home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- ================================================================
-
- Kurzweil VoicePad for Windows
-
- Evaluation Release
-
- READ ME
-
- February 27, 1997
-
- ================================================================
-
- TABLE OF CONTENTS
-
- AUDIO INPUT
- 1. Confirming Correct Installation
- 2. Sound Board Compatibility
- 3. Microphone Compatibility
-
- KNOWN PROBLEMS AND WORKAROUNDS IN KURZWEIL VOICEPAD
- 1. Minimizing Installation Causes Incomplete Installation Process
- 2. First Word May Have No Alternatives
- 3. Word 6.0 Files Or Write Files Under Windows 3.1x
- 4. Deleting A New File Or Directory May Interrupt Kurzweil VoicePad
- 5. Print Preview Screen Is Not Voice-Enabled
- 6. Active Words Window Becomes Truncated
- 7. Dialog Boxes Do Not Fit On The Screen
- 8. Mouse Pointer Turns To An Hourglass
- 9. Voice Alphabet Training
- 10. Commands Added During 'Stop-listening' Mode Will Not Work
- 11. Caps Lock Key Does Not Function
- 12. Enrollment Calculation And Screen Savers
-
- FEATURES AND APPLICATION NOTES
- 1. Changing Kurzweil VoicePad System Files Using A Text Editor
- 2. Adding Commands
-
- MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
-
- ----------------------------------
-
- AUDIO INPUT
-
-
- 1. Confirming Correct Installation
-
- Confirm correct installation by starting Kurzweil VoicePad, adding yourself as
- a new user, checking sound levels, and adjusting the microphone gain as needed.
- Confirm proper operation by dictating to the system. Follow these steps:
-
- A. Start Kurzweil VoicePad. Add your name to the user list as a new user. Read
- the initial Help dialog, and click OK. The Start User screen appears. Select
- your name from the start user screen and click OK. If a message appears saying
- "Kurzweil VoicePad cannot control the microphone gain," you will have to
- perform step C.c, below.
-
- B. Complete a sound levels check by saying "Sound Levels" and following the
- prompts on the screen. You will be prompted to record four seconds of silence
- and to say nine words: "testing, one, two, three...six, seven, eight." If the
- sound levels meter does not respond to your voice during the sound levels
- check, refer to "Troubleshooting A Deaf Microphone" in online Help (search on
- the keyword "microphone").
-
- C. Adjust the Microphone Gain as Needed:
-
- a. If the difference between the level of silence and the level of your voice
- is not greater than two ticks on the sound levels meter, press the Mike Gain
- button and raise the gain level by 1. Continue to raise the gain until the
- level for your voice is in the appropriate range. For Windows 3.1x users of
- Kurzweil VoicePad, it may be necessary for you to set your microphone gain to
- 7 during your first Sound Levels check. If the difference between the level
- of silence and the level of your voice is significantly more than two ticks on
- the sound meter, you may want to lower the gain to avoid unwanted insertions
- that result from your breathing into the microphone.
-
- b. If the Sound Levels meter doesn't respond to your voice (even after you've
- raised the gain), check that the microphone plugs are connected to appropriate
- jacks on your sound board.
-
- c. If the gain button is not present, the microphone gain must be set outside
- of Kurzweil VoicePad. See "Adjusting the Microphone Gain Outside of Kurzweil
- VoicePad" in online Help (search on the keyword "microphone").
-
- d. If you still can't get a proper Sound Levels check, record a test sentence
- using the sound recorder icon in the Accessories program group. Playing it
- back will allow you to check the output sound quality of your sound board. See
- "Checking Sound Board Fidelity" (search on the keywords "sound board") in
- online Help for this procedure.
-
-
- 2. Sound Board Compatibility
-
- Steps have been taken to insure that Kurzweil VoicePad is compatible with a
- wide range of 16-bit sound boards from Creative Labs as well as other
- Windows-compatible, 16-bit sound boards.
-
- If you experience recognition difficulty or find that the microphone doesn't
- hear anything you say, the problem may be due to one of the following:
-
- A. Incorrect microphone position: Your microphone must be positioned properly
- for Kurzweil VoicePad to recognize your speech. Follow the instructions from
- your microphone manufacturer to position the microphone correctly. If the
- microphone is positioned as recommended and recognition appears to be poor or
- erratic, you may want to slightly adjust the microphone position with respect
- to your mouth to see if performance improves.
-
- B. Incorrect microphone gain. Because of the variations in microphone gain
- among sound boards, Kurzweil VoicePad's default microphone gain setting may be
- incorrect for your sound board. If recognition appears to be poor or erratic
- the first time you use Kurzweil VoicePad, see "Adjusting Microphone Gain
- Inside Kurzweil VoicePad" in online Help for information about correcting the
- problem (search on keyword "microphone").
-
- C. Non-conforming sound board. You should be able to use Kurzweil VoicePad to
- control your microphone gain, but if your sound board does not conform to
- accepted Windows conventions, you may need to refer to "Adjusting Microphone
- Gain Outside Kurzweil VoicePad" in online Help for information about correcting
- the problem (search on keyword "microphone").
-
- Kurzweil VoicePad is compatible with most notebook computers running with
- built-in 16-bit Windows-compatible sound boards including PCMCIA boards. Just
- select "Sound Blaster 16 Compatible" as the type of sound board when you
- install the software. The notebook's CPU must meet the Kurzweil VoicePad
- requirements (a Pentium microprocessor if you are running Windows 95; as well
- as 5 MB of DEDICATED RAM.) The exceptions to this rule are those members of
- the IBM ThinkPad family of notebooks with Mwave audio. By selecting "IBM
- ThinkPad" during setup, Kurzweil VoicePad will take advantage of the additional
- processing power of the Mwave DSP to improve the accuracy and response time
- of the voice recognition function.
-
-
- 3. Microphone Compatibility
-
- Kurzweil VoicePad is compatible with a wide variety of microphones. Kurzweil
- VoicePad works best with a microphone that can be positioned close to the
- corner of your mouth, such as the microphones from Andrea Electronics.
- Kurzweil VoicePad may not work well with microphones built in to your computer
- or monitor. When you install a "close talk" microphone on a computer with a
- built-in microphone, avoid interference and poor recognition performance by
- verifying that the built-in microphone completely shuts off.
-
- ----------------------------------
-
- KNOWN PROBLEMS AND WORKAROUNDS IN KURZWEIL VOICEPAD
-
-
- 1. Minimizing Installation Causes Incomplete Installation Process
-
- If you minimize the Install Shield application of Kurzweil VoicePad, the
- Kurzweil VoicePad setup icon remains minimized in the task bar and does not
- complete. Do NOT minimize installation.
-
-
- 2. First Word May Have No Alternatives
-
- It is possible, for the first session of a new user on a new Install, that you
- may not be able to correct the first word dictated via the alternative 'take-n'
- choices viewed in the Correct-That dialog. If this happens, please delete the
- first word and dictate again. Remember, that continued problems with a
- specific word can be corrected through the Recognition Wizard. See online
- Help for an explanation.
-
-
- 3. Word 6.0 Files Or Write Files Under Windows 3.1x
-
- You cannot open Write format files; nor can you open or save Word 6.0 format
- files using VoicePad under Windows 3.1x. Please save all file as 'text' in
- Windows 3.1x installations.
-
-
- 4. Deleting A New File Or Directory May Interrupt Kurzweil VoicePad
-
- If you use the right mouse button/delete function or the delete button, to
- delete a newly created or open file or directory from within VoicePad your
- system may stop responding and indicate that an invalid page fault has occured.
- Do not delete these items from within VoicePad's File/Open browser dialog.
-
-
- 5. Print Preview Screen Is Not Voice-enabled
-
- When you access the File menu/Print preview option in Kurzweil VoicePad, you
- cannot navigate it by voice. It is necessary to use the mouse or keyboard to
- initiate an action in this window.
-
-
- 6. Active Words Window Becomes Truncated
-
- When you close the print preview window, the scroll bar at the bottom of the
- Active Words window disappears. To restore the scroll bar, resize the
- Kurzweil VoicePad window or close and reopen the Active Words window.
-
-
- 7. Dialog Boxes Do Not Fit On The Screen
-
- If your video resolution is set to 640x480 with large fonts, some dialog boxes
- will not fit on the screen. Change your video resolution to a different
- setting.
-
-
- 8. Mouse Pointer Turns To An Hourglass
-
- When you change the font type or font size by voice, the mouse pointer
- changes to an hourglass until you move the mouse or issue another voice
- command.
-
-
- 9. Voice Alphabet Training
-
- If you need to train the voice alphabet (e.g. 'ALPHA') which is used in some
- dialogs [e.g. keyboard windows], do so from the Recognition Wizard's "Does not
- recognize a word" option. Click on 'Solve' and type 'ALPHA'. All voice
- alphabet words will be shown in upper case.
-
-
- 10. Commands Added During 'Stop-listening' Mode Will Not Work
-
- If you click on the 'Add Command' button, while in 'Stop-listening' mode the
- command will appear in the ActiveWords 'Listen To Me' list as an untrained
- command. However, this command is not functional.
- Do not add commands while in 'stop-listening' mode.
-
-
- 11. Caps Lock Key Does Not Function
-
- Kurzweil VoicePad can not control the Caps Lock key in some applications.
- Saying "Caps-Lock" will turn the Caps Lock indicator light on, but does not
- convert text dictated or typed after that point to uppercase. To make text
- uppercase, use the uppercase-on/off or the uppercase-that commands.
-
-
- 12. Enrollment Calculation And Screen Savers
-
- Disable your screen saver and other applications before beginning enrollment.
- Enrollment calculations slow down considerably if a screen saver interrupts
- them. Calculations should take a couple of hours without a screen saver
- active.
-
- -------------------------------
-
- FEATURES AND APPLICATION NOTES
-
-
- 1. Changing Kurzweil VoicePad System Files Using a Text Editor
-
- When you add or edit commands using the Active Words window, Kurzweil VoicePad
- automatically formats these commands in Kurzweil VoicePad .kvv system files.
- If you are forced to edit .kvv files using a text editor (Notepad or Wordpad),
- you must insert an asterisk after the equal sign. The edited entry must be left
- justified. For example: "MY ADDRESS" =* "123 Main St.", , TEXT, Y, N
-
-
- 2. Adding Commands
-
- When you use the 'Add Command' feature, you will
- 1) Fill in the 'Word is spelled' field,
- 2) Choose one of the 'Word is' 'command' or 'text' radio buttons (the default
- is 'text'), and
- 3) Fill in the 'Define Action' field.
-
- There can be some confusion about which radio button to select: 'command' or
- 'text'.
-
- A command is an action. If you wanted to add an easy command to quit the
- application spelled 'Close it' which had a 'Define Action' [Alt-F4], you would
- select the 'command' radio button.
-
- [Please note: Entries in the 'Define Action' field will format according to
- the field definition and will not exactly resemble the above typing. You will
- simply type the key strokes you want, and the application will format them as
- needed, e.g [Alt-F4] will appear as %{{F4}} in this field.]
-
- In addition, you might want to check off the 'Confirms before' checkbox. Then
- when you said: 'Close it', you would be warned with a message box asking: "Are
- you sure you want to: close it", before the action was taken.
-
- Text is defined to add any keystroke to your document (including Tabs,
- Enter-Key etc) such as a preformatted entry of your name and street address.
-
- You could set it up the following way:
- 'Word is spelled': Address
- 'Word is': 'text' radio button
- 'Define Action':
- Kurzweil Applied Intelligence[Enter key]
- 411 Waverley Oaks Road[Enter key]
- Waltham, MA 02194 [Enter key][Enter key][Enter key]
-
- [Please note: Entries in the 'Define Action' field will format according to
- the field definition and will not exactly resemble the above typing. You will
- simply type the key strokes you want, and the application will format them as
- needed, e.g [Enter key] will appear as {Enter} in this field.]
-
- In addition, for this entry to work correctly, you would also want to check
- off the 'No spaces before' and 'Initial Cap after' checkboxes, so that the
- formatting of the rest of your text before and after the 'Address' entry would
- be formatted correctly
-
-
- ----------------------------------
-
- MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
-
- Kurzweil VoicePad for Windows has an active vocabulary of 12,000 words. This
- includes 11,500 commonly spoken words and over 400 commands to control the
- application and format your documents. Kurzweil VoicePad also gives you the
- ability to add 500 words of your own. To use Kurzweil VoicePad, your
- computer must satisfy the following minimum system requirements:
-
- 1. Windows 95 or Windows 3.1x (running in enhanced mode).
- 2. 486 DX4/75 microprocessor or higher. A Pentium is required if you are
- using Kurzweil VoicePad on the Windows 95 operating system.
- 3. 5 MB of DEDICATED RAM
- This does not include the memory required for the Windows operating system and
- your applications. Your applications and the operating system typically
- require 8 MB of RAM. Consequently, you will need a total of at least 13 MB of
- RAM to run Kurzweil VoicePad.
- 4. 20 MB disk space.
- 5. A 16-bit sound board from Creative Labs, or other Windows-compatible,
- 16-bit sound board.
- 6. A microphone that your sound board supports. Kurzweil AI currently
- recommends the Andrea NC-50 noise-canceling microphone for use with all
- Kurzweil AI voice products. Kurzweil VoicePad has also been tested with the
- following microphones:
- A. Telex Nomad
- B. Shure VR230B/SM10
- 7. VGA (or higher) video adapter
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-