanen's.
35
36
LetM
MeTyp
pe
Like Microsoft's AutoComplete, Le
etMeType helps you enterr text, but reggardless of th
he program yyou use. Running in the
backgrou
und, it analysses what you type. After some
s
time it has
h collected
d enough infoormation to gguess a word
d after you ha
ave
typed the
e first two or three letterss. A list of the
e most probable words is displayed, an
nd you can select one witth a single
keystroke or just conttinue typing.
LetMeType works ind
dependently of
o the program you enter the text into - be it a word
d processor, the editor off a development
environm
ment or a dialog box field.
LetMeType can be ussed for arbitra
ary Western languages and even in m
mixed languagge environme
ents. It workss best for long
words orr phrases tha
at are frequen
ntly typed. Th
herefore it is best suited ffor software d
developers a
and people w
who use a lot of
technical terms. (Whiich is not to say
s that peop
ple who just write
w
informaal email will n
not find it use
eful.)
our is highly customizable
c
. You can sett the maximu
um number oof suggestion
ns and their frequency. Fo
or
LetMeType's behavio
eyboard artissts it is possible to limit th
he suggestion
ns to long woords with a high probabilitty, while othe
ers can gradu
ually
skilled ke
increase
e the number of suggestio
ons. Unobtrussiveness is im
mportant for both groups.. The window
w containing tthe suggestio
ons
is displayyed and remo
oved quickly, and you can
n always igno
ore it and con
ntinue typingg.
Two othe
er important aspects are privacy and security.
s
LetM
MeType only sstores singlee words, but n
no continouss texts. There
e
also is a secure way to
t prevent pa
asswords enttered into oth
her programss from being monitored and stored byy LetMeType.
The first picture show
ws LetMeType
e at work. To
o finish the cu
urrently typed
d word, you ju
press the keyy 1. Every other
ust have to p
key woulld make the suggestion
s
disappear and
d would be processed by the text editoor as if LetMeType was non-existent.
The main
n window listts the vocabu
ulary and allo
ows you to co
onfigure LetM
MeType usingg the various menu items..
37
. You can sett the maximu
our is highly customizable
c
um number oof suggestion
ns and their frequency. Fo
or
LetMeType's behavio
eyboard userrs it is possib
ble to limit the suggestion
ns to long worrds with a higgh probabilityy, while others can gradually
skilled ke
increase
e the number of suggestio
ons.
38
FXC
C Sona
ar
http://ww
ww.fxc.btinte
ernet.co.uk/a
assistive.htm
http://ww
ww.softpedia
a.com/get/Otthers/Miscelllaneous/FXC
C-Sonar.shtm
ml
This pa
ackage pro
ovides an expanded ring around the moouse pointter for users who have difficultty
locating the poin
nter.
FXC Sona
ar is a small but unique package
p
that provides an expanded rin
ng around th
he mouse poiinter for userrs who have
difficulty locating the pointer.
Unlike th
he Windows XP
X version, th
his package places
p
a perm
manent ring aaround the p
pointer.
ar also features the optio
on to vary the
e color of the Sonar ring.
FXC Sona
S
dialo
ogue (CTRL + ALT + A) where you can cchange the sshape to either a circle orr a square, alter
You can access the Settings
the diam
meter of the shape,
s
alter the width of the line and change
c
the coolor. Whilst rrunning, the a
application can be hidden
n
and resto
ored by clicking on Show//Hide or by using
u
CTRL+A
ALT+S. Finallyy, this version of Sonar siits above the
e menus in
Windowss, providing id
dentification anywhere.
39
Team Vie
ewer
Click the im
mage below fo
or the Teamvviewer manua
al (PDF)
Ope
en Offfice
Click the im
mage below fo
or the Open O
Office manua
al (PDF)
40
Deaf/HOH
H/Telecom
mmuniications
NexxTalk
NexTalk is a network based system with special provisionss for the com munication n
needs of the deaf and hard of hearing
g,
ommunications and messsaging featurres. It is a bleending of teleephone and ccomputer tecchnologies which
but with advanced co
links TTY
Y callers with every NexTa
alk personal computer
c
use
er on the locaal and wide a
area networkks. With NexTTalk, any TTY call
can be answered and
d then transferred to anotther NexTalk user or grou
up of users (d
department).
41
Skyype
To starrt Skype
If it's yo
our first tim
me openin
ng Skype:
Open Skype on your com
mputer.
That mea
ans double-cclicking this iccon on your desktop
d
or ch
hoosing it froom the Windoows > Start m
menu. Havingg trouble?
Launch it from here. This will open a start-up screen.
s
Click Don
n't have a Sk
kype Name?
This opens a Create account
a
wind
dow.
hen create a Skype usern
name (called a Skype Nam
me) and a password.
Type in yyour name, th
- Pick ones you can re
emember so you can sign
n in next time
e.
- Follow tthe directionss from there and click Siggn in.
If you'vve opened Skype before:
Open Skyype from you
ur desktop orr Windows > Start
S
menu.
In the sta
art-up screen
n, click in the
e box under Skype
S
Name and type it in
n. Then do the same for yyour password.
(If you fo
orget your passsword, click
k the Forgot your
y
password? link and ffollow the directions from there.)
This will sign you in to
o Skype, read
dy for you to use.
Call someone wh
ho's on Skype
Call someone in your Conttact list:
Click the
e Contacts bu
utton at the to
op of Skype.
42
erson you want to call.
In the lisst, find the pe
Click on them. (Reme
ember - anyone with one of
o these besiide them
is on S
Skype so it's ffree to call. A
Anyone with one
o
of these
meanss it's a phone
e or mobile number and calls
c
will costt you a little.)
You will ssee their details in the ma
ain window.
Click the
e green Call button.
b
You should hear ringing. If you don't hear th
he other persson or they can't hear you
u, click the ca
all
quality iccon at the top
p of your call window.
To hang up, click the red End call button.
Useful things you
u can do on
o a call:



M
Mute – click this
t icon to
t mute your microphone so the otherr person can'tt hear you.
H
Hold – click on
o this icon to put the call
c on hold.
TTurn video on
n – if you've got
g a webcam
m plugged in,, click the greeen Video call button to m
make it a vide
eo call.
Call someone on
n their pho
one or cell phone
You can make great value
v
calls to
o phones and
d cell phoness from Skype.. All you need
d is Skype Crredit to make
e pay as you calls;
c
ou can get un
nlimited calls* to landlinees (and even cell phones in some coun
ntries).
or, with a monthly subscription yo
First tim
me you call a phone
e number:
Click the
e Call phoness tab.
In the ma
ain window, you
y will see a key pad, ca
alling rates to
o all countriess, and a Buy Skype Creditt button.
In the ma
ain window, click
c
on the flag
f menu an
nd change the
e country if yyou're calling abroad.
Then clicck in the box beside the fllag. Type the phone numb
ber or click numbers on the keypad.
43
ou've got the number righ
ht.
Check yo
Then clicck the green Call button.
If you'll ccall this numb
ber regularly,, click the Save button un
nder the dialp
pad.
Next time
e, just find it in your Conttacts so you don't
d
have to
o type it in agaain.
If you'vve saved th
he numbe
er in your Contacts:
C
Click the
e Contacts bu
utton at the to
op of Skype.
In your C
Contact list, fiind the perso
on you want to
t call.
Then clicck on them.
In the ma
ain window, click
c
the gree
en Call button.
Useful things you
u can do on
o a call:



M
Mute – click this
t icon to
t mute your microphone so the otherr person can'tt hear you.
H
Hold – click on
o this icon to put the call
c on hold.
S
Send an SMS
S – if you're calling
c
a cell phone,
p
click the
t SMS buttton under the dialpad to send an SMS
S instead.
No emerggency calls witth Skype.
Skype is n
not a replacem
ment for your ordinary
o
teleph
hone and can''t be used for eemergency ca
alling.
* A fair ussage policy ap
pplies. Exclude
es service, spe
ecial, premium
m and non-geoggraphic numb
bers.
44
Trillian
Trillian is a proprietary multiprotocol instant messaging application for Windows, Mac OS X, iPhone OS and the Web, created
by Cerulean Studios. It can connect to multiple IM services, such as AIM, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger,
IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Bonjour, XMPP, and Skype networks; as well as Social Networks, such as Facebook,
Twitter and MySpace; and email services, such as POP3, IMAP, Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail.
Use Trillian with AIM
Step 1. Download Trillian from the Cerulean Studios website (see Resources below). Once the download has completed,
install the application to your hard drive and run it for the first time. If there are updates available, then Trillian will autoupdate, so just follow the on-screen prompts.
Step 2. Click the "Trillian" menu option from the menu bar in the Contact List.
Step 3. Highlight the "Connections" option, and select the "Manage My Connections" menu option.
Step 4. Click the "Add New Connection" button. This will allow you to add the AIM accounts you wish to use in Trillian.
Step 5. Highlight and select the "AIM" menu option.
Step 6. Click the "Register for a New Account" menu option to create an AIM account if you don't already have one.
Step 7. Enter the AIM screen name you wish to use in Trillian in the "Screen Name" text box. Proper spelling is important, so
double-check what you've typed.
Step 8. Type the password for the associated screen name in the "Password" text box. There is no password verification, so
be careful as you type it to ensure its accuracy.
Step 9. Select whether or not you want to have this AIM account automatically log in each time you start Trillian by either
selecting or leaving blank the "Automatically connect to this account at startup" check box.
Step 10. Press the "Connect" button to test your connection. If you've entered your account information correctly then you'll
see your contact list display a bright yellow gem as well as any of your AIM contacts associated with that account.
Step 11. Double-click an AIM contact. This will open a chat box which you can use to send and receive instant messages.
Use Trillian with Yahoo Messenger
Step 1. Start Trillian either by selecting it from the Start menu or by double-clicking its icon on your desktop. If you haven't
already downloaded and installed Trillian then you can get it at the Cerulean Studios website (see Resources below).
Step 2. Wait for Trillian to log in each of your Yahoo! Messenger accounts, or add new accounts from the "Manage My
Connections" menu option. Adding a new account requires your account screen name and password, so if you don't already
have them, then click the "Register for a New Account" button and create them.
45
Step 3. Look at the "Online" bar in your Trillian window to ensure your Yahoo! Messenger connection is in use. If the red
gems are bright as opposed to dim and opaque, then your Yahoo! Messenger connection is enabled.
Step 4. Double-click on a contact in your contact list who has a red gem next to his or her name. These are your Yahoo!
contacts, and double-clicking their screen names will bring up a chat box.
Step 5. Type your message in the message box and press "Enter" to send it.
Step 6. Right-click on the Trillian system tray icon to bring up the right-click context menu. From here you can set your online
status ("Away" or "Out to Lunch," for example). You can also create custom "Away" messages, and you can set your status for
each of your different IM accounts using the same command.
46
Lea
arningg
T-Ba
ar
u can either drag around
d the screen
n or lock to yyour mouse. It can have ruled lines or
o
T-Bar is a colored bar which you
pending on your
y
preferen
nce. The colo
or can be ch
hosen from p
pre-defined o
by altering th
he
options, then tweaked b
not, dep
red, gree
en or blue slliders to get the perfect color, the tra
ansparency level can be
e adjusted, a
again to suit the individua
al.
All the settings are saved
s
betwe
een sessions
s, so there is
s no need to readjust the
e next time yyou use it. T
This tool was
d specifically
y as an aid for
f Scotopic Sensitivity, also known as Irlen Syn
ndrome, a visual percepttual problem
m.
designed
Vu B
Bar
ww.fxc.btinte
ernet.co.uk/a
assistive.htm
http://ww
A unique
e piece of sofftware, provid
des an on-scrreen, slotted ruler. Usefull with dyslexia, when the user skips lin
nes or drops
from one
e line to the next.
n
This verrsion allows the
t user to se
elect the bar width, 25%, 50%, 75% o
or 100% of sccreen width and
a
set the sslot height to the required font size.
This verssion adds the
e option to lock the bar on
nto the mousse pointer forr movement, as well as im
mproved keyb
board movem
ment
options.
47
MathTrax
http://prime.jsc.nasa.gov/mathtrax/
MathTrax is a graphing tool for middle school and high school students to graph equations, physics simulations or plot data
files. The graphs have descriptions and sound so you can hear and read about the graph. Blind and low vision users can
access visual math data and graph or experiment with equations and datasets.
The MathTrax website has two modes:
Visual MathTrax
Text MathTrax
What does it do?
Models equations - Data analysis - Describes equations - Graphs equations - Represents graphs with sound - Helps students
understand the relationship between math equations and their application in the real world
How do you use it?
- As a stand-alone application on your desktop
- Enter an equation - Load a data file
How does it work?
- Enter an equation, dataset or URL and MATHTRAX returns a text description and a graph that can be sonified
- Blind users access MATHTRAX using screen readers such as JAWS
- Technologies include an AI engine, algebraic reduction and simple sonification
MATHTRAX is an interactive software tool that combines equation analysis, graphs and sound to represent NASA scientific
information to K-12 students.
MATHTRAX was developed as an instructional technology tool for students studying algebra, pre-calculus and calculus.
MATHTRAX uses artificial intelligence to analyze equations and then creates text descriptions and graphs of those
equations. A graph can be listened to as a mixture of stereo tones.
MATHTRAX is accessible to blind and low vision students. MATHTRAX makes math accessible to blind students who are not
able to use pencil, paper and graphs to study mathematics.
MATHTRAX draws graphs of equations and describes those graphs using text and sound. Graphs are created by entering an
equation, loading a datafile, or entering a URL. MATHTRAX can be called by other software to graph equations also.
48
MATHTRAX roller coaster sim displays an object moving along a track. Students select the right combination of curve shape,
ball position, speed, friction, and gravity to traverse the track. MATHTRAX has text and sound feedback for the student.
MATHTRAX translates and demonstrates abstract math relationships in a tangible physical medium on a standard PC
platform.
Rollercoaster overview
You can design a roller coaster with the MathTrax roller coaster game!
Begin your design by experimenting with the track design and how a roller coaster works. Things like the shape of the track,
where the car starts from, how fast it's going when it starts and the forces of friction and gravity are important things to think
about when you design a roller coaster.
The object of the game is to get the roller coaster car (represented by the red ball) from its starting position on the left side
of the graph to the end of the roller coaster track on the right side.
Here's How:
First, create the track by typing an equation or selecting an equation from the drop down menu. You can tweak the shape of
the track by changing the equation parameters.
Then you can set other conditions like where the car starts from, it's starting speed and the friction and gravity forces that
act upon the car. You can change these conditions over and over to see how it works.
Once you're satisfied with your track, click the "Start Roller Coaster" button and see if your car makes it to the end of the
track.
When you start the roller coaster, you'll hear its movement along the track! Then you can read about what happened in the
description of the results! Have fun!
If you're using a screen-reader with MathTrax, you can first figure out what the track looks like by reading the text description
and using the sound controls, just like you may have done in the Equations part of MathTrax. Then set your values, and start
the roller coaster!
Rocket Simulation Tutorial
Includes Screen Reader Cues
The rocket simulation program is an application designed to teach a student about some of the many parameters and
attributes that govern a rocket’s flight. The student should observe and note what effects on the attributes of the rocket
flight result from the alteration of the parameters. In brief, the experience gained through operation of the rocket simulation
program will allow the student to learn about a few of the intricacies of rocket flight. Open the MDE application, enter alt+f,
and you should hear “new”. Press the right arrow key, and you hear “rocket simulation”. Press enter on “rocket simulation”,
and the rocket simulation application opens up to the rocket simulation settings. These settings include:



Time step in seconds: 0.1
Rocket body diameter in centimeters: 17.8
Mass of the rocket’s airframe in grams: 4015.0
49









Mass of the payload in grams: 2000.0
Mass of the rocket motor without fuel in grams: 6005.0
Mass of the fuel and oxidizer in grams: 23450.0
Motor impulse in Newton seconds: 34579.6
Motor burn time in seconds: 10.0
Coefficient of drag: 0.4
acceleration values the description of the graph gives for 0<.5<1.0. and> our next exercise will show you the
simplicity of navigating the description panel of the graphing calculator should you choose several attributes to be
graphed. Press
Launch angle in degrees: 75.0
Length of the launch rail in meters: 3.00
Each parameter has its given default setting value. The parameters can be changed to modify some feature in the trajectory,
or the flight path, of the rocket. After you have made the alterations in the parameters, you can tab to one of three choices:
Tab to “o.k”, and Press space bar to accept the new parameters you entered, tab to “default”, and press space bar to set
the parameters to their original settings, before any changes were made, tab to “cancel”, and press space bar to exit the
rocket simulation program.
Upon pressing space bar on “o.k”, you find yourself in the groupBox data file entry panel where you learn which data file is
being used. Tabbing once brings you to the data file entry panel groupBox browse button wherein you can select or enter a
data file for the rocket simulation application. Simply press the spacebar to open the list of data files from which to choose.
You can select a new file by pressing spacebar on the data file of your choice, or work from the present file. The next six tabs
will allow you to select the features of the trajectory you want to examine with respect to time. Those features are
acceleration in meter per square second, altitude in meters, drag in nektons, flight angle in degrees, range in meters, and
velocity in meters per second. You can choose one or more of the attributes to examine over the given .1 second time
intervals, but one should note that that can be a lot of information to take in.
You can also get to the acceleration entry panel by entering control+f. as you tab through the remaining fields, pressing
spacebar will either select or deselect the attribute for change; you can also enter control+k to select or deselect all the
attributes. After selecting the attributes for change, you can tab to “rescale the graph and press the spacebar to fit the
data”, or enter alt+t, which has the same effect.
Let’s say you want to select acceleration from the attribute list. Then you can enter control+f which you put you in the
acceleration panel. Press spacebar to select acceleration. Now, enter control+d to go to the description panel in which a
description of how the acceleration of the rocket changes in .1 second intervals over the given course of 72.64 seconds. If
you desire to take a closer look at what is going on during the rocket’s flight, then you can tab until you arrive at the table
which has 7 columns and 728 rows. Look through some of the values of the acceleration column of the table. Try to find the
point where the rocket’s acceleration is the greatest within the first .5 seconds; can you determine why this is the case?
If you want to find the points at which the acceleration is at a local extremum, you can enter control+d to go to the
description of the graph, and this will reveal to you the extremum points on the graph at the respective times. As to why
acceleration has these values at the respective points, you have to consider the forces acting on the rocket and when they
act on the rocket within the context of newton’s second law, f = ma.
The following exercise will give you information on how to change the parameters for the rocket, but we will work directly
with the time step parameter to see how changing it will give you different critical values. The lowest time step is .1, and so,
you will get detailed information about the progression of the values for acceleration along the rocket’s trajectory. However,
should you want to increase the time step, then you should enter alt+f, you should hear “new”; press right arrow key, press
down arrow key until you hear “rocket simulation”, then press spacebar. This will return you to the first of the parameters,
the time step panel. Delete the given value and enter the time step you desire, say .5 seconds. Enter control+f which returns
you to acceleration, the first of the attributes. Tab until you get to the table. This should put you in the first column of the
table. Press the down arrow key a few times, and note that the time step increases by .5 seconds. Now, enter control+home,
50
press the right arrow key, and proceed to examine the acceleration column by pressing the down arrow key, and pay
attention to the changes in it. Now, what is the greatest value for acceleration when 0
<.5<1.0 when for value lowest what> Now, again, return to the description panel by pressing control+d, and read what
control+f and you will be at the acceleration panel; it should already be selected. Tab to the altitude and press spacebar to
select it. Finally tab to the drag panel, Enter control+d to go to the description panel, and read. Notice how the descriptions
of the three different attributes are separated into three distinct paragraphs. REMEMBER: although the descriptions are
separated into three paragraphs, and no matter how tempting it may be, you must not use the control+down arrow
command to skip to the next paragraph. this will cause the Rocket Simulation program to freeze up.
Just as we did to look more closely at the rocket’s acceleration we enter control+f and tab until we get to the first
row/column of the time step panel. Press right arrow twice to arrive in the altitude column, or three times to get to the drag
column where you can examine the values of the respective attributes with more scrutiny.
The purpose of this next exercise is to show the simplicity of attributing understanding to the sonification to one attribute of
the Rocket Simulation program compared to the difficulty that accompanies ascribing understanding to the sonification of
several attributes. Right now, we have three attributes selected; enter control+f to return to the acceleration panel. Press
spacebar to deselect the acceleration attribute. Tab twice to the drag attribute and do the same. The altitude attribute
remains selected. Enter control+s to place you at the sonify button. Press the spacebar to hear the sonification of the
altitude attribute with respect to time. The sound you hear is one that suggests an ascent to a maximum point and then a
descent, which is easy enough to determine for oneself.
Now, enter control+f to get back to the acceleration panel, press spacebar to select it. Tab to and Deselect the altitude
attribute. Enter control+s and press spacebar to sonify the acceleration graph. Using the same directions as you did
selecting the attributes of altitude and acceleration, select and sonify only the drag attribute. When sonifying only one
attribute, it is a lot easier to understand the sonification of the graph.
Now, enter control+f to go to the acceleration attribute, select it; tab to the altitude and the drag attributes and select them.
Enter control+s and press spacebar to sonify the graph of the three attributes together. After having heard the attributes
sonified individually, can you determine the identifying graph sound associated to each attribute? If you can, then select
more attributes and sonify them to find out what your limit to distinguishing them is.
Presently, the time step parameter is set to .5 second intervals; the exercise that ensues will teach you to zoom in on
particular sections of the acceleration graph, examine it in detail, and thereby, detect its critical points. First, enter control+b
to go to the boundary settings; delete its current value and set left boundary at 0.0; tab past the bottom boundary to right
boundary, and press the return key. You do not have to tab to the top boundary to enter a value. enter control+t to rescale
the graph. Enter control+s to go to the sonify button and tab twice to get to the sounds control groupBox left-right slider
button. Press the spacebar; listen to the sound. Then press the pagedown key until you have heard what you believe is the
sound with the highest pitch. Enter shift+tab to go to the values panel and read what the x and y values are. Compare these
values with the values obtained from the table. To do this, enter control+f which takes you to the acceleration panel; tab
until you arrive at the table. Navigate to the acceleration column and go down the column to compare the values here with
those obtained from the sounds control groupBox left-right slider panel. Were you close to finding the maximum acceleration
during that first .5 second interval?
After you have explored a particular section of the acceleration graph by setting the boundaries accordingly, you can reset
the graph by entering control+r. this will center the origin and return you to a graph of the full range of a acceleration values
over the entire designated time period. This applies to the other attributes as well, but, right now, we are focusing on
acceleration.
51
Full Screenshot of
o the Equ
uation Entrry Screen
Using M
MathTrax, plott and listen to
o these equa
ations of familiar Cartesiaan graphs:
Sloping LLine: y=3*x+
+4
Parabola
a: y=^2
Hyperbola: x*y=1
Circle (ovval): x^2+a*yy^2=25
Full Scre
eenshot of a Data
D
File Scrreen
52
bles can be crreated in pro
ograms like Excel
E
and savved as tab or comma sepa
arated text. You can also
o use a text editor
Data tab
to create
e these files. For more infformation se
ee the Docum
ments section
n.
Full Scre
eenshot of the Roller Coasster Sim Scre
een
53
eenshot of a Musical Grap
ph Screen
Full Scre
54
eenshot of an
n Equation En
ntry Screen demonstrating a 4 Bladed
d Clover
Full Scre
55
ation that ma
ade this shap
pe is:
The equa
r=sin(2*theta)
Try these
e easy shape
es :
r=cos(3*
*theta) - 3 bla
aded clover
r^2=8.0^^2*cos(2*th
heta) - a figure 8
56
r=1+cos(1.0*theta) - a sideways heart...Can you
y figure outt how to turn it right side up?
Full Scre
eenshot of the
t Folium of
o Descartess
57
Word Flash Reader
http://wordflashreader.sourceforge.net/
Recent News
WordFlashReader 1.00rc2 released (05/22/2008)




Provided an easy installation path for linux users (using pp)
Fixed problems with fullscreen mode on linux
A number of minor bug fixes
Updated documentation
WordFlashReader 1.00rc1 released (05/15/2008)






Added a dialog to adjust the ratio between word size and flashing speed
Added a dialog to adjust the pause lengths
Added a properties dialog to display facts about your reading session
Fixed a bug where chunks were skipped after commas
Added versioning to WFR and its .ini file
Minor bug fixes
WordFlashReader 0.99.9 released (1/20/2008)
Enhanced and more consistent formatting of text. Lots of little bug fixes in word navigation, the shortcut menu, and
fullscreen mode.
WordFlashReader 0.99.8 released (1/6/2008)
There are lots of new features in this release (let me know if you discover any new bugs). Enjoy!




You can now move forward by a word, back by a word, forward by a sentence, back by a sentence, forward
by a paragraph, and back by a paragraph.
Lots of little improvements to the user interface.
Added configurable key shortcuts.
A number of improvements to Chunk Mode.
General Overview
Want an efficient way to do on-screen reading of web-pages, email, and other electronic texts? Try WordFlashReader -- its a
Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) program that makes on-screen reading easy. Its free, open-source, and works on
both Windows and Linux. Try it out!
This program works best with text files and html files, but can open pdf files as well. WordFlashReader works by flashing
each word of the text or book sequentially on the screen (pausing for punctuation). Not only is this way of reading off of a
computer screen less straining on the eyes than the normal method, but also after a little practice you may discover that you
can read at multiple times the speed you normally do.
58
Download / Installation
Download
Download the newest version here. Make sure you completely uninstall any previous versions.
Windows Installation
The easiest way to install this program is by downloading the WordFlashReader-*.exe installation file. This installer package
will do all the work for you. Once installed, you can access the program either through the shortcut placed on the desktop or
through the start menu. Be sure to take a look at the README.txt file that accompanies the program!
If you want to run the program directly from the source code, you will need Perl installed on your computer. You can
download a Windows version at ActiveState (its been tested with both ActivePerl 5.8.8 and 5.10). Install ActivePerl by
running the installer. Make sure the executable directory (PERLDIR\bin) is added to the PATH (the installer usually does this
automatically). To check this run "perl -v" or "perl -V" from the command-line. If you are using ActivePerl, then you will also
need to install the following modules:


HTTP::Response::Encoding
Win32-GUI
Linux Installation
Download the source code file, unzip it, place it in the directory of your choice (I place it in my home directory), and navigate
to that directory. You can start the program by typing:
./WordFlashReader.linux.bin
You can make WordFlashReader easily accessible by aliasing it in your .bashrc
In order to get it working from the source, you need to have Perl working on your computer, and the following modules
installed:





Tk
HTTP::Response::Encoding
HTML::Parser
LWP::Simple
[Also, in order to read pdf files, you need to make sure 'pdftotext' is already included on your linux distribution]
These can be downloaded from http://www.perl.com/CPAN.
Note on installing Tk:
Perl-tk looks pretty crappy on linux distributions without anti-aliased fonts. For this reason I would not recommend installing
through the cpan command. Here is how I got it installed on Ubuntu (you will need to adopt these instructions to your
preferred distribution):



First, make sure you turn off compiz - when I had it turned on it lead to all sort of weird errors and freeze-ups.
Then I downloaded the package from: http://search.cpan.org/dist/Tk/
Using Synaptic I installed: libperl-dev, libx11-dev, x-dev,and libxft-dev
59

Then, using the command line:
tar xvfz Tk-*
cd Tk-*
perl Makefile.PL XFT=1
make
make test
sudo make install
Once the above modules and programs are installed, unzip the source code into whatever directory you wish to install it into,
and make WordFlashReader executable (chmod 755). Try it out by loading any file from the prompt, say:
./WordFlashReader-*.pl README.txt
(For instructions on incorporating WordFlashReader into your Ubuntu menus, go here.)
Features and Usage
Features







Includes both a normal display mode and a full-screen mode.
You can adjust font size, type, and color.
You can adjust the display size (in normal mode) as well as its background color (for either normal or fullscreen mode).
You can display only one word at a time, or multiple words at a time (chunk mode).
This is an open-source application. I encourage you to modify the source code and submit bug fixes, patches,
and feature enhancements.
This is a cross-platform application developed to work on both Windows and Linux.
It’s totally free. You will never be charged for this software.
Usage
After downloading and installing the program (see below for instructions) you can start using WFR by opening a file or
webpage, which will appear in the scroll view window. To begin reading, hit the spacebar and the words will begin flashing at
you. Use the up arrow to speed up the flashing and the down arrow to slow it down. To pause either hit the spacebar again.
This will cause the scroll view window to "jump" to the place where you have paused, highlighting the line and word. Here are
some other useful things you can do:






Move forward by a word (right arrow).
Move back by a word (left arrow).
Move forward by a sentence (right control).
Move back by a sentence (left control).
Move forward by a paragraph (Page Down).
Move back by a paragraph (Page Up).
Look under the Configure->Shortcuts menu for other useful things that you can do (you can adjust these shortcuts as well)
If you are done reading and want to save your place, either press the 's' key or go to "File->Save Session" menu to save. The
next time you open the program your document will appear in the history list found under the "File" menu. It should open it
where you left off.
60
If you want to start reading somewhere in the middle of the text, then go to that place and double click the word you want to
begin on.
This program has two display modes: the normal display mode and a full-screen mode. I prefer the fullscreen mode because
it blocks out anything that might be distracting on the screen and helps prevent odd blotches in your vision once you finish
reading.
There is also a "Chunk Mode" and a "Uniform Mode". Chunk Mode allows you to display multiple words (or "chunks") at a
time. Once you are in Chunk Mode, you can increase (F1) or decrease (F2) the chunk size. Uniform Mode disregards
punctuation and flashes all words at a uniform rate.
Development
Ok, I learned to program by developing this application, so I'm sure there are better ways to impliment many of the features
of this program, and lots of optimazations that can and shoud be made. I invite you to dive into the code and send me
patches, which shouldn't be too hard, considering the whole application is less than 3000 lines of code (not including the
embedded documentation). Let's make this the best RSVP application around!
If you have any patches, feature enhancements, bug reports, or feature requests, you can submit them here (though I'm
especially interested in patches and feature enhancements).
FAQ
Can I launch WordFlashReader directly from my browser?
Yes! Yes you can... at least if you use Firefox (works on both Windows and Linux). I highly recommend it! Once this is set up,
you can open any web page in WordFlashReader by merely clicking a button! Here's how to set it up:



First you will need to install the Launchy Firefox extension, which can be found here.
Then you will need to create a " launchy.xml" file in a text editor and paste the code in the box below into it
(you may need to modify it depending on where you installed WordFlashReader).
Finally, you will need to place the launchy.xml file into the chrome directory of your firefox profile. Instructions
on finding your profile directory can be found here. Mine is found at:
C:\Documents and Settings\[Windows Login Name]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[random
string]\chrome\
This is the one I use in Windows XP:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><configurations xmlns="http://launchy.mozdev.org/configurations">
<application>
<label>WordFlashReader</label>
<type>1</type>
<command>c:\program files\wordflashreader\WordFlashReader.win.exe</command>
<arguments></arguments>
</application>
</configurations>
There is one additional step you need to do on linux: You need to symlink wordflashreader.linux.bin to a *.exe file. Here is
the command I use (in my wordflashreader installation directory):
61
ln -s wordflashreader.linux.bin wfr.exe
Then create a launchy.xml file and place it in your chrome directory (again, you may need to modify your installation path).
Here is the one I use in Ubunta Hardy (found here: ~/.mozilla/firefox/[random string]/chrome/):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><configurations xmlns="http://launchy.mozdev.org/configurations">
<application>
<label>WordFlashReader</label>
<type>1</type>
<command>[home]/wordflashreader.src/wfr.exe</command>
<arguments></arguments>
</application>
</configurations>
Can I use WordFlashReader portably?
Yes. If you download and unzip the package wordflashreader.*.src.zip onto a flashdrive, then I have included in it a
WordFlashReader.win.exe file that you can double click on to start the program.
What's with the ugly fonts in Linux?
If you install Perl-Tk either by your distributions package manager or if you make it without explicitly including anti-aliased
font support (XFT=1), then the fonts are going to be ugly. Follow the directions above to include ant-aliased support.
I don't know how to code, is there any other way I can contribute?
Feel free to put a donation in my donation box. :)
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the following software projects that make WordFlashReader much easier to develop:




Perl (and esp. the many module authors and developers)
Launchy Firefox extension
NSIS
HM NIS Edit
Old News
WordFlashReader 0.98.9 released (7/15/2007)


Allows for slower flashing speeds
Minor tweaks and bug fixes
WordFlashReader 0.98.7 released (4/15/2007)




Now runs on both Windows and Linux
Improved chunking of texts
Minor feature enhancements
Minor bug fixes
Updated Web Page (4/06/2007)
62

Hope you like it!
WordFlashReader 0.98.5 released (3/30/2007)


This is a bug-fix release.
Included some usability enhancements
WordFlashReader 0.98.3 released (3/14/2007)


Striving for the 1.0 release!
Lots of bug fixes.
WordFlashReader 0.98 released (3/6/2007)





I've completely re-written of the user interface (I think it is much nicer now).
It has better support of different text encodings.
It now give you words-per-minute, amount of text completed, and time remaining.
Much better configuration of fonts and various display colors.
I've fixed a lot of bugs (but probably have introduced a few along the way).
63
Magnification
Desktop Zoom
DesktopZoom is a zoom/magnify program with lots of options :
Completely portable and doesn't need admin privilege
Zoom an area around the mouse, zoom a fixed window or zoom the entire desktop
Use the mouse inside the zoomed window
Use the mouse wheel or arrow keys to adjust the magnification strength
Translation to Dutch, French, German and Czech
View the entire screen as a thumbnail in the right-bottom corner
Follow the caret & menu items
Change the colors to gray or inverse the colors
Show the original screen with a transparency value between 0 en 100%
Show a bigger mouse and/or a crosshair
Use Alt-keys to change the zoomvalue and to enable/disable tracking and the crosshair
Save all the settings to a file for automatic loading
Basic speech support
Note: This program only works on "Windows XP", "Windows 2000" and "Windows Vista", because it depends heavily
on "transparency", a feature that Microsoft has only supported since "Windows 2000".
64
Fatbits
http://www.digitalmantra.com/fatbits/whatis.html
What is Fatbits?
Fatbits is a very fast, compact, easy to use and versatile FREEWARE (for non- commercial use) screen magnifier for Windows
9x/ME/NT4/2000/XP/2003.
Fatbits is one of those mind bogglingly useful utility programs for graphic artists or people designing user interfaces. It
magnifies an area of the screen centered around the mouse pointer and paints the giant pixels into a small, tastefully
decorated window. This can be indispensable when you want to see something right down to the last pixel.
Fatbits is also useful as an accessibility tool. It can perform text smoothing (click here for an example) and can modify the
colors it displays to help those with color vision deficiency.
Some Fatbits features:













Works well with multiple monitors
Magnification up to 20x
Shows color and position information
Optional crosshatching (to make it easy to count pixels)
Advanced accessibility features
Full help system
Bigger than ever*
Optionally moves out of the way to view the entire screen
Can be locked to magnify one location for static viewing
Only one EXE-File, no DLLs
Draws with low priority to minimally impact the user
Written in good old C**
and many more
Table of Contents
Menu Commands - To bring up the Fatbits menu, right click the Fatbits window or the tray icon.
Off/On
Restore
Minimize
Close
Magnification
Crosshatch
Position
Floating
Options...
Accessibility...
Save Setup
Help/About...
65
Options - To bring up the Options dialog, click on the "Options..." menu command.
Auto-relocate
Periodic Refresh
Location of mouse hotspot
Accessibility options in menu
Display color values in hexadecimal
Flicker-free crosshatching
Safe mode
Show splash screen on startup
Accessibility - To bring up the Accessibility Options dialog, click on the "Accessibility..." menu command. Note that this menu
command will only be visible when the "Accessibility options in menu" option is checked in the Options dialog.
Change colors
Draw with low priority
Smooth shapes and text
Show mouse pointer
Using Fatbits
Minimizing the Fatbits window
Restoring the Fatbits window
Temporarily disabling Fatbits
The tray icon
Fatbits and program debuggers
Snapshot and Locked Modes
Momentary Snapshot Mode
Entering Snapshot Mode
Entering Locked Mode
Exiting Snapshot or Locked Mode
Saving Locked Mode
Switching between modes
* All the big boys are suffering from code bloat, I didn't want to feel left out.
** None of that namby-pamby object oriented stuff for me. Heck, some of Fatbits is actually written in assembly language.
Not that you should care, of course. In fact I remember seeing the largest software company in the world tout that the code
in one of their libraries was "written in C++, which provides a solid foundation" as if it were a big deal. Give me a break. What
they're really saying is "the next time we revise it, we won't introduce as may bugs as we might have otherwise". Now there's
a feature they can be proud of.
66
Ligh
htenin
ng Plu
us
Introd
duction
Mousse or Keyboard
Throu
ughout this helpfile, we re
efer
to cliccking the mo
ouse. When th
he
Lightning
g PLUS is a magnification software pacckage for thee modern PC..
on a word or
Whateverr appears on the compute
er screen can
n be magnifieed up to 36 ttimes mousse pointer is o
e left mouse
and it works well with most Windows applicatio
ons and videoo clips can also be objecct, clicking the
d. It is easy to
o install and just as easy to use.
magnified
button once will highlight and
e left button will
w
doubleclicking the
activa
ate it.
Usingg the Keyboard
Lightn
ning PLUS is mainly desig
gned
for mouse use butt it is possible to
quickkly increase o
or decrease your
y
current level of magnification by
holdin
ng down the CTRL key witth
your lleft hand and
d pressing + or (plus or minus) with your right
hand on the keypa
ad.
Color
Scheme
The Ligghtning Magnification
PLUS Toolbar
T
M
ens
The Lighttning PLUS Le
toolbar has
h the follow
wing buttons::
Cursor Color
ChangeSetting
the Fo
ont
gs
Cxit
hange the
Ex
Spacing •
•
• Level of
Magnification
•
•
bar normally appears on the
t lefthand top corner off the desktop
p screen. Wh
hen you open an application such as
The toolb
Microsofft Word or Intternet Explore
er, Lightning PLUS is still working alth
hough the tooolbar is hidde
en. If you wan
nt to get back
k to
the toolb
bar to make changes,
c
left click on Ligh
htning PLUS at
a the bottom
m of the screeen in the taskbar or hold down the AL
LT
key and keep pressin
ng the TAB ke
ey until the Liightning PLUS
S toolbar app
pears again.
Lightningg PLUS can be
d keys to navvigate the file
b controlled using your computer mouse or using the keyboard
e menu at the
top of the Lightning PLUS
P
toolbar..
Changiing the Levvel of Maggnification
67
On th
he toolbar the
ere is a butto
on to change the level of m
magnification
n:
o magnification until you find the size that suits yoou best, clickk on the plus (+) or minus () button. On
n the
To changge the level of
settings screen, if the
e X=Y box is checked,
c
the
e two numberrs will alwayss be the samee. This box ca
an be found by clicking on
the settin
ngs icon on the
t Lightning
g PLUS toolba
ar. The X=Y box is ticked b
by default.
Please see the Lightn
ning PLUS Se
ettings page on
o how to ma
ake the num bers differ if this is requirred.
Lightning PLUS will
w remem
mber your choice
c
whe
enever you turn you
ur compute
er on and you can
change
e size at any time to meet the needs of your curreent task.
Changingg the Color Scheme
S
Clicking o
on this butto
on allowing yo
ou to alter the
e color of you
ur computer screen. You will then be sshown a sele
ection of colo
or
schemess you can use
e to alter the appearance
e of your computer screen
n.
68
Changing the Magnification Lens
From this button you can choose the lens which is used to magnify the screen. Below are the magnifying modes:
•
Full Screen Magnification This is the default and most widely used option. This magnifies the entire screen.
•
The Magnifying Lens This option uses a square magnifying lens. As you drive the mouse pointer round the screen,
you see in detail a small area surrounding the pointer. The rest of the screen is not magnified.
•
The Strip Magnifier with normal sized pointer When you click on this strip magnifier option, you create a horizontal
magnifying strip which moves about the screen as you drive the mouse pointer. Some users have found that in strip
magnifier mode it is useful to increase the height of letters slightly but not the width. To do this, untick the X=Y choice on the
Lightning PLUS settings screen. Then set the Y size to be one size higher than the X size.
•
The Strip Magnifier without normal sized pointer As above but it does not show the normal sized pointer. The mouse
pointer appears only within the strip and is magnified, ideal for reading text line by line.
•
Vertical and horizontal split screens There are occasions when it is useful to see half the screen at normal size and
the other half at your chosen magnified size for detailed work. Clicking on one of the two options enables such split screen
choices. Once selected, three more options appear underneath. These allow you to magnify in either half of the screen
(top/bottom or left/right) and automove the magnification.
69
Configuring the Cursor Color
It is possible to change the color of the mouse cursor, if the default white is not suitable for you.
To do this, click the button that has a red cursor on it. A number of color options will appear,
select the one most appropriate for you and the cursor color will be changed.
Altering the Font
Clicking on the Font button gives you options to increase or decrease the font size in Microsoft
Word.
Altering the Spacing
Clicking on the Spacing button gives you options to change the character, line and paragraph
spacing in Microsoft Word.
Lightning PLUS Settings
Lightning PLUS settings can be accessed through the Settings button on
the toolbar:
The Setting screen has three tabs:
•
•
•
Settings
Colors
Locators
70
Lightning PLLUS Settings Settings
en you can alter the follow
wing:
Froom this scree
From this sectio
on you can alter the way the
screeen is magniified. By defa
ault X=Y is
cheecked which keeps the magnification
equ
ual vertically and horizonttally. If you
unccheck the X=Y
Y box it will a
allow you to
cha
ange the leve
el of X and Y iindependently. If
you
u only increasse X, letters a
and pictures will
grow
w in size horizontally but not verticallyy. If
you
u only increasse Y, letters a
and pictures will
grow
w in size verttically but rem
main the sam
me
horrizontally. Cliccking on the X = Y button
ain and then the value willl reset the size
aga
wheen you want tthe letters orr pictures to
retu
urn to their normal symmetrical shape
e.
71
ng on the scrreen is made up of square
e pixels, so when
w
you havve large letters or magnified pictures, it may be
Everythin
inconven
nient to view rough shape
es and edgess. The smooth
hing tool can improve thiss by smoothing black textt. You can choose
to have ssmoothing on
n or off at any time by che
ecking the bo
ox to get the best results. Some peoplle prefer to lo
ook at white
bright lettters against a black back
kground rather than dark letters again
nst a white background. C
Checking the
e Invert box will
w
invert the
e colors on your compute
er screen.
Magnificcation Style
From thiss secion you can alter the
e way the scrreen is magnified. See Maagnification LLens page for detail of the
e magnicatio
on
modes. Y
You can also adjust the le
ens: on the bottom line off icons it allow
ws you to inccrease and decrease the vertical and
horzonta
al height/widtth and swap which area is magnified.
72
Trackingg
This seection allowss to you sset whether the
magnificcation focus ffollows the:
•
•
M
Mouse used when movingg the mouse
•
C
Caret used w
when typing
•
FFocus used w
when the focus is changed,
e.g. a poopup window or save dialo
og appears
W
Window used
d when you ch
hange windo
ow or alttab to
o another win
ndow
73
Lightning PLUS
P
Settingss Color
From this screen you
y can alterr the following:
74
nd Colors
Invert an
You ccan change tthe color sch
heme and choose
to in
nvert the colors on the sscreen from this
settting.
Brigghtness
You
u can alter the brightnesss of your
com
mputer screen using this sslider.
Con
ntrast
Yoou can alter tthe contast o
of your compu
uter
scree
en using this slider.
Ligghtning PLLUS Settinggs Locatorrs
From this screen you can altter the follow
wing:
m this section
Mouse Pointer LLocators From
you
u can choose the way the mouse pointter
can
n be located. This includess the style, width
w
and
d color of loca
ator. Below iss an example
e of
the "Small crosss+circle" loca
ator in red:
75
Carret Locators
76
he caret can be located w
when you're typing. This includes the
e style, width and
From this section you can choose the way th
w is an exam
mple of the "F
Full Arrow" loccator in blue::
color of locator. Below
Borde
er for Scrollin
ng
From
m this secttion you ca
an
choo
ose to centtre the currsor
in the magnificcation lens
s.
The b
border perrcentage
setting sets ho
ow far the
curso
or is allow
wed to get to
t
the e
edge of the
e lens befo
ore
the le
ens movess.
PLUS
Exitingg Lightning P
To exitt Lightningg PLUS, click on the
Close ssymbol on
n the Lighttning PLUS
S
toolba
ar. Magnificcation willl now ceas
se.
ng Pad
Lightnin
ad usually wo
orks like a mo
ouse on the desktop,
d
you r movementss move the m
mouse pointe
er in the direc
ction
Your lapttop mousepa
you indiccate, fast or slow.
s
With Lig
ghtning Pad your
y
laptop mousepad
m
beecomes a possitioning devvice. That means you can put
your fingger on the top
pleft of the mousepad
m
and
d your mouse
e pointer and
d the magnifiication goes to the top lefft of the screen.
If you go to the bottom
m right of the
e mousepad your mouse pointer goess to the Windows system ttray. Your mo
ousepad position
correspo
onds directly with what is shown on the
e screen. Thiis makes it m
much easier tto move arou
und the scree
en without
getting lo
ost.
You mu
ust have the Synapttics Mouse
e Pointer system
s
insstalled on yyour laptop: you'll th
hen have a
shortcu
ut to Lightning Pad on
o your de
esktop and
d in the Sta
art menu, so just start Lightniing Pad to
change
e your mou
usepad an
nd close Liightning Pa
ad to return it to normal.
agnification with
w Speech Output
Using Ma
Lightningg PLUS is purrely a magniffication progrram and therre is no speecch output faccility.
77
If you find you would like to have speech as well as magnification then you need another of our
software packages such as Thunder, available to download free from www.screenreader.net
Microsoft Program Accessibility
Microsoft provide accessibility information and tips on all of their products, so to get the most out of your PC, visit
their website:
www.microsoft.com/enable
Support & Contact
To view more product please visit www.itzooms.com
If you have any queries, please contact us at [email protected]
78
Opttical Chara
C acter R
Recoggnition
Sim
mple OCR
O
http://ww
ww.simpleoccr.com/Down
nload.asp
Do you d
dread having to retype tha
at document you are holding in your h and? If only you had the electronic file, your life
would be
e so much ea
asier. With SimpleOCR,
S
you
y could eassily and accu rately convert that paperr document in
nto editable
electroniic text for use
e in any application includ
ding Word an
nd WordPerfeect.
SimpleOCR is a proprrietary optica
al character recognition application it cconverts blacck and white
e scans or TIF
FF images to
editable text files or Microsoft
M
Wo
ord documentts. Optical character recoognition, usu
ually abbrevia
ated to OCR, is the
mechaniical or electro
onic translatiion of scanne
ed images off handwritten
n, typewritten
n or printed te
ext into mach
hine-encoded
d
text. It is widely used to convert books and documents into
o electronic ffiles, to comp
puterize a reccord-keepingg system in an
n
office, orr to publish th
he text on a website.
w
SimpleOCR softw
ware makes it possible too edit the textt, search for a word or
phrase, sstore it more compactly, display
d
or print a copy free of scannin g artifacts, and apply techniques such
h as machine
e
translatio
on, text-to-sp
peech and texxt mining to it
i
Not only is SimpleOCR up to 99% accurate, it is 100% free
e.
Downloa
ad SimpleOCR
R now or learrn more its fe
eature and fu
unctions.
79
Accuracy With optical character recognition up to 99% accurate, there is no better OCR application for the price. This
increased accuracy greatly reduces the need for post-recognition proof reading and correction. And after all, isn't that why
you want to OCR the document in the first place? Of course it is!
Features
Huge Dictionary - With more than 120,000 words, it is unlikely that SimpleOCR will run into a word it does not know. In the
rare event that it does not, our improved text editor allows you to easily add the new word to the dictionary. By adding new
words to the dictionary, SimpleOCR becomes better with every use.
Despeckle - For those documents which are not particularly clear (i.e. faxes, copies of copies, ...), SimpleOCR provides a
despeckle or "noisy document" option which increases SimpleOCR's accuracy.
Format Retention - SimpleOCR can keep certain elements of the document's format in the recognized
document. From varying font sizes to font formatting elements such as underline, italic, and bold, SimpleOCR recognizes it
all. For certain documents, it retains the original document's format with up to 99% accuracy.
Image Retention - Along with the document's text, SimpleOCR has the uncanny ability to capture and retain pictures from
the document. This is a great feature which reduces the need to import images from a document by other means.
Plain Text Extraction - Just need the plain text from the original document? No problem. SimpleOCR can be set to recognize
the characters and words but ignore the formatting. The resulting file is ready for your word processor or your HTML/web
editor and your own custom formatting.
Simplified Error Correction - Our text editor highlights suspected errors in the recognized text for easier correction. This
simplifies the otherwise time-consuming task of proof reading the recognized text for errors. But because SimpleOCR has
up to 99% accuracy, you may never need this feature.
Batch OCR - Do you have several documents to OCR? Just point SimpleOCR to them and it will OCR them from start to finish
without delay.
Zone OCR - Sometimes all you may need is to extract the text from a certain area in a document. Maybe one
column. Maybe a footnote. Maybe just one paragraph. Unlike other OCR applications, SimpleOCR can limits its OCR ability
to a user defined area. There is no need to OCR an entire document only to use a small portion of it. With SimpleOCR, OCR
only what you need.
Input Formats - SimpleOCR works with all fully compliant TWAIN scanners and also accepts input from TIFF files.
Output
Formats - SimpleOCR can save the documents it acquires in text formats (TXT and RTF) importable into most every program
such as Word, WordPerfect, HTML editors, and e-mail programs, either fully formatted or as plain text. Additionally, it can
save scanned documents in the industry standard TIFF format, a format as widely accepted as PDF files.
Multiple Language Recognition - SimpleOCR currently supports English and French recognition. We are in the process of
adding recognition for additional languages.
System Requirements SimpleOCR works on any PC with either Windows 95, 98, NT4, 2000, or XP. Your scanner need only
a TWAIN driver, the driver that comes with a majority of all scanners sold. In short, SimpleOCR will most likely work with the
PC and scanner you already have.
Pricing Our software is free for all non-commercial uses.
SimpleOCR's OCR engine is now available as an ActiveX control, making integration in most development environments a
cinch! With less than 10 lines of code you can add basic OCR functionality to your application.
The SimpleOCR SDK contains several group of functions including image manipulation, image I/O with TIFF files, image
acquisition with TWAIN compliant scanners, and of course, OCR. Note that SimpleOCR SDK can read bi-level and grayscale,
and create TIFF files containing bi-level (i.e. black & white) images. TIFF files are created by SimpleOCR SDK using the CCITT
Group IV compression scheme, but it can read most TIFF bi-level and grayscale images.
Click here to view the SimpleOCR SDK documentation.
Licensing SimpleOCR SDK is the only optical character recognition SDK that is licensed royalty free. That means no runtime license fees. There are multiple versions of the license, one for applications to be used inside your organization,
another for applications that will be sold to others, one for server based applications, and one for educationl institutions.
Click here for current pricing and ordering information.
80
Top OCR
Document Image Cap
pture with a Camera
C
Your Document
Babel Re
eader and To
opOCR require images to be
b in portraitt orientation ffor OCR. Thee document sshould be layying on an
unclutterred flat surfa
ace.
Porrtrait Orientation
Portrait Orientatiion
Configure Your Came
era
Bring up the Camera Settings dialog by pressing the camera button on your phone or by runningg the "Camerra" program.
Change tthe following
g settings:
* Set ressolution to 5M
MP or less (N
No limit for To
opOCR)
* Set JPE
EG quality to "High"
* Enable
e Anti-Shaking
* Enable
e "Text Mode"" if supported
d
* Use a TTime Delay to
o allow you to
o get a straigght even imagge
* Other iitems can be
e set to Autom
matic
Typically, the image files
f
that you capture with
h your camera
a are stored under My Storage\DCIM.
81
Light
For Best Results - Use a La mp
For Best Results - Use
e a Lamp
Make sure there are no shadows on the page from your ha
ands or cameera.
Holdingg Your Cam
mera
Hold
ding the Camera
When yo
ou take the piicture, the ca
amera lens must
m
be EXAC
CTLY parallel to the page b
being photoggraphed. In p
practice, this is
not too h
hard to do. Simply hold the camera dirrectly overhead while lookking through the viewfind
der. Frame the page as much
as possib
ble while kee
eping the horrizontal and vertical
v
edgess as straight as possible.
Advanced Features
TopOCR and Babel Reader require images to be
b in portraitt orientation ffor OCR. Thee shape or "asspect ratio" o
of the image that
the came
era captures is the exact opposite. Ba
abel Reader has
h the abilitty to automattically rotate the image to
o the correct
orientatio
on. This givess you the abiility to place your
y
image in
n "landscapee orientation"" like this:
82
Portrait Orientation
Landsca pe Orientation
Orientation Landscape
L
Orrientation
Portrait O
Capturing documentss in Landscap
pe Orientatio
on will allow you
y to use th e camera's resolution mo
ore efficientlyy to increase
OCR accuracy.
83
Organization
Thunderbird 3
Get the award-winning email application from Mozilla. Import your existing mail and enjoy our new features like tabbed
email and advanced search.
Thunderbird is a free, open-source and cross-platform mail client for most operating systems including, but not limited to,
Windows, Linux and Macintosh. It is based on the Mozilla codebase. It is a robust and easy to use client, similar to
competing products like Outlook Express, but with some major advantages such as junk mail classification. Read more
about the mail client at the Product Page.
Before installing, make sure your computer meets the system requirements.
Operating Systems




Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows Server 2003
Windows Vista
Windo Minimum Hardware




Pentium 233 MHz (Recommended: Pentium 500MHz or greater)
Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP: 786 MB RAM (Recommended: 1GB RAM or greater)
Windows 2000: 256 MB RAM (Recommended: 512 MB RAM or greater)
52 MB hard drive space
Mac
Operating Systems

Mac OS X 10.4.x and later
Minimum Hardware



Macintosh computer with an Intel x86 or PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor
256 MB RAM (Recommended: 512 MB RAM or greater)
200 MB hard drive space
Linux
Software Requirements
Please note that Linux distributors may provide packages for your distribution which have different requirements.

Linux kernel - 2.2.14 with the following libraries or packages minimums:
o glibc 2.3.2
84
o
o
o
o
gtk+2.0
XFree86-3.3.6
fontconfig (also known as xft)
libstdc++5
Minimum Hardware



Intel Pentium II or AMD K6-III+ 233 MHz CPU (Recommended: 500MHz or greater)
64 MB RAM (Recommended: 128 MB RAM or greater)
52 MB hard drive space

ws 7
Please note that Thunderbird 3 no longer supports versions of Windows prior to Windows 2000 (e.g. Windows 95, 98, ME
and NT) and Mac OS X versions prior to 10.4 Tiger. Linux requirements have also changed. Do ensure that compatibility
mode for unsupported Windows platforms is disabled for the Thunderbird executable in Windows.
Mozilla Messaging provides Thunderbird 3 for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X in a variety of languages. You can get the
latest version of Thunderbird 3 here.
For builds for other systems and languages not provided by Mozilla.org, see the Contributed Builds section at the end of this
document.
Installing Thunderbird 3
Please note that installing Thunderbird 3 may overwrite your existing installation of Thunderbird on Linux. Windows and Mac
OS X will install to different locations, however it is recommended that you check the messages during installation. For all
systems, you won't lose any of your messages or address books, but some of your extensions and other add-ons might not
work until updates for them are made available.
Users are highly encouraged to install Thunderbird 3 in another folder (on Windows, this is done using Custom Install) and
backup their profiles before testing Thunderbird 3.
Thunderbirds 3 Features
http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/
Tabs and Search
Thunderbird 3 changes the way you do email with tabbed email, and a new set of search tools helps you find your emails
faster.
85
Tabs
e Firefox’s ta
abbed browsing, you’re go
oing to love ta
abbed email.. Tabbed email lets you lo
oad emails in
n separate tabs
If you like
so you ca
an quickly jump between them. Perha
aps you’re ressponding to aan email and
d need to refe
er back to an
n earlier email.
Tabbed e
email lets you keep multiple emails op
pen for easy reference.
Double-cclicking or hittting enter on
n a mail messsage will now
w open that m
message in a new tab win
ndow. Right-cclicking on
message
es or folders will open the
em in a tab in
n the backgro
ound.
When qu
uitting Thunderbird, visible
e tabs will be
e saved and will
w be restorred when you
u open Thund
derbird the next time. The
ere is
also a ne
ew Tab menu
u on the Tab toolbar
t
to he
elp you switch
h between Taabs.
Search
The new search interrface in Thunderbird 3 con
ntains filterin
ng and timeli ne tools to p
pinpoint the e
exact email yo
ou’re looking
g for.
Thunderbird 3 also in
ndexes all of your emails to
t help you search
s
even ffaster. Your ssearch resultts are displayyed in a tab so
s
easily switch back and fo
orth to your se
earch resultss and other eemail.
you can e
Message
e Archive
If you think you’re going to need an
a email in th
he future butt want it out oof your inbox without dele
eting it, archivve it! Archivin
ng
helps you
u manage yo
our inbox and
d put your em
mail into a new
w archive fol der system.
Selectingg the Archive
e button or hittting the ‘A’ key
k will archivve your emaiil.
86
Custom
mize Your Email Expe
erience
Thunderbird is flexible to suit your personality, to give you the
t features you need, an
nd to fit your work style. C
Change how
Thunderbird looks or add as manyy features ass you want.
Thunderrbird Look & Feel
F
With Personas, lightw
weight "skins"" allow you to
o change the look and feeel of Thunderrbird in an insstant. Hundrreds of skins are
available
e from the lattest movies, famous landmarks, and Japanese
J
tatttoos. You can also choosse from severral Themes th
hat
dress up
p all the differrent icons in Thunderbird.
Smart Fo
olders
Smart Fo
olders helps you
y manage multiple ema
ail accounts by combiningg special fold
ders like yourr Inbox, Sent, or Archive
folder. In
nstead of goin
ng to the Inbox for each of
o your mail accounts,
a
you
u can see all of your incom
ming email in
n one Inbox
folder.
Add-ons Manager
Find and
d install add-o
ons directly in
n Thunderbirrd. You no lon
nger need to visit the add
d-ons Web sitte—instead simply fire up the
Add-ons Manager. No
ot sure which
h add-on is rigght for you? Ratings, recoommendation
ns, descriptio
ons and pictu
ures of the ad
ddons in acction help you
u make your selection.
Easier to Get Sta
arted
Setting u
up Thunderbird 3 is much
h easier. Seve
eral of the ne
ew features w
will also easee you through
h your day.
87
W
Mail Acccount Setup Wizard
Prior to tthis new feature you had to
t know yourr IMAP, SMTP
P, SSL/TLS seettings. Now all you need
d to provide iss your name,
email ad
ddress, and password
p
and
d the new em
mail account set
s up wizard
d will check oour database
e and find the
e email settin
ngs
for you.
One-clickk Address Bo
ook
One-clickk Address Bo
ook is a quick
k and easy wa
ay to add peo
ople to your aaddress bookk. Add people
e by simply cclicking on the
star icon
n in the message you rece
eive. Two clicks and you can
c add moree details like a photo, birtthday, and otther contact
informattion.
Attachment Reminde
er
The new attachment reminder loo
oks for the wo
ord attachme
ent (and otheer words like file types) in
n the body of your messag
ge
and reminds you to add
a an attach
hment before
e hitting send
d.
88
Activity M
Manager
The Activvity Manager records all the interactio
ons between Thunderbird
T
and your em
mail provider in one place. There’s no
more gue
ess work. You only have to
t look in one
e place to see
e everything that’s happeening with your email.
Secure
e and Prote
ect Your Mail
M
Thunderbird’s securitty and privaccy measures ensure
e
that your
y
commun
nications and
d identity rem
main safe.
Cutting O
Out the Junk
Thunderbird’s popula
ar junk mail tools
t
have be
een updated to stay ahea d of spam. E
Each email yo
ou receive pa
asses through
h
Thunderbird’s leading
g-edge junk mail
m filters. Each
E
time you
u mark messsages as spam
m, Thunderb
bird “learns” a
and improves
s its
filtering sso you can sp
pend more time reading the
t mail that matters. Thu
underbird can also use yo
our mail provvider’s spam
filters to keep junk mail
m out of you
ur inbox.
Robust P
Privacy
Thunderbird 3 offers support for user
u
privacy and
a remote image protecction. To ensu
ure a user’s p
privacy, Thun
nderbird 3
automatically blocks remote imag
ges in email messages.
m
89
Phishingg Protection
Thunderbird protectss you from em
mail scams which
w
try to triick users intoo handing ovver personal a
and confiden
ntial informattion
by indica
ating when a message is a potential phishing attem
mpt. As a seccond line of d
defense, Thunderbird warrns you when
n you
click on a link which appears
a
to be taking you to a differen
nt Web site th
han the one indicated by tthe URL in th
he message.
Automatted Update
Thunderbird’s update
e system che
ecks to see if you’re running the latestt version, and
d notifies you
u when a seccurity update is
available
e. These secu
urity updatess are small (usually 200KB - 700KB), ggiving you on
nly what you n
need and ma
aking the sec
curity
update q
quick to down
nload and insstall. The auttomated upda
ate system p
provides upda
ates for Thun
nderbird on W
Windows, Mac OS
X, and Linux in over 40
4 different languages.
Open So
ource
At the he
eart of Thund
derbird is an open
o
source developmen
nt process dr iven by thoussands of passsionate, experienced
develope
ers and security experts spread
s
all ove
er the world. Our opennesss and activee community of experts he
elps to ensurre
our products are morre secure and
d quickly upd
dated, while also
a enablingg us to take a
advantage off the best third party secu
urity
f
bolste
er overall seccurity.
scanningg and evaluattion tools to further
90
Speech Communication
Speech Monitor
http://www.speechmonitor.org/
Some people who stutter (PWS) find that using DAF/FAF helps them to speak more fluently. There are several options for
PWS to get DAF/FAF by means of software or portable hardware. The website listed above is to educate people about
altered auditory feedback and to provide free software that creates both DAF/FAF and also allows you to record your speech
while using the altered feedback.
Home
About
How to use
Contact
Continue Development
Speech Monitor Instructions
Installation: First, this software is for Windows (sorry Mac users). There is no need to install the Speech monitor just make
sure that the fmodex.dll file is in the same folder as the SpeechMonitor.exe file. You can keep everything on the CD, or copy
the files to your hard drive so that you do not need the CD every time you run the program (this is the recommended
approach). You do need to use a microphone and headphones. If you try to use speakers you will create a feedback
loop. If the software does not seem to be working check to make sure the volume setting on your microphone is too low or
the volume for the headphones is too low.
Software Use: This software is intended to be used by Speech Language Pathologists and individuals with speech difficulties
(specifically stuttering and Parkinson's disease). Some people have increased fluency and voice control under delayed
auditory feedback (DAF) or frequency-shifted auditory feedback (FAF). It is best to experiment with different levels of DAF
and FAF (upshifted and downshifted) to find the best setting for each individual.
Functionality: The software has built-in functionality for recording so that the individual can compare their speech under
different settings. At this time there is no functionality for playing the recordings back from within the SpeechMonitor, this
functionality will be integrated
soon. It is important to note that it does not record the DAF or FAF effects, so in the recording you hear exactly what the
individual sounds like to other listeners.
You can begin recording at anytime, but once the recording is started you cannot start the DAF/FAF if it was not already
going when the recording began. Also, if the DAF/FAF is running you cannot change the delay setting while a recording is in
progress. If you are recording you need to stop the recording, change the delay setting and
then begin a new recording. If you are not recording, you can change the delay on the fly. You can change the FAF setting at
any time, regardless of whether you are recording.
91
92
Spe
eech Recoggnitio
on
Spe
eech Profile
P
es and
d Spe
eech P
Profile
e Man
nagerr
You can
n create a ne
ew speech recognition
r
profile (a Re
ecognizer prrofile) or sett a profile to
o accommod
date your
speaking style. You may want to
t create a new
n Recogn
nizer profile if you move
e offices, the
e noise leve
el changes on
o a
permanent basis, or
o if addition
nal people are often pre
esent. To doo this, click N
New in the S
Speech Reco
ognition dia
alog
box. Reccognizer pro
ofiles allow different
d
use
ers to share
e the same ccomputer w
without interffering with o
other speec
ch
configurrations.
This artiicle describe
es how to usse speech recognition
r
profiles
p
in W
Windows XP..
Back tto the top
More In
nformation
n
You can
n choose bettween severral settings and custom
mize the speeech profile according to
o your need
ds. However,
many op
ptions are proprietary
p
and
a may varyy between different
d
com
mputers. Th
herefore, som
me of the bu
uttons and
dialog b
boxes may not be the sa
ame under all
a circumsta
ances. Pleasse view the instructionss for your co
omputer,
speech software, or device harrdware.
For additional information about how to usse speech in
n Windows XXP, click the
e article num
mbers below
w to view the
e
osoft Knowle
edge Base:
articles in the Micro
306537
7 (http://su
upport.micro
osoft.com/kb/306537//EN-US/ ) H ow to Installl and Configgure Speech
h Recognitio
on in
Window
ws
306901
1 (http://su
upport.micro
osoft.com/kb/306901//EN-US/ ) H ow to Use S
Speech Reco
ognition in W
Windows XP
P
306902
2 (http://su
upport.micro
osoft.com/kb/306902//EN-US/ ) H ow to Use TText-to-Spee
ech in Windo
ows XP
306993
3 (http://su
upport.micro
osoft.com/kb/306993//EN-US/ ) H ow To Use tthe Languagge Bar in Windows XP
278927
7 (http://su
upport.micro
osoft.com/kb/278927//EN-US/ ) W
WD2002: Part 1: Speech
h and Handw
writing
Recogniition Freque
ently Asked Questions
Q
For morre detailed in
nformation about how to
t use speech recognitiion, click He
elp on the La
anguage ba
ar.
For the most up-to-date information aboutt speech reccognition deevelopmentss at Microso
oft, view the
e following
oft Web site:
Microso
http://w
www.microso
oft.com/spe
eech (http:///www.micro
osoft.com/sspeech)
Back tto the top
How to Set or Dettermine a Recognitio
on Profile
To set o
or determine
e a profile (b
by using the Classic view
w in Controll Panel):
1. C
Click Start, click
c
Control Panel, and
d then doublle-click Speeech.
2. O
On the Spee
ech Recognition tab, the
e Recognitio
on Profiles b
box displayss the active profile.
3. TTo choose a different prrofile, click the
t profile that you wan
nt. Note thatt only one p
profile can b
be active at a
ttime.
93
Back tto the top
How to Add a Reccognition Profile
P
Profiles are specificc to your voice and enviironment. Th
he Profile W
Wizard leadss you through several stteps to create a
Recogniition profile.. Recognition profiles allow multiple users to sshare the sa
ame computter without iinterfering with
w
each oth
her's setupss.
To add a profile:
1. C
Click Start, click
c
Control Panel, and
d then doublle-click Speeech.
2. O
On the Spee
ech Recognition tab, clicck New in th
he Recognittion Profiles box, and th
hen follow th
he steps in the
t
P
Profile Wizarrd.
NOTE: P
Profiles are specific
s
to speech
s
recoggnition engines and nott all enginess support similar functions.
For additional information about speech re
ecognition engines,
e
clicck the article
e number below to view
w the article
e in
the Micrrosoft Know
wledge Base:
306537
7 (http://su
upport.micro
osoft.com/kb/306537//EN-US/ ) H ow to Installl and Configgure Speech
h Recognitio
on in
Window
ws XP
Back tto the top
How to Remove a Recognition Profile
To remo
ove a profile
e:
1.
2.
3.
4.
C
Click Start, click
c
Control Panel, and
d then doublle-click Speeech.
O
On the Spee
ech Recognition tab, clicck the profille that you w
want to dele
ete in the Re
ecognition P
Profiles box.
C
Click Delete, and then click
c
Yes or No when yo
ou are promp
pted.
C
Click OK or Apply
A
to rem
move the pro
ofile, or click
k Cancel.
NOTE: A
An engine must have at least one profile
p
assocciated with itt and you ca
annot delete
e the last prrofile.
Back tto the top
How to Train the Speech Re
ecognition Engine
To train the speech recognition
n engine:
1. C
Click Start, click
c
Control Panel, and
d then doublle-click Speeech.
2. O
On the Spee
ech Recognition tab, clicck the speech recognitiion engine tthat you wan
nt in the Lan
nguage box.
3. C
Click the pro
ofile that you
u want in the Recognition Profile box. Trainingg is specific tto an engine
e and profile
e so
tthat training
g one engine
e or profile set
s has no effect
e
on anyy other engiine or profile
e set.
4. C
Click Train Profile.
P
The Voice
V
Trainin
ng Wizard sttarts. Follow
w the directiions in the w
wizard.
N
Note that no
ot all engine
es support trraining. If yo
our engine d
does not, Tra
ain Profile iss unavailablle.NOTE: It is
rrecommended that you spend at le
east 15 minutes trainingg the compu
uter. The more trainingg you do, the
e
m
more accura
ate the recognition will be.
94
Creatin
ng a Speecch Recogn
nition Profiile
A speech
h recognition profile includes the results from yourr speech train
ning and the recognition ssettings thatt you chose. The
T
speech rrecognition profile adaptss to match yo
our personal way
w of speakking. This meeans that eve
en though Ne
ew Englanders
and peop
ple from soutthern California start out using the same profile, in
n time, the profile adjustss to the way tthe speaker
pronounces words an
nd the qualityy of speech recognition
r
im
mproves.
ng other than
n American English
E
with your
y
Tablet P C, you'll wantt to install W
Windows XP Ta
ablet PC Edition
If you're using anythin
ecognizer Pacck so that your handwritin
ng can be converted from
m digital ink in
nto typed texxt in one of th
he 20 other
2005 Re
supporte
ed languagess. This is not to
t be confuse
ed with Multilingual User Interface (M
MUI) Pack, wh
hich supportss changing the
language
e in dialog bo
oxes, menus, help files, and tutorials.
The spee
ech recognition profile is part of your user
u
log on. Your
Y
profile w
will not affectt the speech recognition p
profiles of pe
eople
who log o
on to your Ta
ablet PC with different use
er names. Aftter you've traained your prrofile, it's a go
ood idea to d
discourage otther
people frrom using the
e speech fea
atures when you're
y
logged
d on. It will prrovide poor reesults for the
em and will d
degrade spee
ech
recognitiion performance for you.
ou can use th
he speech fe
eature for the
e first time, yo
ou must com
mplete the Microphone Wiizard and the
e Voice Training
Before yo
Wizard to
o begin training your Tabllet PC to reco
ognize your voice. Later, yyou can do m
more training to improve sspeech
recognitiion.
To use speech re
ecognition for the firrst time
1.
TTap Tablet PC
C Input Panel on the taskbar.
2.
O
On the Tools and Options menu, tap Speech,
S
as sh
hown in Figurre 1.
Figure 1
Additiona
al speech buttons will be added to Inp
put Panel, allowing you too start dictatioon mode or vvoice comma
and mode, as
s
shown in
n Figure 2.
95
Figure 2
The first time you tap
p Speech, the
e Microphone
e Wizard opens to help yoou set the appropriate inp
put volume fo
or your
micropho
one, as show
wn in Figure 3.
3
Figure 3
Note tha
at good speecch recognition requires a good quality microphonee, preferably oone that cancels noise. Q
Quality doesn't
necessarily mean exp
pensive eithe
er. I get excellent results from
f
a $10 m
microphone a
and headset that I purcha
ased at Radio
o
Shack.
ou'll be prom
mpted to do a speech train
ning session.. Follow the p
prompts in th
he wizard and
d
After adjusting the microphone, yo
y read are highlighted after
a
the wizaard recognizees them, as sshown in Figu
ure 4. When the
t
read the sample text.. The words you
wizard do
oesn't recogn
nize a word, repeat the word until it's been highligh
hted or presss Skip.
Figure 4
After you
u complete th
he training, yo
ou can start using the spe
eech featurees.
96
1.
P
Place the currsor where yo
ou want the te
ext to go, and
d then open Input Panel.
2.
TTap Dictation
n, and then sttart speakingg.
You can continue to add
a voice tra
aining whenevver you wantt by tapping S
Speech Toolss in Input Pan
nel, and then
n tapping Voic
ce
Training.. The more yo
ou perform vo
oice training,, the better th
he quality of your speech recognition. It may be bo
oring but it re
eally
pays off in the long ru
un. Note thatt you should do the trainin
ng in a similaar environmeent to the one
e where you'lll use your Ta
ablet
PC becau
use the level of background noise beccomes part of
o your speec h recognition
n profile. If yo
ou routinely u
use your Tablet
PC in siggnificantly diffferent enviro
onments, it's a good idea to
t create a reecognition prrofile for each environme
ent, and then
switch be
etween the profiles
p
as ne
eeded.
Tip: If you use speech
h a lot, consid
der defining a keyboard shortcut
s
on yyour Tablet PC
C that uses a keystroke th
hat you can also
a
use to op
pen Speech. I use F9 to open
o
Speech when I have a keyboard available and
d a button on
n the face of my Tablet PC
C to
open Spe
eech when I do not.
To activate the keyboard
k
shortcuts:
s
1.
O
Open Input Panel, tap Too
ol and Option
ns, and then tap
t Options.
2.
O
On the Speecch tab, tap Ke
eyboard Mod
de Key Settings.
3.
S
Select the Assign Mode Buttons check
k box.
4.
TTap Okay to close
c
each window.
Top of page
Custom
mizing the Handwriting Recogn
nition Dicttionary
Handwritting recognition differs fro
om speech re
ecognition on
n a Tablet PC
C. In a nutsheell, the Tablett PC can't lea
arn your
handwritting, but it ca
an learn your vocabulary. Handwriting recognition rrelies on a coombination o
of thousands of writing
samples and a large dictionary off possible words. To impro
ove the likelih
hood of accu
urate handwrriting-recognittion results, the
writing pad comparess its interprettation of wha
at you wrote with
w words a nd characterrs in the hand
dwriting-reco
ognition
dictionarry. The dictionary containss common words.
If you fre
equently need
d to correct the same worrd when you use the writi ng pad, conssider adding tthat word to the dictionarry.
This is esspecially use
eful for unique words, such as names and acronym
ms. There is a separate ha
andwriting dictionary for each
e
person w
who logs on to
o your Tablett PC. When yo
ou add wordss, you add th
hem only to yyour dictionarry.
You add words to the
e handwriting
g-recognition dictionary fro
om the correection area in
n Input Panel.
To add a word to
o the handwriting-reccognition dictionary
d
1.
O
Open Input Panel.
2.
TTo display the
e writing pad, tap the Writting Pad buttton.
3.
In the writing area, write the
t word thatt you want to add to the d
dictionary.
4.
TTap the recog
gnized text th
hat you want to correct.
97
5.
o that the worrd that you w
want to add to
o the dictiona
ary appears.
In the correcttion area, revvise the converted text so
6.
TTap Add to dictionary.
The dictionary is the heart of hand
dwriting reco
ognition, so iff the Tablet P
PC doesn't kn
now a word yo
ou regularly u
use, you should
e good recogn
nition.
add it to the dictionary to achieve
The easiest way to ad
dd a word to the dictionarry is in Input Panel immed
diately after yyou correct the misinterp
preted word. If the
word is n
not in the dicttionary, tap Add
A to diction
nary, as show
wn in Figure 5
5, in the corrrection area a
after you correct the
misinterp
preted word to
t add it. If Add
A to diction
nary is unavailable, the woord is alreadyy in the dictio
onary.
Figure 5
User dicttionary wordss go into a lisst that was crreated so spe
eech users coould add cusstom pronuncciations for w
words. This
means th
hat words ad
dded to your dictionary
d
forr handwritingg can have cu
ustom pronunciations as well. For more informatio
on,
see Using Speech Dicctionaries to Improve Han
ndwriting Reccognition Ressults.
Top of page
Teach tthe Tablett Custom Words
W
No matte
er how good the training, there will be
e some wordss your Tablet PC consisten
ntly misunde
erstands each
h time you sa
ay
them. Th
his is a comm
mon occurrence if you use
e acronyms th
hat lack voweels. These ba
affle the spee
ech recognize
er.
To fix thiss problem, yo
ou must add the pronuncciation for tha
at word.
To add the pronu
unciation of
o a word
1.
O
Open Input Panel and on the Speech menu,
m
tap Ad
dd Pronunciaation for a Woord.
The Add Pronunciatio
on window op
pens. It conta
ains an alpha
abetical listin
ng of words w
with custom p
pronunciation
ns as well as any
words yo
ou added by using
u
Add to dictionary in Input Panel..
2.
In the Word box,
b type the word that you want to pro
onounce. If th
he word is already in the list, it will be
e selected.
TTap Record pronunciation
p
n, and then sa
ay the word in
i your normaal speaking vvoice. The prronunciation for that word
d is
3.
now partt of your spee
ech recognition profile.
4.
R
Record pronu
unciations forr any other words
w
you want to add and
d then close the window.
In the futture these wo
ords should be recognize
ed with a grea
ater degree oof accuracy. YYou can also remove a wo
ord from this
s list.
This can be helpful if the Tablet PC
P consistenttly confuses a word with aanother custoom word. Rem
moving the w
word from the
e list
can fix th
he problem.
98
Top of page
Back u
up or Dupliicate Your Speech Recognition
R
n Profile
After you
u've invested time and efffort training your
y
voice reccognition proofile, the last thing you wa
ant is to have
e to redo it affter
a system
m failure or when you movve your profile
e to a new Ta
ablet PC. Unttil recently the speech pro
ofile was loca
ated in several
files scatttered around
d the hard diisk. Unless yo
ou backed up
p the entire ccontents of yoour hard drivve, you'd be u
unlikely to ha
ave a
backup o
of these files. However, a new tool hellps fix that prroblem.
The Spee
ech Recognittion Profile Manager
M
tool is a free dow
wnload. After it is installed
d, you can mo
ove your entiire speech prrofile
to a backkup folder an
nd restore it. Or, you can export
e
it to a new Tablet P
PC. If you do import it on a new Tablett PC, you'll ne
eed
to rerun the Micropho
one Wizard to
o adjust the profile for the
e new sound
d card and neew microphon
ne. Speech recognition will
w
be slighttly worse on the
t new Table
et PC until th
he profile adju
usts for the n
new hardwarre.
To insttall Speech
h Profile Manager
M
1.Downlo
oad the Spee
ech Recognittion Profile Manager
M
tool.
2.Double
e-tap it to unzzip it.
3.Click Y
Yes to accept the License agreement.
4.When tthe WinZip Self
S Extractor Window ope
ens, change the
t Unzip to FFolder field too go to C:\Do
ocuments an
nd Settings\A
All
Users\\Start Menu\\Programs\Acccessories.
5.Click U
Unzip.
6.Close tthe WinZip Se
elf Extractor Window.
To use Speech Profile
P
Man
nager
1.Tap Sta
art, tap All Prrograms, tap Accessories, and then ta
ap SpProfileM
Mgr.
2.Select a voice profile from the list. Most use
ers have only one default profile, as sh
hown in Figurre 6.
3.Tap Exxport, and the
en specify a location in wh
hich to save the
t file. If you're backing up the profile, this should
d be on anotther
compu
uter or on som
me kind of re
emovable me
edia.
99
Figure 6
If you wa
ant to reinstall the profile,, simply open
n Speech Profile Managerr, tap Import,, and then ch
hoose the corrrect profile. After
importingg it, you mayy need to go to
t Speech in Control Pane
el, and then sselect the ap
ppropriate pro
ofile to use fo
or speech. Yo
ou'll
also need to rerun the Microphon
ne Wizard. Be
ecause the Ta
ablet PC's haandwriting usser dictionaryy piggy-backss on the custo
om
words dictionary used
d by handwriting, backingg up the spee
ech recognitioon profile willl back up your user dictio
onary as well.
Top of page
Editingg Your Dicttionaries
Suppose
e you'd like to
o add an entire list of words specific to
o your professsion or indusstry to your TTablet PC dicttionary all at
once rath
her than one
e word at a tim
me. You can do this with these
t
two toools:
•
M
Microsoft Dicctionary Tool for
f Tablet PC
C
•
a
abletDictiona
aryMgr
You'll find the first too
ol at Microso
oft PowerToyss for Windows XP Tablet P
PC Edition, where you can
n download the Dictionaryy
Tool for TTablet PC and install it.
To ope
en the Dicttionary Too
ol for Table
et PC
•
TTap Start, tap
p All Program
ms, tap PowerrToys for Tablet PC, and th
hen tap Dictiionary Tool.
You can enter words into your dictionary one at
a a time similar to how th
he Add Pronu
unciation too
ol worked. You'll also see a
tab for th
he Microsoft Office diction
nary, as show
wn in Figure 7.
7
Figure 7
Some programs supp
ply their own dictionaries. The most co
ommon insta nce of this ooccurs in Micrrosoft Office programs su
uch
as Word and Outlook
k. The Office dictionaries
d
come
c
primariily from the liists you create when you add a word tto the diction
nary
100
pell check. Words
W
in these
e dictionariess are not ava
ailable every time you usee Input Panell unless you sspecifically add
during sp
them to yyour dictiona
ary with the Im
mport Office Dictionary bu
utton. You caan use of thee Dictionary TTool's File me
enu to import a
text file. This lets you add a list off words that have
h
been se
eparated by ccarriage returns to the usser dictionaryy all at once. For
industrie
es with thousands of technical terms such
s
as the medical
m
indusstry, importin
ng a long list of words like
e this is critical
for effecttive use of th
he Tablet PC at work.
The able
etDictionaryM
Mgr from able
etFactory lets you add and
d remove worrds from your user diction
nary like the Dictionary To
ool
PowerTo
oy. It also provvides other fe
eatures, such as the abiliity to add all the names a
and e-mail ad
ddresses from
m your Outloo
ok
account to the diction
nary. Plus, it allows you to
o back up you
ur dictionary to a text file,, and in the p
process, removes all
duplicate
es.
The company also offfers pre-mad
de Special Intterest Diction
naries (SPIDss) for a wide vvariety of pro
ofessions and
d languages.
ands of wordss that have already
a
been collected forr you, as sho
own in Figure 8.
These arre basically lists of thousa
Figure 8
101
Text-to
T
o-Spe
eech
Clicck Spe
eak
http://clickspeak.clcw
world.net/
Table of Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
Introduction
LList of Commands
O
Options
C
Changes
1. Introduction
peak uses th
he CLC-4-TTS library functions to provid
de text-to-speeech capabillities for Fireffox within Firrefox itself. The
CLiCk, Sp
code for CLiCk, Speak is open sou
urce and is licensed unde
er the terms oof the GNU G
GPL.
2. List off Commands
CLiCk, Sp
peak feature
es a mouse driven interfacce. You can access
a
the coommands eitther by clicking on their iccons in the
CLiCk, Sp
peak Toolbarr or by selectting them from
m the right click context m
menu. To ena
able/disable the CLiCk, S
Speak Toolbar:
Goto "Vie
ew", "Toolbarrs", and then check/unche
eck "CLiCk, Speak
S
Toolbaar". To use th
he right click ccontext menu, press the right
mouse b
button to bring up the context menu, select
s
the com
mmand that yyou wish to u
use, and then
n press the le
eft mouse bu
utton
to confirm
m your selection.

eak Selection
n
[CLC] Spe
C
CLiCk, Speak
k will say wha
at you have se
elected.

[CLC] Autto Reading Mode
M
C
CLiCk, Speak
k will read thrrough the enttire page, sta
arting from yoour current p
position.

[CLC] Sto
op Speaking
C
CLiCk, Speak
k will stop talk
king. This will also turn offf Auto Readi ng mode.
3. Option
ns

TTo choose the
e TTS engine
e you wish to use, start Firrefox and go to Tools, CLC
C Speak TTS Selection. Pllease note th
hat
yyou must insttall the FreeTTTS engine be
efore you can
n use it; not d
doing so will result in an e
error. Also no
ote that if
you do not have a Windows opera
ating system that has SAP
PI 5 (such as Windows 20
000 or XP), th
hen you will n
not be able to
o
SAPI 5 TTS engine.
use the S
102
Ck, Speak ico
ons to an exissting toolbar instead of ussing the defa
ault CLiCk, Sp
peak Toolbarr. To do so, go
oto
You can add the CLiC
w drag and drrop the CLiCkk, Speak icon
ns onto any toolbar that yyou would like
e.
"View", "TToolbars", "Customize...". You can now
4. Changges





1
1.0 - Initial re
elease.
R
Remember, remember, th
he 5th of Novvember.
C
CLiCk, Speak
k is out! Hoora
ay!
G
Go download and try it tod
day.
1
1.1 - Caret na
avigation will no longer be
e turned on automatically
a
y; CLiCk, Spea
ak will remem
mber the use
er's setting an
nd
m
make sure that it does no
ot get change
ed when text selections arre made/unm
made. Bug fixx for the multtilingual
d
detection - prrevious versio
on had a bugg that caused
d it to use an English voice (instead off the default vvoice) for
a
anything after the first sen
ntence of a chunk
c
on pagges that did n
not have the language specified.
1
1.2 - Added the ability to read
r
text with
hin textboxess. Autoscrollin
ng greatly en
nhanced; now
w the text being read will
a
always be dissplayed on th
he screen. Bu
ug fix for a pro
oblem wheree it will start rreading at the next chunkk if the user tries
t
tto read a sentence in the current chun
nk.
1
1.3 - Updated
d to use the latest version
n of CLC Utilss. Added toolttips. Added loocale framew
work.
1
1.4 - Updated
d to use the latest version
n of CLC Utilss and CLC Co re. Added exxtra large icon
ns. Selection no longer
d
disappears when
w
the "spe
eak selection" button is prressed. Curreently selected TTS engine
e has checkm
mark next to it in
tthe CLC Spea
ak TTS Selecttion menu.
Feature 5: Bookmarks
You can easily mark certain
c
points in an audio
o file to refere
ence later orr quickly jump
p to. To set a bookmark yyou can either
use Ctrl+
+B or select the
t option fro
om the Bookm
mark menu. Navigate you
ur bookmarkss using your keyboard: Cttrl+Left arrow
w for
Previouss, Ctrl+Right arrow
a
for Nexxt.
103
Feature 6: Special Audio Proce
essing
104
AMIIS
What iss AMIS?
AMIS sta
ands for Adap
ptive Multime
edia Informattion System.
AMIS is a software prrogram that you
y can use to
t read DAISY
Y books. It iss self-voicing, meaning tha
at no
specializzed screen-re
eading softwa
are is needed
d in order for it to be used
d by visually iimpaired peo
ople. AMIS
is open ssource softwa
are and is provided free of
o charge. It has
h been tran
nslated into dozens of lan
nguages.
Go to htttp://daisy.org
g/amis/down
nload/transla
ations to dow
wnload langu age packs.
What iss DAISY?
DAISY stands for Digiital Accessiblle Informatio
on SYstem. DA
AISY books aare fully acceessible digital talking
books. C
Common features of books, such as se
ections, page
es, footnotes,, sidebars, an
nd bookmarkks are
represen
nted in a wayy that allows users
u
to quicckly navigate using them.
In fact, th
he documentt you are reading now is a DAISY book
k! You can seee and hear tthe synchronized text
and audiio, and move
e around by section
s
or phrrase.
The DAIS
SY standard is a globally recognized
r
te
echnical stan
ndard, originaally developed to benefit p
people who a
are unable to
o
read prin
nt due to a disability. It alsso has broad
d applicationss for improveed access to ttext in the m
mainstream.
The DAIS
SY consortium
m was founde
ed in 1996 and
a consists of a growing membership
p of organizations around
d the world
committe
ed to develop
ping equitablle access to information for
f people wh
ho have a priint disability.
You can learn more about
a
DAISY at
a http://daissy.org.
Supporrted Forma
ats
The following docume
ent formats are
a supported by AMIS:


D
DAISY 2.02
D
DAISY 3 (also
o referred to as
a ANSI/NISO
O z39.86-2005)
System
m Requirem
ments
The following PC conffiguration is required:






W
Windows XP, Windows Vissta, or Windows 2000
D
DirectX 9
S
SAPI 5.1 text--to-speech en
ngine
Internet Explo
orer 7 (Otherr versions will work, but th
his is the recoommended vversion.)
5
50 MB disk space
s
TThe AMIS insttaller will rep
port if a required compone
ent is missin g.
105
Screen
n Layout
The scre
een has two
o view mode
es: default and basic. AM
MIS will starrt in defaultt view mode
e unless you tell it to sta
art in
basic vie
ew (this settting is in the
e Preference
es dialog).
The defa
ault view ha
as four majo
or pieces: a menu, a too
olbar, a naviigation wind
dow to the le
eft, and a co
ontent window
in the ce
enter of the screen.
106
ow contains one
o or more tabbed
t
lists, depending oon what the b
book containss. The first lisst is always a
The navigation windo
hierarchiical list of sections. The second
s
list co
ontains page numbers (if tthe book hass
pages). TThe subsequent lists conttain special ittems such ass footnotes oor figures (aggain, if the bo
ook contains these items),
with each item type appearing
a
in its own list.
The navigation windo
ow
The basic view has tw
wo major piecces: a toolbar along the bottom
b
of thee screen and a content wiindow in the center of the
e
screen. TThe toolbar has
h four large
e buttons: go to the previo
ous phrase, p
play/pause, ggo to the nexxt phrase, sw
witch back to
default vview mode. There is no menu or naviga
ation window
w in basic vieew mode.
107
AMIS in
n basic vie
ew mode
Feature TThe following
g sections co
ontain brief de
escriptions of
o the featurees in AMIS, orrganized by ttopic.
Opening a book
DAISY bo
ooks can be on
o your hard drive, on a CD-ROM
C
or lo
ocated remottely.
Op
pen a recentlly-read book Automaticallly open your last-read boook on startup
p Open a boo
ok from the command line
e
Op
pen the conte
ents of a CD--ROM contain
ning a single book or conttaining multiple books Op
pen a book frrom your loca
al
file
e system Ope
en a book fro
om a remote URL
Controlling playback
DAISY bo
ooks are playyed automatically from be
eginning to en
nd. You can ccontrol the foollowing playyback feature
es:
Pla
ay and pause
e the book
Sp
peed-up audio playback
To
oggle playbacck of reading options, like
e page numbe
er announceements and foootnotes
Navigatin
ng
In additio
on to linear playback,
p
DAIISY books offfer other wayys to move arround.
108
p
phrase
page
section
Using the
e navigation window
Use the iitems in the navigation window to browse the struccture of a boook.
H
Hierarchical view
v
of sectio
ons
LList of pages
LLists for each
h special type
e of item in th
he book
Setting b
bookmarks
A
Add bookmarrk (named au
utomatically based
b
on what you are boookmarking)
G
Go to bookma
ark
TThe list of boo
okmarks for a particular book
b
loads when
w
you opeen that book.
Getting information about
a
the pub
blication
It is easyy to get more information about the bo
ook you are reading
r
by ussing the publlication summ
mary dialog of AMIS. Here
e is a
full list w
what is available:
TTitle
A
Author
P
Publisher
D
Description
N
Narrator
TTotal duration
n
TTotal pages
D
Date
F
Format
F
Features (thin
ngs like sectiions, pages, and footnote
es)
C
Current page
C
Current sectio
on (including
g the numberr of pages and subsection
ns)
TTotal numberr of items in the
t table of contents
c
M
Maximum secction depth
The publlication summ
mary dialog
Getting h
help with AMIS
F
Find out basic information
n about AMIS
S
R
Read the use
er guide (this document)
LLearn all the commands and
a shortcut keys for AMIS
109
Changingg the look
The AMIS
S user interfa
ace lets you choose
c
differrent display options
o
for th
he screen layyout and the DAISY book style.
Use
e basic or de
efault view mo
ode
Sho
ow/hide the navigation window
w
M
Move the navvigation window around th
he screen
C
Change the style
s
of the pa
age
M
Make the fon
nt bigger
A
Adjust highlig
ght colors and
d change the
e application font through
h the Text Styyle dialog
Setting p
preferences
The following settingss are accesse
ed via the Preferences dialog under th
he File menu
u.
TTurn self-voiccing on or off
C
Choose a TTS
S voice
TTurn text high
hlighting on or
o off
LLoad the mosst recently-read book on startup
s
S
Start AMIS in basic view mode
m
P
Pause AMIS automatically
a
y when you switch applica
ations
D
Disable your screensaver
s
while using AMIS
A
S
Select a language pack fo
or use with AM
MIS
110
erences dialo
og
The prefe
Setting text styles
The following settingss are accesse
ed via the Te
ext Style dialo
og under the View menu.
S
Select a font for AMIS itse
elf
S
Select foregro
ound and background colors for the te
ext highlight used during playback
TThe text sttyle dialog
The hom
mepage for AM
MIS is http:///amisproject..org. All information abou
ut new releasses, available
e language pa
acks, submittting
bug repo
orts, and gettting involved can be found
d there. We look forward to hearing frrom you.
111
Fire Vox
Firevox.clcworld.net
Introduction
Want to learn how to use Fire Vox to navigate the World Wide Web? If so, you've come to the right place. This tutorial will
teach you to use Fire Vox to read and interact with all types of HTML pages.
All of the commands for Fire Vox are done with Ctrl + Shift + some default key. If you have a key conflict, you can change the
default key for that command by going into Fire Vox Options. The default keystroke for bringing up Fire Vox Options directly is
Ctrl + Shift + M. You can also access the Fire Vox Options by going to Tools then choosing Fire Vox Options. This tutorial
assumes that you are using the default keys.
The exercises in this tutorial are designed to be followed in a specific order. If you are a new user, it is highly recommended
that you go through this tutorial in the order it is presented from start to finish.
The Exercises
1.
2.
3.
4.
Reading Text and Navigating Web Pages
Getting Additional Information
Working With Forms
Working With Live Regions
Reading Text and Navigating Web Pages
Fire Vox makes reading web pages easy. When the page loads, Fire Vox will announce the title of the page. At that point, you
can begin to read the page.
Basic Reading Commands
To have Fire Vox read through the entire page automatically, use Auto Read. The default is Ctrl + Shift + A.
To have manual control over Fire Vox and have it read forward by one web page element, use Read Forward. The default is
Ctrl + Shift + F.
To have Fire Vox read the previous web page element, use Read Previous. The default is Ctrl + Shift + D.
To have Fire Vox repeat the current web page element, use Repeat. The default is Ctrl + Shift + E.
To have Fire Vox read the text that you have selected, use Say Selected Text. The default is Ctrl + Shift + O.
To have Fire Vox stop speaking, use Stop Speaking. The default is Ctrl + Shift + C. Note that this command will also stop the
Auto Read if Fire Vox is auto reading a web page. When you begin reading again, Fire Vox will resume at the element after
the last element it read as long as you have not moved the cursor.
Navigation Commands
To bring up a list of all the headings categorized by level, use List of Headings. The default is Ctrl + Shift + H.
112
To bring up a list of all the elements on a page categorized by element, use List of Elements. The default is Ctrl + Shift + L.
The headings category here will include all the headings regardless of level. For the form elements, the default is to identify
the type of element and its status. If you do not wish to have this extra information, you can turn it off by going into Fire Vox
Options and unchecking "Verbose Form Elements List."
Note: These lists are sorted by where they are on the web page by default. However, you can sort them alphabetically by
going into Fire Vox Options and checking "Sort Lists Alphabetically."
Getting Additional Information
Querying for Additional Information on a Particular Item
Fire Vox makes getting additional information about a particular item easy. Depending on what that particular item is and
what attributes it has, Fire Vox will present additional information about it. Immediately after reading an item, you can Query
it for more information. You can then query it for more information again to get additional information about its parent
element. The default is Ctrl + Shift + Q. You can make Fire Vox stop at any time by using the Stop Speaking command.
Example: Querying a link for more information
Fire Vox will say the title attribute of the link if it has one followed by the destination of that link. Try it on this following link:
This is a link to my page.
Example: Querying a cell in a table for more information
Fire Vox will say the column and row headings. It will also say the column and row numbers. Try it on this following table:
My Schedule
Date
Task
Jan 1 Celebrate the New Year
Jan 2 Work on Fire Vox
Jan 3 Work on Fire Vox some more
Getting Context Information on a Particular Item
Sometimes, it may be necessary to get additional context information on a particular item. Fire Vox can go up one level in
the DOM hierarchy and read the contents of the parent element of the current element. The default is Ctrl + Shift + U.
113
Example: Reading the parent of a set of links
One instance of needing to read the parent might be when you are trying to find out what an HTML, PDF, or TXT link refers to
on a page full of research articles. On such sites, a common practice is to have the title of the paper followed by links to that
paper in different formats. Usually, these links are only denoted by their format name and the title of the paper is not part of
the link text. Reading the parent element can sometimes clarify what these links are pointing to. Try reading the parent text
of the link in this example:
"Why Fire Vox is so Awesome: An In-Depth Report." HTML PDF TXT
Working With Forms
Fire Vox makes working with forms easy. There are no modes to switch into and out of. When you reach an input element,
you are immediately able to start interacting with it by typing into it, arrowing through it, etc. When you have Fire Vox read
another element, you are automatically taken out of the input element and moved on to the next element.
Example: Input Blanks
Fire Vox can be set to echo your keystrokes as you type in input blanks. The default setting for this is on; you can deactivate
it by going to Fire Vox Options and unchecking the box that says "Echo Keys." Lowercase letters will be read out in a lower
pitch than uppercase letters. Also, Fire Vox will protect your privacy when you are typing in a password blank by reading out
"asterisk" rather than the actual characters you are typing.
Please enter a random user name:
Please enter a fake password:
This is only an example password blank, there is no data being sent.
Example: Radio Buttons and Check Boxes
Fire Vox will read the legends and announce whether radio buttons and check boxes are checked or not.
A Heavily Skewed Public Opinion Poll with Radio Buttons Complete this sentence: Fire Vox...
is great! *smile*
rocks my socks! Wheee!
roxors my boxors! L O L
Some Random Check Boxes Check all that apply - CLC-4-TTS is:
super duper cool
ultra hot
the best thing since bread machines that bake pre-sliced bread
Example: Select Boxes
Fire Vox will read the options as you cycle through them. You can cycle through options with either one at a time using the
up and down arrow keys, or cycle through all the options that begin with a particular letter of the alphabet by pressing the
key that corresponds with the first letter of the option.
114
Working with Live Regions
What is a Live Region anyway?
Live regions are areas on a web page which are changed through JavaScript rather than a full page refresh. It can be used
on finance sites to show real time stock price changes, on sports sites to show the score and player stats as a game is being
played, etc. This has the advantage of not making users lose track of their place when an update happens, but it has the
disadvantage of not informing screen reader users that a change has taken place.
The W3C has a working draft for markup that web developers should use to tell screen readers how their live regions should
be handled, but as this markup is still very new, it is not in widespread use yet. Fire Vox already has support for the major
parts of this new markup and more support is currently being added. However, in order to be as useful to end users as
possible, Fire Vox also has some heuristics to do something sensible with web pages which are not tagged with this markup.
Toggle Live Region Announcements
Users can toggle live region announcements; the default is Ctrl + Shift + Y. There are three different modes for working with
live regions: Default Live Region Announcements, Tagged Live Region Announcements, and No Live Region Announcements.
Default Live Region Announcements will apply some heuristics to try to handle live regions as sensibly as possible. Please
bear in mind that these are only best effort heuristics; it is possible for the web page to be speak more than it should or say
things with insufficient context. Tagged Live Region Announcements will not apply any heuristics; instead, this mode will
follow the W3C standard strictly, with untagged live regions being silenced. No Live Region Announcements will turn off live
region announcements entirely.
Examples



This is a very simple example of a web page with tagged live regions. Using Default Live Region Announcements or
Tagged Live Region Announcements will cause the updates to be spoken.
This is a very simple example of a web page without tagged live regions. Using Default Live Region Announcements
will cause the updates to be spoken.
This is a simple, but realistic example of a sports web page that uses tagged live regions to announce the updates to
points and player stats. Using Default Live Region Announcements or Tagged Live Region Announcements will cause
the updates to be spoken.
Additional notes


Here is a set of Accessible AJAX test cases which I created for Mozilla.
If you would like to learn more about the W3C markup for Live Regions, please read this report.
www.xpscreenreader.com
115
m
software package for the
e modern PC
C. Whatever a
appears on th
he computer screen can be
b
Lightningg PLUS is a magnification
magnifie
ed up to 36 times and it works
w
well witth most Wind
dows applicattions and vid
deo clips can also be maggnified. It is easy
e
to install and just as easy to use.
DA
NVD
http://w
www.nvda-pro
oject.org/
Table of Contents
1
1. Introduction
n
1
1.1. General features
f
1
1.2. Internatio
onalization
1
1.3. Speech synthesizer su
upport
1
1.4. Braille su
upport
1
1.5. License and
a copyrightt
2. System Req
quirements
3. Getting NVD
DA
4. Installing NVDA
4.1. The NVDA
A Installer
4.2. NVDA Porrtable
5. Getting started with NVD
DA
5.1. Launching NVDA
5.2. About NV
VDA keyboard
d commands
6. The NVDA menu
m
6.1. Accessing
g the NVDA menu
m
6.2. Configuring NVDA
6.2
2.1 The Prefe
erences Menu
6.2
2.1.1. Genera
al Settings
6.2
2.1.2. Synthe
esizer Selection
6.2
2.1.3. Voice Settings
S
6.2
2.1.4. Braille Settings
6.2
2.1.5. Keyboa
ard Settings
6.2
2.1.6. Mouse
e Settings
6.2
2.1.7. Object Presentation
n Settings
6.2
2.1.8. Virtual Buffer Settin
ngs
6.2
2.1.9. Docum
ment Formatting Settings
6.2
2.1.10. Speech dictionaries
6.2
2.2: Saving and Reverting
g Configuratio
on
7. Navigating with NVDA
7.1. Navigatin
ng by Focus
7.2. Navigatin
ng with the Syystem Caret
7.3. Object Na
avigation
7.4. Reviewing
g Text in the Current Obje
ect
7.5. Navigatin
ng with the Mouse
116
8. Virtual Bufffers
8.1. Single Letter Navigatio
on
8.2. Forms an
nd Focus Mod
de
8.3. The Elements list
8..4. Embedde
ed Objects
9. Troubleshooting NVDA
Introdu
uction
1.1. Gen
neral Features
Providingg feedback by
b synthetic speech,
s
Nonvvisual Deskto
op Access alloows blind and
d vision impa
aired people to access an
nd
interact w
with the Wind
dows operatiing system and many thirrd party appliications.
Major higghlights inclu
ude:
without the n
A
Ability to run entirely from
m a USB stick or other porttable media w
need for insta
allation
E
Easy to use ta
alking installer
B
Browsing the web with Mo
ozilla Firefox 3
W
Working with email using Mozilla Thun
nderbird 3
S
Support for Microsoft
M
Inte
ernet Explorer
B
Basic supportt for Microso
oft Outlook Exxpress / Wind
dows Mail
ssupport for Microsoft
M
Worrd and Excel
S
Support for accessible Javva applications
S
Support for Adobe
A
Readerr
E
Early supportt for IBM Lotu
us Symphonyy
ssupport for Windows
W
Com
mmand Promp
pt and conso
ole applications
A
Automatic announcementt of text unde
er the mouse
e and optionaal audible ind
dication of the mouse possition
S
Support for many
m
refresha
able Braille displays
d
1.2. Internationalizattion
It is impo
ortant that pe
eople anywhe
ere in the wo
orld, no matte
er what langu
uage they speeak, get equal access to technology.
NVDA currently has been
b
translated into over 20 language
es besides th e English lan
nguage includ
ding: Arabic, Brazilian
Portugue
ese, Croatian
n, Czech, Finn
nish, French, Galician, Ge
erman, Hungaarian, Italian,, Japanese, P
Portuguese, R
Russian,
Slovak, S
Spanish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Uk
krainian, Afrik
kaans, Polish
h and Vietnam
mese.
1.3. Speech Synthesizer Support
Apart fro
om providing its messagess and interface in severall languages, NVDA can also enable the user to rea
ad content in
any language, as long
g as they havve a speech synthesizer
s
that can speaak that particcular languagge.
NVDA is bundled with
h eSpeak, a free,
f
open-so
ource, multi-lingual speec h synthesizer. Additionally, NVDA can use both
SAPI4 an
nd SAPI5 spe
eech engines to provide speech output, as well as the Audiologgic and NewF
Fon speech syynthesizers.
1.4. Braille support
For userss that own a refreshable braille displa
ay, NVDA can output its in
nformation in braille. NVD
DA supports F
Freedom
Scientificc Pacmate an
nd Focus displays, Handyy Tech displayys, ALVA BC6
640/680 displays, plus m
many others ssupported by
the BRLTTTY package if it is available.
NVDA supports manyy braille code
es covering a large set of languages.
l
In
n many casess grade 1 and 2 versions of the codes
s are
e. For English
h readers botth U.S. Englissh braille and
d Unified Engglish braille (U
UEB) codes a
are included.
available
1.5. Lice
ence and Cop
pyright
NVDA is copyright 20
006-2010 NV
VDA contributtors.
NVDA is covered by th
he GNU Gene
eral Public License (Version 2). You arre free to sha
are or change
e this software in any wayy you
like as lo
ong as you distribute the licence
l
alongg with the sofftware, and m
make all sourrce code ava
ailable to anyo
one who wan
nts
117
it. This applies to both original and modified copies of the software, plus any software that uses code taken from this
software. For further details, you can view the full licence.


OperatingSystems: all 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 (including Server
operating Systems), may partially work on Windows
Memory: 256 mb or more of RAM Processor speed: 1.0 ghz or above About 50 MB of storage space.
If you have not yet got a copy of NVDA, you can download it here.
Go to the download section and you will find a link to download the latest version of NVDA.
There are currently two ways NVDA is packaged. One is an Installer which will talk you through installing NVDA so that you
can then run it at any time from the Start Menu. The other is a self-extracting archive file that contains a fully portable
version of NVDA, which you can run from anywhere, including a USB thumb drive or CD.
4.1. The NVDA Installer
If you already have the NVDA installer, simply press enter or double click on the file and the installer will start.
As the installer loads, you will hear the NVDA installation music. Once loaded, a temporary copy of NVDA will allow you to
follow the prompts of the installer and install NVDA. Note that if you were running another copy of NVDA at the time you
started the installer, a message will appear telling you that your previous copy of NVDA will be closed. When you press
enter on this message, the installer will close your previous copy and start its own one. This is necessary so that the
installer can properly update any changed files. At this point, if you have another copy of NVDA already installed, the NVDA
installer will uninstall it for you, and then it will commence to install NVDA.
Once you have successfully completed the installation, the installer will alert you that the install of NVDA has finished. If
reinstalling NVDA, It may ask you to reboot the system at this point. It is very important that you reboot the system as failing
to do so will have undesirable consequences. If it did not ask you to reboot, pressing Finnish will close the installer and start
the newly installed version of NVDA.
4.2. NVDA portable
If you have the portable version of NVDA, then all you have to do is to press enter or double click on the file, and follow the
prompts. It will ask you where on your system you wish to place the files.
5.1. Launching NVDA
If you have installed NVDA with the installer, then starting NVDA is as simple as either pressing control+alt+n, or
choosing NVDA from the NVDA menu under Programs on the Start Menu. Additionally you can type NVDA into the Run
dialog and press Enter. To start the portable version, go to the directory you unpacked NVDA to, and press enter or
double click on da.exe.
As NVDA starts, you will first hear an ascending set of tones (telling you that NVDA is loading). Depending on how fast your
computer is, or if you are running NVDA off a USB key or other slower medium, it may take a little while to start. If it is
taking an extra long time, NVDA should say "Loading subsystems. Please wait..."
If you don't hear any of this, or you hear the Windows error sound, or a descending set of tones, then this means that NVDA
has an error, and you will need to possibly report a bug to the developers. Please check out the NVDA website for how to do
this.
When NVDA starts for the first time, you will be greeted by a dialog box which provides you with some basic information
about the NVDA modifier key and the NVDA menu. (Please see further sections about these topics). The dialog box also
contains two checkboxes. The first lets you control if NVDA should use the capslock as an NVDA modifier key, and the
second lets you control if this Welcome dialog should appear each time NVDA starts.
5.2. About NVDA keyboard commands
118
Most NVDA-specific keyboard commands usually consist of pressing the NVDA modifier key, in conjunction with one or more
other keys. An exception to this are the text review commands which just use the numpad keys by themselves.
By default both numpad insert and extended insert can be used as the NVDA modifier key. However, you can also configure
NVDA so that the capslock key also becomes an NVDA modifier key. When configured this way, pressing or holding down
capslock acts as an NVDA modifier key, but pressing it twice in quick succession causes it to act as the normal capslock key.
Many key commands are mentioned through out the rest of this user guide, but an easy way to explore all the different key
commands is to turn on keyboard help.
To turn on keyboard help, press NVDA+1. To turn it off again, press NVDA+1 again. While in keyboard help, pressing any key
will announce what it does (if in deed it does do something). The keys will not actually perform their function while in
keyboard help mode, so you can press whatever keys you like. The NVDA menu allows you to control NVDA's settings, access
help, save/revert your configuration, Modify speech dictionaries, read the log file, and exit NVDA.
6.1. Accessing the NVDA menu
To get to the NVDA menu from anywhere in Windows while NVDA is running, press NVDA+n. You can also get to the NVDA
menu via the windows system tray. Either right-click on the nvda icon located in the system tray, or access the system tray
by pressing the windows logo key+B, DownArrow to the NVDA icon and press the applications key located next to the right
control key on most keyboards. When the menu comes up, You can use the arrow keys to navigate the menu, and the enter
key to activate an item. The Preferences menu allows you to configure NVDA how you like, the tools menu contains useful
tools such as the NVDA log viewer and the NVDA Python console for developers, the help menu allows you to access the
user guide, a quick key reference, and much more. The NVDA menu also contains items that allow you to save or revert your
current configuration. There is also an option that allows you to exit NVDA, although this can be accomplished more
efficiently by pressing NVDA+Q.
The options under the preferences menu can also be accessed via keyboard shortcut commands, as well as the NVDA
Python Console, save and revert configuration options discussed in this section. For more information about this, please
visit the quick reference guide for a list of shortcut commands.
6.2. Configuring NVDA
6.2.1 Preferences
6.2.1.1. General Settings
The General settings dialog box is found in the Preferences menu. It is also accessed by pressing NVDA+Control+G. To
save the options after modifying settings, press the OK button. To cancel, press the cancel button or the escape key. It
contains the following options:
Language
A combo box which allows you to select the language that NVDA's user interface and messages should be shown in. There
are many languages; however the default option is "User Default, Windows". This option tells NVDA to use the language
that Windows is currently set to. Please note that NVDA must be restarted when changing the language. NVDA will ask you
if you wish to restart if you do change the selection. Press OK, and NVDA will restart.
Save Configuration on Exit
This option is a checkbox that, when checked, tells NVDA to automatically save the current configuration when you exit
NVDA.
Warn before exiting NVDA
This option is a checkbox that allows you to choose whether or not a dialog appears when you exit NVDA that asks whether
119
or not you would like to exit. When checked, a dialog will appear when you attempt to exit NVDA asking whether or not you
want to exit.
Logging level
This is a combo box that permits you to choose how much NVDA will log as its running. Generally users should not need to
touch this as not too much is logged. However if you are wanting to provide information in a bug report, then it may be a
useful option.
Automatically start nvda after I log on to windows
If this option is enabled, NVDA will start automatically as soon as you log on to Windows.
Use nvda on the windows log on screen (requires administrative privileges)
If you log on to Windows by providing a user name and password, then enabling this option will make NVDA start
automatically at the logon screen when Windows starts.
6.2.1.2. Synthesizer Selection
The Synthesizer dialog, which is found under "Synthesizer..." in the Preferences menu or by pressing
NVDA+Control+S, allows you to select which Synthesizer NVDA should use to speak with.
The dialog contains a simple combo box, which lists all the available synthesizers. Choose the synthesizer you want using
the arrow keys, and then press ok. If there is an error loading the synthesizer, a message box will alert you, and NVDA will
keep the old synthesizer loaded. The current list of synthesizers NVDA supports is: eSpeak, SAPI4, SAPI5, Audiologic, and
Silence.
The eSpeak synthesizer is built directly in to NVDA, and does not depend on any other special drivers or SAPI runtime to be
installed. NVDA starts using eSpeak by default. This synthesizer should work on any system that NVDA works on, so it will
definitely work when running NVDA off a USB thumb drive or CD, on anyone else's system.
The Sapi4 option allows you to use the Sapi synthesizer. Voices that are included under Ssapi4 include eloquence
voices, as well as other Ssapi4 voices that you may have installed on your system.
The Sapi5 synthesizer allows you to use the microsoft voices that are iincluded on your machine. In XP, the default Ssapi5
voice is Microsoft Sam. In Vista, the default voice is Microsoft Anna. Depending on what voices you have installed, others
may show up under Ssapi5.
The Silence synthesizer driver is not that useful, unless you want to not have any speech at all while running NVDA.
Please note that no matter how many different SAPI4 or SAPI5 voices (or engines) you have installed on your system,
only the actual SAPI4 and SAPI5 synthesizers will show up in the Synthesizers dialog. To actually select one of the
engines (voices), select either SAPI4 or SAPI5, and then in the Voice settings dialog, you can choose the voice you
want.
6.2.1.3. Voice Settings
The Voice Settings dialog, found in the Preferences menu or accessed by pressing NVDA+Control+V, contains options that
let you change the sound of the speech. You can also configure many of the options from anywhere by pressing
NVDA+Control along with one of the arrow keys. The left and right arrow keys move through the various settings, the up and
down arrows increase or decrease that setting respectively.
The Voice Settings dialog box contains the following options:
Voice
The first option that you land on in this dialog is a combo box listing all the voices of the current synthesizer that you have
installed. You can use the arrow keys to listen to all the various choices. Left and Up arrow take you up in the list, while
120
right and down arrow moves you down in the list.
Variant
If you are using the Espeak synthesizer that is packaged with NVDA, this is a combo box that lets you select the Variant the
synthesizer should speak with. ESpeak's Variants are rather like voices, as they provide slightly different attributes to the
eSpeak voice. Some variants will sound like a male, some like a female, and some even like a frog.
Rate
This option allows you to change the rate of your voice. This is a slider that goes from 0 to 100, (0 being the slowest, 100
being the fastest).
Pitch
This option allows you to change the pitch of the current voice. It is a slider which goes from 0 to 100, (0 being the
lowest pitch and 100 being the highest).
Volume
This option is a slider which goes from 0 to 100, (0 being the lowest volume and 100 being the highest).
Inflection
This option is a slider that lets you choose how much inflection (rise and fall in pitch) the synthesizer should use to speak
with. (The only synthesizer that provides this option at the present time is eSpeak).
Speak All Punctuation
This setting is a checkbox, that when checked, tells NVDA to speak all punctuation symbols as words (very useful for proof
reading). When unchecked, NVDA leaves the punctuation unchanged, so the synthesizer will still read sentences with the
right inflection, however the symbols won't be spoken aloud.
Raise pitch for capitals
This setting, if checked, will raise the pitch for capitals. This setting is a checkbox, that when checked, tells NVDA to say the
word "cap;" before any capital letter, when arrowing over it or speaking it when its being typed. Usually, NVDA raises the
pitch slightly for any capital letter, but some synthesizers may not support this well, so perhaps this option may be of use.
Beep for capitals
If this checkbox is checked, NVDA will make a small beep each time it encounters a capitalized character by itself. Like the
'say cap for capitals' checkbox, this is useful for Synthesizers that can't change their pitch for capital letters.
6.2.1.4. Braille Settings
The braille settings dialog box can be invoked by going to the preferences menu and then to the braille settings
option.
Braille Display
The first option you will come upon in the braille settings dialog is a combo box that says "braille display". You will be
presented with three options. Move between these options with the arrow keys.
No braille means that you are not using braille.
Freedom Scientific is for Freedom Scientific Focus/Pacmate displays. Note that this option only appears if you have the
braille driver from Freedom Scientific installed, see Official Freedom Scientific braille drivers page for more info on how to
obtain and install the drivers.
121
Handy Tech is for the Handy Tech displays. Note that this option will only exist if you have installed the
Handy Tech Universal Driver
BRLTTY allows you to use a wide list of braille displays. Please install the BRLTTY Windows installer in order to get
support for these displays.
Translation Table
The next option you will come to in this dialog is the braille table combo box. In this combo box, you will find braille tables for
different languages. You can move from braille table to braille table in the list by using the arrow keys.
Expand to computer braille for the word at the cursor
This option allows the word that is under the cursor to be displayed in non-contracted computer braille.
Cursor Blink Rate
This option is a numerical field that allows you to change the blink rate of the cursor in milliseconds.
Message Timeout (sec)
This option is a numerical field that controls how long system messages are displayed on the braille display.
Braille Tethered to
This option allows you to choose whether the braille display will follow the system focus, or whether it follows the
navigator object / review cursor.
This option can also be toggled by the key command NVDA+control+t.
6.2.1.5. Keyboard settings
This dialog box is found in the Preferences menu, under "Keyboard settings...". Alternatively, it can be accessed by
pressing NVDA+Control+K. It contains the following options:
Keyboard layout
This combo box lets you choose what type of keyboard layout NVDA should use. Currently the two that come with NVDA
are Desktop and Laptop.
Use capslock as an NVDA modifier key
If this checkbox is checked, capslock can be used as an NVDA modifier key.
Use extended insert as an NVDA modifier key
If this checkbox is checked, the extended insert key (usually found above the arrow keys, near home and end) can be used
as an NVDA modifier key.
Use numpad insert as an NVDA modifier key
If this checkbox is checked, the insert key on the number pad can be used as an NVDA modifier key.
Speak Typed Characters
A checkbox that when checked means that NVDA will announce all characters you type on the keyboard. You can also
configure this option from anywhere by pressing NVDA+2.
Speak Typed Words
A checkbox that when checked means that NVDA will announce all words you type on the keyboard. You can also configure
this option from anywhere by pressing NVDA+3.
Speak Command Keys
122
A checkbox that when checked means that NVDA will announce all non-character keys you type on the keyboard. This
includes key combinations such as control plus another letter. You can also configure this option from anywhere by
pressing NVDA+4.
6.2.1.6. Mouse Settings
The Mouse Settings dialog is found in the Preferences Menu, under "Mouse settings...". Alternatively, it can be accessed by
pressing NVDA+Control+M. It contains the following options:
Report Mouse Shape Changes
A checkbox, that when checked means that NVDA will announce the shape of the mouse pointer each time it changes. The
mouse pointer in Windows changes shape to convey certain information such as when something is editable, or when
something is loading etc.
Report text Under Mouse
A checkbox that when checked means that NVDA will announce the text currently under the mouse pointer, as you move it
around the screen. This allows you to find things on the screen, by physically moving the mouse, rather than trying to find
them through object navigation.
Text unit resolution
If NVDA is set to announce the text under the mouse as you move it, this option allows you to choose exactly how much text
will be spoken. The options are character, word, line and paragraph.
Report role when mouse enters object
If this checkbox is checked, NVDA will announce the role (type) of object as the mouse moves in side it.
Play audio coordinates when mouse moves
Checking this checkbox makes NVDA play beeps as the mouse moves, so that the user can work out where the mouse is
in regards to the dimentions of the screen.
Brightness controls audio coordinates volume
If the 'play audio coordinates when mouse moves' checkbox is checked, then checking this checkbox means that the volume
of the audio coordinates beeps is controled by how bright the screen is under the mouse. This may cause some
performence issues on Windows Vista, so it is unchecked by default.
6.2.1.7. Object Presentation Settings
Found in the Preferences menu under "Object Presentation..." or by pressing NVDA+Control+O. This dialog box contains the
following options:
Report Tool Tips
A checkbox that when checked tells NVDA to announce tool tips as they appear. Many Windows and controls show a small
message (or tool tip) when you move the mouse pointer over them, or sometimes when you move the focus to them.
Report Help Balloons
This checkbox when checked tells NVDA to announce help balloons as they appear. Help Balloons are like tool tips, but are
usually larger in size, and are associated with system events such as a network cable being unplugged, or perhaps to alert
you about Windows security issues.
Report Object Shortcut Keys
When this checkbox is checked, NVDA will include the shortcut key that is associated with a certain object or control when
it is announced. For example the File menu on a menu bar may have a shortcut key of alt+f.
123
object position information
n
Report o
This option lets you choose
c
wheth
her you wish to have an object's positiion (e.g. 1 of 4) reported w
when movingg to the objec
ct
with the focus or obje
ect navigation.
Report O
Object descrip
ptions
Uncheckk this checkbo
ox if you feel you don't ne
eed to hear th
he descriptioon announced
d along with objects.
Progresss bar output
A progresss bar is a co
ontrol which looks a bit lik
ke a ruler. Ass a task is sloowly being coompleted, mo
ore of the barr gets
highlightted. It also sh
hows a percentage value, to numerica
ally tell you hoow far along it is. Progresss bars are sh
hown for thin
ngs
like loading a web pa
age, checking
g your email, or processing a sound file etc.
ombo box wh
hich controls how nvda re ports progresss bar updattes to you. It has the
This option presents you with a co
followingg options:
Offf: Progress ba
ars will not be
e reported ass they change
e.
Spe
eak: This opttion tells nvda
a to speak th
he progress bar
b in percen
ntages. Each time the progress bar changes,
nvda
a will speak the
t new value
e.
Bee
ep: This tells nvda to beep each time the
t progresss bar changess. The higherr the beep, th
he closer the progress bar
is to completion.
ep and speak: This option
n tells nvda to both beep and speak w
when a progreess bar upda
ates.
Bee
Report b
background progress
p
barss
This is an
n option thatt, when check
ked, tells nvd
da to keep re
eporting a proogress bar, even if it is no
ot physically in the
foreground. If you minimize or switch away fro
om a window that contain s a progress bar, nvda will keep trackk of it, allowin
ng
o other thingss while nvda tracks the progress bar.
you to do
er Settings
6.2.1.8. Virtual Buffe
ual Buffer setttings dialog can be found
d in the Prefe
erences men u, under "Virrtual Buffers...". Alternativvely, it
The Virtu
can be accessed by pressing
p
NVD
DA+Control+B
B.
The dialo
og contains the following options:
Maximum
m Number off Characters on One Line
This field
d sets the ma
aximum lengtth of a line off a virtual bufffer (in charaacters).
Maximum
m Lines Per Page
P
Although
h virtual buffe
ers don't really have page
es, this field sets
s
the amo unt of lines yyou will move
e by when pre
essing page
up or pagge down while in a virtual buffer.
Use scre
een layout
This option allows you to specify whether
w
conttent in the virrtual Buffer sshould place content such
h as links and other fields
s on
their own
n line, or if it should keep them in the flow of text as
a it is visual ly shown. If tthe option is enabled then
n things will stay
s
as they a
are visually shown, but if it is disabled then fields will
w be placed
d on their ow
wn line.
Report la
ayout tables
When dissabled this option
o
makess NVDA only report
r
tables that contain tabular data
a (where it makes sense tto know that
this is a ttable). But if enabled, NV
VDA will also report
r
tabless used purelyy for visual prresentation.
Configuring announcement of fiellds such as liinks and hea
adings
124
ed you to use the Virtual Buffer
B
settinggs dialog to configure whe
ether NVDA sshould annou
unce
Previouss versions of NVDA allowe
the type of field that you
y entered while readingg through we
eb content. E
Examples of ffield types are
e links, head
dings, tables, and
lists. To cconfigure the
ese, please fiind new optio
ons in the Do
ocument Form
matting Settings dialog. TThese optionss now not only
affect virrtual Buffers,, but any documents that may cause these
t
types oof fields to bee announced.
Automatic focus mod
de for focus changes
c
mple, when oon a web pagge, if you presss tab and yo
ou
This option allows foccus mode to be invoked iff focus changges. For exam
hecked, focuss mode will automatically be invoked.
land on a form, if thiss option is ch
Automatic focus mod
de for carret movement
m
ecked, allowss NVDA to en
nter and leave
e focus modee when usingg arrow keys.. For example
e, if arrowing
g
This option, when che
webpage and
d you land on
n an edit box, NVDA will au
utomatically bring you intto focus mode. If you arro
ow out of the
down a w
edit box, NVDA will pu
ut you back in browse mo
ode.
dication of Fo
ocus and Bro
owse modes
Audio ind
If this op
ption is enabled, NVDA willl play specia
al sounds whe
en it switche s between browse mode and focus m
mode in a
virtual Bu
uffer, rather than speakin
ng the changge.
6.2.1.9. Document Formatting Se
ettings
og box is found in the Pre
eferences me
enu, under "D
Document Foormatting...". Alternativelyy, this dialog b
box can be
This dialo
invoked by pressing NVDA+Contro
N
ol+D. All the checkboxes in this dialogg are for conffiguring whatt type of form
matting you wish
to hear a
automaticallyy as you move
e the cursor around micro
osoft word orr wordpad doocuments. Fo
or example, iff you check the
t
report fo
ont name che
eckbox, each time you arrow onto text with a different font, the name of the
e font will be announced.
You can configure an
nnouncementt of font nam
me, font size, font attributees, style, textt alignment, ttext style, tab
bles, page
numberss, line numbe
ers, spelling errors,
e
links, headings, lissts and blockkquotes.
6.2.1.10
0. Speech dicctionaries
The spee
ech dictionarries menu (fo
ound in the Preferences menu)
m
contain
ns dialogs that allow you to manage the way NVDA
A
pronounces particula
ar words or phrases. There
e are currenttly three diffeerent types oof speech dicttionaries. The
ey are:
n this dictiona
ary affect all speech in NV
VDA.
Deffault: rules in
Voice: rules in this
t dictionaryy affect spee
ech for the syynthesizer vo ice currently being used.
Tem
mporary: rule
es in this dicttionary affectt all speech in
n NVDA, but only for the ccurrent session. These rules are
temp
porary and will
w be lost if NVDA
N
is resta
arted.
All dictionary dialogs contain a listt of rules which will be ussed for proceessing the speeech. The dia
alog also con
ntains Add,
Edit and remove butttons.
To add a new rule to the dictionarry, press the Add button, and
a fill in thee fields in thee dialog box tthat appearss and then
press Okk. You will the
en see your new
n rule in th
he list of ruless. However too make sure your rule is a
actually save
ed, make sure
e
to press Ok to exit the
e dictionary dialog
d
all together once yo
ou have finisshed adding//editing ruless.
The ruless for NVDA's speech dictio
onaries allow
w you to chan
nge one stringg of characteers in to anotther. A simple
e example wo
ould
be that yyou want to have
h
NVDA sa
ay the word frog each time it is suppossed to say th
he word bird. In the Add ru
ule dialog, the
easiest w
way to do thiss is to type th
he word bird in the Pattern field, and tthe word frogg in the Repla
acement field
d. You may also
want to ttype a description of the rule
r
in the Co
omment field
d (something like: changees bird to frogg).
NVDA's sspeech dictio
onaries however are much
h more powe
erful than sim
mple word rep
placement. The Add rule d
dialog also
containss a checkbox to say wheth
her or not you
u want the ru
ule to be casee sensitive (m
meaning thatt NVDA should care wheth
her
the chara
acters are up
ppercase or lowercase. NVDA ignores case by defaault). Anotherr chekbox allows you to state whetherr
your patttern is a "Reg
gular expresssion". A regular expression is a pattern
n containing special symb
bols that allow you to mattch
125
t
or matcch on just numbers, or jusst letters, as a few examp
ples. Regularr expressions
s are
on more than one character at a time,
not covered in this usser guide, but there are many
m
tutorialss on the web
b which can p
provide you w
with more info
ormation.
aving and Re
eloading the configuration
c
n
6.2.2. Sa
NVDA sto
ores its settin
ngs in a file called
c
nvda.in
ni in its directtory. You will probably ne
ever have to ttouch this file
e, but for
advanced users, this file does allo
ow you to cha
ange some extra
e
settingss which don't yet have dialog boxes to do so.
oes not autom
matically save
e your settinggs, so if you exit
e NVDA, an
nd then resta
art it, the setttings will go back to the
NVDA do
original vvalues. Note,, however, that this defau
ult option can
n be changed
d under the ggeneral option
ns in the prefferences menu.
To save tthe settings, you can either choose the Save configuration item
m in the NVDA
A menu, or p
press NVDA+C
Control+c fro
om
anywhere.
If NVDA iis on a read-o
only file syste
em, such as a CD, it will not
n be able too save your ssettings, and it will tell you
u so. If you ever
e
make a m
mistake with your settingss and need to revert back
k to the saveed settings, yoou can eitherr choose the "revert to saved
configura
ation" item in
n the NVDA menu,
m
or you can press NV
VDA+Control +r from anyw
where.
ng with NVDA
A
Navigatin
7.1. Navigating with the
t Focus
The Mosst common way of navigatting around Windows
W
with
h NVDA, is to just move arround with no
ormal keyboa
ard commands,
such as ttab and shiftt tab to move
e forward and
d back betwe
een controls, pressing alt to get to the menu bar an
nd then using
g
the arrow
ws to navigatte menus, ussing alt+tab to
o move betw
ween running applicationss. As you do tthis, NVDA wiill announce
what hass focus.
When NV
VDA announcces an objectt (e.g. when itt receives foccus), it will ussually say thee object's name, type, sta
ate, value,
description, keyboard
d shortcut, an
nd positionall information. This is quitee similar to oother screen readers; how
wever the
types of objects may be a little diffferent.
There are
e some key commands
c
th
hat are usefu
ul when moving with focuss:
NVDA+tab - rep
ports the current focus
oreground wiindow (usefu
ul for readingg a dialog boxx)
NVDA+b - readss the entire fo
unces the title of the curre
ent foregroun
nd window
NVDA+t - Annou
t System Caret
C
7.2. Navigating with the
When the
e focus is on an object th
hat has an ed
dit cursor (sysstem caret), yyou can arrow
ou normally
w around and edit like yo
would. N
NVDA will announce as you
u move by ch
haracter, worrd, line, and w
will also annoounce selecting and unse
electing text.
When yo
ou move with the system caret,
c
the possition of the review cursoor will also bee updated to match the syystem caret.
Though tthis setting can be toggled by the key command NV
VDA+6.
NVDA pro
ovides the fo
ollowing key commands
c
in
n relation to the
t system c aret:
NVDA+downArrow: start reading from the
e position of the system ccaret, movingg it as it goess
NVDA+upArrow: read the current line at the system caret
c
NVDA+Shift+up
pArrow: read the
t currentlyy selected texxt if any
NVDA+f: report the format of
o the text under the syste
em caret
When within a table, the following
g key comma
ands are also available:
con
ntrol+alt+lefttArrow: Move
e to the previo
ous column (staying
(
in th is row)
con
ntrol+alt+righ
htArrow: movve to the nextt column (sta
aying in this rrow)
con
ntrol+alt+upA
Arrow: move to the previo
ous row (staying in this coolumn)
126
ntrol+alt+dow
wnArrow: movve to the nexxt row (stayingg in this colu
umn)
con
7.3. Obje
ect Navigatio
on
If you wissh to navigatte around the
e current app
plication or th
he Operating System a bitt, but with ou
ut moving the
e focus, you can
c
use NVD
DA's object na
avigation. This allows you to move from
m object to oobject in a treee like structu
ure. The tree
e structure of
objects sstarts at the desktop
d
wind
dow, the roott of the tree. The
T first bran
nches of the tree are the currently run
nning
applications, and of course
c
these applicationss have their own
o branchess (objects), reepresenting various partss of the
application.
The tree structure can get quite la
arge, but it do
oes allow you
u to navigatee in a logical oorder, so tha
at you can quickly find
the information you need.
n
othing to do with
w how the objects are laid out on th
he screen, bu
ut how they are related loggically. This may
m
This structure has no
take a litttle bit of time
e to get used
d to, but once
e you grasp this, you shou
uld be able too move aroun
nd quite easiily.
NVDA currently canno
ot navigate th
he objects in a screen-based layout d ue to not havving a video intercept drivver or displayy
hooks. N
NVDA choosess not to interract with the screen, more
e so becausee over all it sh
hould allow a much clearer, and more
e
logical pe
erception of an applicatio
on and the op
perating system, rather th
han trying to picture a flatt screen layo
out.
Not all applications have
h
a perfecct tree structu
ure, but this is
i up to the d
developer of tthat particula
ar application. Most seem
m to
be ok; ce
ht.
ertainly most Dialog boxess and highly structured ap
pplications sseem to havee gotten it righ
To naviga
ate by objectt, use the folllowing keys:
NVDA+numpad5: Speak currrent object
NVDA+numpad8: Move to parent
p
object (moving tow
wards the roott of the tree)
NVDA+numpad4: Move to previous
p
object (the objectt directly beffore this one on the same
e level)
NVDA+numpad6: Move to Next
N object (the object directly after th is one on thee same level))
NVDA+numpad2: Move to fiirst child obje
ect (The first branch comiing out of thiss one)
NVDA+shift+numpad4: Movve to previouss object in flo
ow (crosses p
parent child oobject bound
daries automatically
untill it can go pre
evious)
NVDA+shift+numpad6: Movve to next objject in flow (ccrosses paren
nt child objecct boundarie
es automatica
ally
untill it can go next)
NVDA+numpadMinus: Move
e to focus
NVDA+numpadEnter: Activa
ate current ob
bject (e.g. pre
ess enter / c lick / doublee click)
NVDA+Shift+Nu
umpadMinuss: Move focuss to the curre
ent object
NVDA+numpadDivide: Move
e the mouse to the curren
nt object
NVDA+numpadMultiply: Movve to the mouse
NVDA+numpadDelete: anno
ounce current object's dim
mentions in rregards to thee screen
NVDA+numpadPlus: say all objects - starrts reading frrom the curreent object, tra
aveling next in flow
note: num
mpad keys re
equire numlo
ock key to be
e turned off to
o work propeerly
When yo
ou move with the focus, th
he current na
avigator objecct changes a long with it. H
However, if yyou wish to lo
ock the objec
ct
navigatio
on to one spe
ecific object, so it doesn't change with
h the focus, yyou can turn ooff focus Movves Navigato
or Object with
h
NVDA+7.
ext in the Currrent Object
7.4. Reviewing the Te
NVDA allows you to re
ead the contents of the current naviga
ator object, b
by character, word or line. This is mosttly useful in Dos
D
console w
windows, and
d other place
es where there is a limited
d or non-exisstant system caret.
Shiftt+numpad7: Top line
numpad7: Previo
ous line
numpad8: Curren
nt line
numpad9: Next liine
shift+
+numpad9: Bottom
B
line
127
ous word
numpad4: Previo
nt word
numpad5: Curren
numpad6: Next word
w
shift+
+numpad1: Start
S
of line
numpad1: Previo
ous characterr
numpad2: Curren
nt character
numpad3: Next character
c
shift+
+numpad3: End
E of line
numpad Plus: Say all text
note: num
mpad keys re
equire numlo
ock key to be
e turned off to
o work propeerly
When an
n object conta
ains an edit cursor
c
(system caret), and
d it moves, th
he review cursor is also u
updated to th
hat position. If
you wantt the review cursor
c
to stayy where it is, and not movve with the caaret, you can
n turn off care
et Moves Revview Cursor by
b
pressingg NVDA+6.
It is posssible to copy parts of the text
t you are reviewing.
r
Fo
or example, yyou may wish
h to copy an internet addrress someone
e
has sentt you in a textt chat program. To copy te
ext, Start by moving the rreview cursorr to the first ccharacter of tthe text you wish
w
to copy, a
and press NV
VDA+f9. Then
n move to the
e end of the text, and preess NVDA+f10. The text w
will now be co
opied to the
u to move
clipboard
d so that you can paste itt somewhere else. Note th
hat if the pro gram you aree using alrea
ady allows you
through tthe text using
g the system
m caret, and copy
c
using the normal con
ntrol+c comm
mand, then yo
ou will alwayys get better
results u
using this.
7.5. Navigating with the
t Mouse
When yo
ou move the Mouse,
M
NVDA
A by default reports
r
the te
ext that is dirrectly under tthe mouse po
ointer, as it m
moves over itt.
Where su
upported, NV
VDA will read a paragraph
h's worth of te
ext, though ssome controlss may only re
ead by line.
NVDA can also be configured to also
a announce the type off control or ob
bject the mouse is curren
ntly over as itt moves (e.g.
list, butto
on etc), which may be use
eful for totally blind userss as sometim
mes the text issn't enough.
NVDA pro
ovides a wayy for users to understand where the mouse
m
is in reegards to the dimentions o
of the screen
n, by playing the
current m
mouse coordinates as audio beeps. Th
he higher the
e mouse is on
n the screen,, the higher tthe pitch of th
he beeps. The
more leftt or right the mouse is on the screen, the more leftt or right the sound will seeem to come
e from (assum
ming the use
er
has stere
eo speakers)).
These exxtra mouse fe
eatures are not
n turned on
n by default in
n NVDA, but if you wish too take advantage of them
m, you can
configure
e them from the Mouse settings
s
dialog, found in th
he Preferencces menu on the NVDA me
enu.
Although
h a physical mouse
m
or tracckpad should
d be used to navigate with
h the mouse, NVDA has a few key com
mmands
related to the mouse:
mpadDivide: Left mouse button click
num
num
mpadMultiplyy: Right mousse button clicck
Shiift+numpadD
Divide: Lock/Unlock left mouse
m
button
n down
Shifft+numpadM
Multiply: Lock
k/Unlock rightt mouse buttton down
Virtual Buffers
Complexx read-only do
ocuments, su
uch as web pages,
p
are rep
presented in NVDA with in
n a Virtual Bu
uffer.
A virtual buffer is a fla
at representa
ation of conte
ent such as a web page, tthat can be m
moved aroun
nd in with the
e arrow keys.
Informattion such as whether
w
text is a link, hea
ading etc is announced
a
allong with thee text as you move.
While in a virtual bufffer, there are
e two modes of interaction
n. Browse moode is wheree you can move around all the text using a
ursor, rather like the syste
em caret. In fact
f
all of NV
VDA's system caret key coommands will work in thiss mode (e.g. say
s
virtual cu
all, reporrt formatting,, all table navvigation commands etc). Focus mode is where you
u can directlyy interact with the control
(edit field
d, combo boxx, radio butto
ons) using wh
hat ever keyss you would n
normally use.. When in Bro
owse mode, N
NVDA will
128
automatically switch to focus mode if you tab to or click on a particular control that requires it. Note that pressing enter or
space on controls that require it will also switch to focus mode. You can also manually change to focus mode with
NVDA+space. If NVDA automatically changed to focus mode because of a tab, click or enter/space key press, it will change
back to browse mode once you tab or click on to something that doesn't require it, or if you press escape. However, if you
changed to focus mode with NVDA+space, it will stay in focus mode until you manually go back to browse mode. At any time
when you are in focus mode, you can manually switch back to browse mode by pressing escape, or NVDA+space. The virtual
buffer settings dialog in the preferences menu in the NVDA menu allows you to disable automatic switching of browse mode
and focus mode.
Currently NVDA uses Virtual Buffers for reading documents in Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Adobe
Reader.
8.1. Single Letter Navigation
While in browse mode, For quicker navigation NVDA also provides single character keys to jump to certain fields in a
virtual buffer.
By themselves they jump to the next field, with the shift key they jump to the previous field.
Available keys:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
h: heading
l: list
i: list item
t: table
k: link
n: nonLinked text
f: form field
u: unvisited link
v: visited link
e: edit field
b: button
x: checkbox
c: combo box
r: radio button
q: block quote
s: separator
m: frame
g: graphic
d: ARIA landmark
o: embedded object
1 to 6: headings 1 to 6 respectively
8.2. Forms and Focus Mode
Sometimes you may wish to interact with form fields with out the virtual buffer keys getting in the way. Focus mode is
created for this purpose, and can be toggled on and off with NVDA+space.
8.3. The Elements List
The elements list (available by pressing NVDA+f7 while in a virtual buffer) provides access to a list of either links, headings
or ARIA landmarks on the page. Radio buttons allow you to switch between these three types of information. An edit field is
also provided in the dialog which allows you to filter the list to help you search for a particular item on the page. Once you
have chosen an item, you can use the provided buttons in the dialog to move to, or activate, that item.
8.4. Embedded Objects
Pages can include rich content using technologies such as Adobe Flash and Sun Java. Where these are encountered in a
virtual buffer, NVDA will announce "embedded object". You can press enter on these objects to interact with them. If it is
129
accessible, you can then tab around it and interact with it like any other application. To return to the page, press
NVDA+space.
Troubleshooting NVDA
As NVDA is constantly being updated, there is no guarantee that all commands provided here in this user guide will still
apply. If you have any problems with any of the commands presented in this user guide, please visit: http://www.nvdaproject.org/ for more assistance.
130
Bala
abolk
ka
http://ww
ww.cross-plu
us-a.com/bala
abolka.htm
Balabolkka is a Text-To
o-Speech (TTTS) program. All computerr voices instaalled on your system are a
available to B
Balabolka. Th
he
on-scree
en text can be
e saved as a WAV, MP3, OGG
O
or WMA file. The pro gram can rea
ad the clipbo
oard content, view the texxt
from DOC
C, RTF, PDF, ODT, FB2 an
nd HTML filess, customize font and bacckground coloor, control re
eading from tthe system tray or
by the global hotkeyss. Balabolka uses
u
various versions of Microsoft
M
Sp eech API (SA
API); it allows to alter a voice's parame
eters,
includingg rate and pittch. The userr can apply a special subsstitution list tto improve th
he quality of tthe voice's arrticulation. This
feature iss useful whe
en you want to change the
e spelling of words.
w
The ru
ules for the p
pronunciation
n correction u
use the synta
ax of
VBScriptt.
Balabolkka is a Russia
an word, it ca
an be translated as "chattterer".
131
Balabolkka supports skins
s
that allo
ow you to cusstomize your window apppearance.
Downloa
ad Skin Pack (2.4 MB, 61 skins)
132
Balabolkka Screen Shot
133
DSp
peech
h
dimio.altervissta.org/eng/
Dimio's TTools http://d
DSpeech iss a TTS (Text To
o Speech) progra
am with functio
onality of ASR (A
Automatic Speecch Recognition)) integrated. It iss able to to read
d aloud the writtten
text and ch
hoose the sente
ences to be pron
nounced based upon the vocall answers of thee user. It is speccifically designe
ed to quickly and
d directly provid
de the
functions a
and improved practical
p
usefuln
ness that are req
quested by this kind of program
m. In the meanttime, the invasivveness and reso
ource consumption
is minimal. (DSpeech doe
es not install itse
elf, is very light, starts in a seco
ond and doesn'tt write anythingg to the registry). Some notable features of
DSpeech a
are:
1. Allows yyou to save the output
o
as a .WA
AV, .MP3 or OGG
G file.
2. Allows yyou to quickly se
elect different vo
oices, even com
mbine them, or juxtapose
j
them in order to crea
ate dialogues between differen
nt voices.
3. DSpeech integrates a vocal
v
recognition system that, through
t
a simple script languagge, allows you to create interacctive dialogues with the user.
4. Allows yyou to configure the voices in an independent way.
5. Thanks to apposite TAG
Gs, it allows you to dynamically change the fea
atures of the voiices during the playback (spee
ed, volume and ffrequency), to in
nsert
pause
es, emphasize specific
s
words, or
o even to spell them out.
6. Allows yyou to capture and
a reproduce th
he content of th
he ClipBoard.
7. DSpeech is compatible
e with all vocal engines
e
(SAPI 4--5 compliant).
8. AI dialogg system. Not re
eally useful, butt amusing. It doe
es not work in every
e
language.
Listen
n a sample of dialogue from DS
Speech:
Overvview of the adva
anced features of
o DSpeech:
Download DSpeech v1.55.3
v
(Window
ws NT/2000/XP
P/VISTA) ca 800
0 KB
Other
O
components you need
d to install
To open PD
DF files, you mu
ust download the DSpeech PDF
F Plug-In (ca 250
0 KB). On Wind ows XP, if you w
want use SAPI4 voices, you must install SAPI4.
Download it here (800 KB
B). On Windows NT4/2000 you must install SA
API5, you can doownload it here or here (6 MB) On Windows NTT4/2000/XP, if you
want use tthe Speech Recognition feature
es, you must insstall the MS-Reccognition Enginee as well. Down
nload it
here (30 M
MB).
Where to
t find the Voicces
SAPI5
5 voices are the
e best, but unforrtunately often they
t
are not disstributed for freee. The most fam
mous are Cepstrral, Acapela, Loq
quendo,
134
RealSp
peak and Voicew
ware.
RealSpeak: Th
hey are good vo
oices and it seem
ms that Microso
oft will integratee them by defau
ult on Windows V
Vista. British
English, Italian
n, Spanish, Fren
nch, German
eSpeak: It's a new open source engine in english (good) and
d in other langu
uages (average)).
Multilanguage
e
SAPI4
4 voices, instead
d, have worse quality
q
but are easier
e
to find, an
nd downloadablle for free; the b
best are:
L&H TrueVoice
e: They have a good
g
voice sam
mpling, but wav and
a MP3 conve rsions are very slow. American
n English, British
h English, Dutch
h,
French, German, Italian, Japa
anese, Korean, Portuguese, Ru
ussian, Spanish
Interface transla
ation in oth
her langua
ages
DSpeech interface can be
e translated in several
s
language
es: Italian (By
TTalksina & Marcco Tettamanti) Spanish
S
(By Ricardo Abad &
E
Esteban Mello)
Spanish Va
alencian (By Riccardo Abad) Spa
anish Catalan (B
By Josep Rullo Batalla)
B
French (Jean-Paul DAV
VIN) German (Byy Björn Gott) Portuguese (By Ân
ngelo
Miguel) Bra
azilian Portugue
ese (By Antonio Cezar Locutor and
a Abel P. do Nascimento
N
Jr.)) Latin American
n Spanish (By R
Rafael Lopez Jr.)) Japanese (By Philip
P
Deane) Ch
hinese (CHT) (Byy Hong Kong Blind Union) Czech
h Republic (By
135
W
WordP
Predicction
put
Quicck Inp
http://ww
ww.qinput.co
om/
Genera
al principle
es
User gu
uide






G
General princciples
S
Settings
A
Appearance
A
Applications
D
Dictionary
A
About Quick Input
After you
u start the prrogram, the Settings
S
dialo
og box will be
b visible on the screen (see ~Settinggs~) and the Quick Input icon
present iin the system
m tray.
You can disable or en
nable Quick Input with a left click on the tray icon. If you right-click it, you w
will see the Q
Quick Input po
opup
menu.
Clicking the «Enable»» menu item enables or disables
d
Quicck Input. If yoou click the «Settings» m
menu item, th
he Settings dialog
box will o
open (see «Se
ettings»). If yo
ou click the «Appearance
«
» menu item,, the dialog b
box will open where you can customize
e the
appearance of the drrop-down list with words in Quick Input (see «Appeaarance»). If yyou click the «Applicationss» menu item
m, the
dialog bo
ox will open where
w
you ca
an select the applicationss you want Qu
uick Input‘s a
assistance w
with (see «App
plications»). If you
click the «Dictionary» menu item, the dialog box will open where you can edit the Q
Quick Input d
dictionary (se
ee «Dictionaryy»). If
you clickk the «About Quick Input....» menu item
m, the dialogg box will opeen showing in
nformation a
about Quick IInput (see «A
About
Quick Inp
put»). If you click
c
the «Exitt» menu item, the program
m will close aand be erased
d from memo
ory.
136
When yo
ou type text, Quick
Q
Input adds
a
the words you type to
o the
word, Quickk Input analyzzes it
dictionarry. While you are typing each
e
and offers you a list of
o word varia
ants. All you need
n
to do is select the n ecessary word, press ’En
nter‘ and the program will type
it for you
u! This consid
derably reducces the time required
r
to tyype text.
Each new
w word is auttomatically added
a
after yo
ou insert a space, and prress ’Enter‘ oor ’Tab‘. Word
ds are stored
d in the dictio
onary
in lowerccase. For Quiick Input to type
t
a word beginning
b
witth a capital leetter, you mu
ust input the
e word using a capital lettter. If
you woulld like Quick Input to type
e a whole worrd in capital letters,
l
the first two letterrs should be typed in upp
percase.
Quick Inp
put allows yo
ou to add sele
ected words or entire sen
ntences to thee dictionary if you press tthe specified key combina
ation
(see «Setttings»).
e necessary word
w
or sentence is seleccted and the
e specified keey combinatiion pressed, a tray notificcation will inform
After the
you that the selected
d text has bee
en added to the
t dictionaryy.
137
SETTIN
NGS
You can specify vario
ous program settings
s
in th
he Settings dialog box:
▪ The «La
anguage» dro
op-down list can
c be used to
t change the
e language oof the program
m
Windows sta
▪ By enab
bling the «Ru
un at Window
ws startup» op
ption, Quick Input will be llaunched at W
artup
▪ By enab
bling the «Do
o not show this dialog boxx at startup», the Settings dialog box w
will no longer be displayed
d after Quick
Input sta
arts
▪ By enab
bling the «Add space after inserted wo
ords» option, space will bee inserted aft
fter each worrd selected in
n the drop-do
own
list
▪ By enab
bling «Use the spacebar to
t move throu
ugh the word
d list», you willl be able to sscroll through the drop-do
own word listt
using the
e arrow keys and spaceba
ar. To insert a space and add a word tto the diction
nary, you musst press CTRL+spacebar
▪ By enab
bling «Automatically add typed
t
words to the diction
nary», all worrds you type w
will be added
d to the Quickk Input
dictionarry. You can specify the miinimum lengtth of words th
hat should bee added to th
he dictionaryy. To do this, select a num
mber
in the «m
minimum word length (cha
aracters)» dro
op-down list
▪ By enab
bling the option «Add the selected worrd to the dicttionary when the key com
mbination is p
pressed», sele
ected words or
even who
ole sentence
es can be add
ded to the dicctionary by pressing the sspecified keyy combination
n. The following key
combina
ation is recom
mmended: CTTRL+SHIFT+<
<letter>
▪ The dro
op-down list titled
t
«Displayy the word lisst starting fro
om the Nth leetter» is used
d to set the number of lettters to type
before th
he drop-down
n word list is displayed
138
Appearrance
You can use the Appe
earance dialo
og box to cha
ange the app
pearance of th
he drop-down word list. Here you can change the font,
f
the colorrs of the list and
a transparrency settingss.
Applica
ations
139
The Appllications dialo
og box is use
ed to select th
he applicatio
ons you want Quick Input to help you w
with. There are two lists of
o
applications in the dialog box. The
e «Running» list contains the
t list of ap plications cu
urrently running on the sysstem. The
«Selected
d» list contains the appliccations you have selected
d. To select a n application
n from the firrst list, click tthe «>» button
n. If
you wantt to select alll running app
plications sim
multaneously,, click the «>>
>» button. If yyou want to rremove appliications from
m the
second list, click the «<» button. To
T remove all applicationss from the «S elected» list, click the «<<
<» button.
There are
e two radio buttons
b
unde
er the lists. If you select th
he «Work onlyy in NOT seleected» radio b
button, Quickk Input will no
ot
work in tthe selected applications.. If you selectt the «Work ONLY
O
in seleccted» radio bu
utton, Quick Input will wo
ork only in the
e
selected applicationss.
140
Diction
nary
This dialo
og box is use
ed to edit the
e Quick Input dictionary. The
T left side oof the dialog box containss the list of w
words and word
combina
ations stored in the diction
nary of the program. The right side co ntains button
ns you can use to add, ed
dit, remove
words, and export/im
mport the dicttionary. You can
c see brieff statistics re garding the ccurrent dictio
onary under tthe list of words
and word
d combinatio
ons: these incclude the num
mber of displlayed words aand the totall number of w
words in the dictionary.
To add a word to the dictionary, click the «Add» button in th
he Dictionaryy dialog box. TThe «Add a w
word to the diictionary» dia
alog
box will a
appear. Enter the word orr the word co
ombination th
hat needs to be added to the dictionary and click ««OK». If the
entered w
word or word
d combination is not in the dictionary, it will then b
be added.
To edit a word in the dictionary, se
elect it in the
e list and click the «Edit» b
button in the Dictionary dialog box. The «Edit the word
w
in the dicctionary» diallog box will appear. Edit the word or th
he word com bination and
d click «OK». If the edited w
word or the word
w
combina
ation is not in the dictiona
ary, it will be added.
a
To removve a word fro
om the diction
nary, select itt in the list and click the ««Remove» bu
utton. After yo
ou confirm th
hat you want to
remove tthe word, it will
w be remove
ed from the dictionary.
d
To imporrt a dictionaryy, click the «LLoad» button. You will see
e the standarrd Open File d
dialog box. S
Select a dictio
onary file and
d
click «Op
pen». A diction
nary file is a plain text file
e in the Unico
ode format, aavailable to ccreate a dictio
onary in any text editor th
hat
can then
n be imported
d into Quick Input.
141
To exporrt the currentt dictionary, click
c
the «Savve» button. Yo
ou will see th
he standard S
Save File dialog box. Speccify the name
e of
the file yyou want to sa
ave the dictio
onary to and click the «Sa
ave» button. TThe entire dicctionary will tthen be save
ed to this textt file
in Unicod
de format. If necessary, you can edit this
t dictionary file in any ttext editor.
About Q
Quick Inpu
ut
The «Abo
out Quick Input» dialog bo
ox shows info
ormation about the softwaare, with a brrief descriptio
on, registratio
on informatio
on
and a lin
nk to the prog
gram website
e.
Our prod
duct | User gu
uide | Downlload | Order | Contact uss Copyright © 2006-2007
7 Whole Grou
up. All rights reserved. C++
WMF or EMF library Turn
T
off moniitor software out partner: Translation bureau «Acceent» - quality Russian tran
nslation from
m the
major Eu
uropean lang
guages. Firmw
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142
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