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26 MacSpeech DictateChapter 5 — Dictation
Date and Time Examples
What You Say What Happens
Three SLASH Eleven SLASH Two
Thousand and Two
3/11/2002
April First April 1
March Twenty Second March 22
The Nineteen Eighties the 1980’s
Eight COLON Thirty
8:30 (US)
8.30 (others)
Seven Forty Five A M
7:45 AM (US)
7.45 AM (others)
Ten Twenty Two P M
10:22 PM (US)
10.22 PM (others)
Three O’Clock or Three COLON Zero Zero
3:00 (US)
3.00 (others)
Five O’Clock PM
5:00 PM (US)
5.00 PM (others)
Telephone Numbers
MacSpeech Dictate will even format phone numbers for you.
For the US version, just say the number as you normally
would, pausing between groups of numbers.
US Telephone Number Examples
What You Say What Happens
Three Five Zero Zero Nine Zero Three 350-0903
Six Oh Three Three Five Oh Oh Nine Oh
Three
603-350-0903
One Eight Hundred Five Five Five One Two
One Two
1-800-555-1212
OPEN PARENTHESIS Six Zero Three
CLOSE PARENTHESIS Three Five Zero
Zero Nine Zero Three
[phone]
One Two One Two Five Five Five Twelve
Twelve
1-212-555-1212
When dictating a phone number for outside the US you
will need to say all the punctuation (hyphens, spaces, and
parenthesis).
Non-US Telphone Number Examples
What You Say What Happens
OPEN PARENTHESIS Oh One Six Two
Eight CLOSE PARENTHESIS EIght Nine
Four One Five Oh
[phone]
Oh Two Seven SPACE BAR Six Two Nine
SPACE BAR Eight Nine Four Four
027 629 8944
Six One HYPHEN Seven HYPHEN Four Six
Nine Five HYPHEN Two Zero Five Five
61-7-4695-2055
OPEN PARENTHESIS Six Five CLOSE
PARENTHESIS Two Seven Seven Eight
Five Nine Zero
(65) 2778590
Spelling Mode
Spelling Mode will be introduced in a future version. This will
be a free update for existing MacSpeech Dictate 1.0 users.
Troubleshooting Dictation
Using MacSpeech Dictate for dictation is fairly straight forward
— you speak, and the text appears at the location of the
insertion point, in any document. Occasionally, however, you
may experience reduced accuracy or other problems. There
is usually an easy solution to these issues.
Extra Words
If “extra” words such as “the,” “to,” “of,” “oh,” “and,” and “a,”
appear in your document — sometimes when you aren’t even
speaking — this usually means the microphone is too close
to your mouth. What is happening is MacSpeech Dictate is
capturing the sound of your breathing — your breath sounds
— and attempting to convert those sounds into words.
For best results, makes sure the microphone is one to two
fingertips away from the corner of your mouth. (If you are soft-
spoken, you might have to have it as close as a thumb’s width.
If you have a loud voice, maybe a bit further.) When properly
positioned, you should be able to drink from a normal-sized
glass without touching the microphone or spilling the liquid.
Accuracy Issues
If your recognition accuracy suddenly deteriorates, first take
a look at the signal strength meter in the Feedback window.
When you speak, it should be about 80% to 90% green. If
there is too little or too much green in the meter, there is a
good chance your voice is not being recognized properly. This
can happen if the noise level in the environment in which you
are using MacSpeech Dictate changes from what it was when
you first set up your profile.
Don’t panic. All you need to do is select S e t U p M y M i c r o p h o n e
from the Tools menu in MacSpeech Dictate to re-calibrate
your microphone, which takes only a few seconds.
Dictation Doesn’t Appear In Your Document
Make sure you are using the same microphone that was
connected when you set up the current profile. Microphones
are profile-specific. To use a different microphone, you need
create a new profile.
There is a rare instance where a corrupt font could prevent
dictation from appearing in a document.