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23 MacSpeech DictateChapter 5 — Dictation
Dictating Special Kinds of Words
As you learned while training MacSpeech Dictate, it is
necessary to speak punctuation so it can accurately tell
where sentences begin and end, among other things. There
is an extensive list of things you can say. The following tables
provide a guide to the different things you can say that do not
produce words on the page.
One thing we get asked frequently is how MacSpeech Dictate
knows the difference between punctuation and a real word.
Consider the following sentences:
Wayne scored the winning goal in the third period
PERIOD (US Only)
The train came to a full stop FULL STOP (all
dialects)
As mentioned earlier, MacSpeech Dictate does not use word
recognition, but rather a highly complex analysis method
commonly referred to as continuous speech recognition. The
program actually analyzes complete phrases as you speak —
taking a close look at what is said both before and after the
current word you utter. Only then does it make its best guess
on what should be typed.
Because of this, MacSpeech Dictate has many special terms
that produce a variety of effects or symbols. Let’s take a look
at them.
Capitalization
MacSpeech Dictate does some capitalization formatting
for you. It will automatically capitalize the first word in a
document, the first word in a sentence, and proper names that
are already in its vocabulary. Otherwise, use the following
capitalization commands:
Capitalization Commands
What You Say What Happens
Caps On
Turnscapitalizingtherstletterofevery
word on.
Caps Off
Turnscapitalizingtherstletterofevery
word off.
Cap <word> Capitalizes the next word spoken.
All Caps <word> Types the next word spoken in CAPS.
All Caps On Makes every word CAPS.
All Caps Off Returns capitalization to normal.
No Caps <word> Makes the next word spoken lower case.
No Caps On Makes the following text lowercase.
No Caps Off Returns to regular capitalization rules.
Hyphenated and compound words
The behavior for dashes and hyphens is slightly different
depending on what you are dictating. For most things,
MacSpeech Dictate puts a space before and after a dash. If
you dictate a US phone number, however, MacSpeech Dictate
will correctly type it without the spaces before and after the
dash.
To make a hyphenated word, you would need to say “hyphen”
where you want the hyphen to appear, as follows:
“free HYPHEN wheeling”
For compound words you would say No Space On before you
say the compound word, and then say No Space Off after you
finish speaking the word. For example, to have MacSpeech
Dictate type “AppleTV” you would do the following:
“NO SPACE ON Apple TV NO SPACE OFF”
You can also say No Space <word> to type the next word
without putting a space in front of it. Using the same example,
you would say:
“Apple NO SPACE TV”
Punctuation
There are a variety of things you can say to have MacSpeech
Dictate type punctuation and symbols. The following table
lists the various things you can say, and what MacSpeech
Dictate will type:
Punctuation Examples
What You Say
What Happens
Ampersand &
Apostrophe ‘
Apostrophe ess ‘s
Asterisk *
At Sign @
Back Slash \
Back Quote ‘
Caret ^
Cents Sign ¢
Close Angle Bracket >
Close Brace }
Close Bracket (US Only)
Close Square Bracket (All Dialects)
]
Close Euro Quote »
Close Parenthesis (All Dialects)
Close Bracket (Non-US Dialects)
)
Close Quote ” (close curly quote)
Close Single Quote ’
Colon :
Comma ,