PowerPoint with DNS
Submitted by Dan Lufkin on Mon, 05/05/2008 - 14:45.
I recently had the job of replacing the text of a Swedish PowerPoint (Office 2007) presentation with English text. This is something I do all the time with Word docs, so I thought that my usual approach of just dictating the new text onto the screen and deleting the original text as I go would work. Well, it worked to a certain extent. I didn't get an automatic space after words or punctuation and "correct [text]" didn't work every time. Nothing fatal, just flaky enough to be annoying. Am I missing something?
Please advise. Note that I share your disdain for PowerPoint -- I wore rubber gloves while I was working on the job.
Dan
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You're not missing anything
I have the same experience with PowerPoint 2003. For some reason, PowerPoint does not have the same structure as Microsoft Word or Microsoft Outlook, so that NaturallySpeaking does not have Select-and-Say capability. You will note that the green light on the DragonBar is not showing when you work in PowerPoint.
The best solution I can suggest is to use the dictation box.
PP vs DNS
Well, as I said, I'm so used to sailing along through Word with 9.5 that PP seems quite limited. I have a wide monitor and thought I'd experiment with Dragon Pad and PP in tandem, cutting and pasting. The dictation box would work, too.
German has a saying "Why do it simple when complicated also works?" (Warum einfach wenn es umständlich auch geht?)
Dan
Dan Lufkin wrote: Well, as
Well, as I said, I'm so used to sailing along through Word with 9.5 that PP seems quite limited. I have a wide monitor and thought I'd experiment with Dragon Pad and PP in tandem, cutting and pasting. The dictation box would work, too.
German has a saying "Why do it simple when complicated also works?" (Warum einfach wenn es umständlich auch geht?)
Dan
Dan,
First, unlike Microsoft Word, Excel, or Outlook 2007 (Microsoft Office 2007), PowerPoint 2007 does not have a COM Add-In for Select-and-Say. The reason for this is simply because all textboxes used in PowerPoint (regardless of version) do not support either rich text edit or Text Framework Services. Therefore, they cannot be Select-and-Say enabled.
What this means is that you can only use Select-And-Correct or select and redictate with the last utterance. Once you continued dictation, any previous utterances are unavailable or selection and/or correction. In addition, if you pause between utterances, DNS will not space correctly. That is, you have to add a space before you continue dictating after a pause. Any text currently in any textbox in PowerPoint that was when you opened a PowerPoint slide show cannot be selected except by mouse/keyboard or via the global Natural Language Commands (i.e., select the previous three words, select line, etc.).
Second, the global Natural Language Commands do work. In addition, there is a full set of Natural Language Commands specifically for PowerPoint that make navigation of the Office button and Office button options, as well as making it easier to navigate any and all of the ribbon bars (ribbon bar options/ribbon bar buttons). Also, active accessibility works (MSAA – Microsoft Active Accessibility).
Note that PowerPoint was never Select-and-Say enabled in any version of DNS even though you can dictate with limitations.
Chuck Runquist
Former Dragon NaturallySpeaking SDK & Senior Technical Solutions PM for DNS
"The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak." - Hans Hofmann: Abstract expressionist painter
PowerPoint and DNS
Thanks, Chuck, that describes the situation perfectly. As I said, DNS and PowerPoint do work fairly well together. The PP job I had was entirely in text boxes, so there was an extra layer of complication, but I'd estimate that it didn't take more than an extra 15 minutes or so for the entire 26-slide document.
Good point about not pausing in dictating a sentence. I notice (with Word or Dragon Pad) that if I just keep rolling, even inserting extra words if I need to, DNS delivers a more accurate product and I can go back and delete false starts easier than hesitating and getting the phrasing 100% right the first time. This is more like simultaneous interpreting than written translation and takes a little getting used to.
Dan -- The perfect is the enemy of the pretty good.