Windows Vista Speech Recognition and Narrator

By Matt - 2008-01-22 - Viewed 1844 times. Find more articles like this in our Accessible and Accessibility category.

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Windows Vista can now be controlled by voice input, you can tell your computer what to do instead of searching for letters on your keyboard.

Not only can this save time, but for anyone with sight disabilities this is more then a luxury, it is a must. This feature is standard on the Windows Vista operating system.

The Speech recognition program can be mixed with a built in narrator which makes your computer talk back by reading all texts or actions taking place. When the computer is set to voice command there no longer has to be any interaction with the mouse and keyboard. Basically giving almost everyone the ability to use a computer regardless of disabilities.

Speech recognition is way up there in computer evolution, talking to a computer for the purpose of giving it orders used to be something from science fiction movies but is now becoming reality.

We were surprised to see how accurate and useful voice command really was on the Windows Vista platform.

The computer really learns to understand you the more you use it and soon enough barely any keyboard intervention is required.

Not only is this a miracle for all computer users with disabilities, but it is an amusing and useful tool for all computer veterans.

The quality of your microphone will have an impact on how much the computer understands you at first, and how far you can be from the microphone before the computer can recognize your orders. Although we were able to make it work perfectly with a 10$ desk microphone. That is all you really need to make it happen, it is in no way costly.

The first step is to attach a microphone to your computer, then find the speech recognition software which is built into Windows Vista.

START button / Programs / Accessories / Ease of Access / Windows Speech Recognition

Click next when you see this screen.

Select microphone type and the setup will automatically start to run.

You will then be brought to the voice recognition training window.

Controlling the voice recognition program:

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

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

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

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

Minimize all windows to show your desktop - Show Desktop

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

Click a numbered item - 19 OK; 5 OK

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

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

Dictation

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

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

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

Select a word in a document - Select word

Select a word and start to correct it - Correct word

Select and delete specific words - Delete word

Show a list of applicable commands - What can I say?

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

Make the computer listen to you - Start listening

Make the computer stop listening - Stop listening

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

Minimize the microphone bar - Minimize speech recognition

Typing

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

Insert the numeral form of a number - Numeral number

Put the cursor before a specific word - Go to word

Put the cursor after a specific word - Go after word

Do not insert a space before the next word - No space

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

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

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

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

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

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

Select the word in the current document - Select word

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

Select all text in the current document - Select all

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

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

Select the last text you dictated - Select that

Clear the selection on the screen - Clear selection

Capitalize the first letter of the word - Caps word

Capitalize all the letters of the word - All caps word

Make all the letters in the word lowercase - No caps word

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

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

Delete the previous sentence - Delete previous sentence

Delete the next sentence - Delete next sentence

Delete the previous paragraph - Delete previous paragraph

Delete the next paragraph - Delete next paragraph

Delete the selected or last dictated text - Delete that

Keyboard Keys

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

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

Mouse Control

Show the mousegrid - Mousegrid

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

Click any mousegrid square - Click number of the square

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

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

Further information including an online video demonstration can be found on the Microsoft website

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