Optimizing vocabulary
Submitted by MarkO on Sat, 06/21/2008 - 06:51.
In trying to improve my DNS 9.5 vocabulary, I have been using:
01. the vocabulary editor under the Words menu item in the DNS toolbar
02. the "add words from documents" function under the "improve your vocabulary" section of the Accuracy Center
03. the "adapt to writing style" function, right after the new words are added from the selected documents
My questions are:
01. Having done the above, does it still make sense to then run the Vocabulary Optimizer on all files in the My Documents folder and e-mail sent messages (i.e., is not "adapting" the same as "optimization"?)
02. Is there any advantage to running the Dragon Vocabulary Tool using MS-DOS commands using voctool.exe, as compared to just running it through the Accuracy Center, since I am not as well-versed in DOS?
Thanks for any advice
MarkO
Answer
01.
Having done the above, does it still make sense to then run the Vocabulary
Optimizer on all files in the My Documents folder and e-mail sent messages
(i.e., is not "adapting" the same as "optimization"?)
02. Is there any advantage to running the Dragon Vocabulary Tool using MS-DOS
commands using voctool.exe, as compared to just running it through the Accuracy
Center, since I am not as well-versed in DOS?
Yes and no. It depends on what is in your My Documents folder. Rather than
grabbing every file in your My Documents folder we recommend reviewing 100
pages or so of text and instead of just tossing a folder into the Vocabulary
Builder, we recommend the following.
1. Start by opening one file such as a Microsoft Word file.
2. If you are reasonably certain that all the files in your My Documents folder
should be run through the Vocabulary Builder than use the Word Insert menu.
After clicking the Insert menu press {Ctrl+a} to select all the files. This
will create a huge Microsoft Word file.
3. Do not save the file in Microsoft Word standard formatting. Save your new
giant file as a plain text file to remove all of the formatting. It doesn't
matter what the file looks like. If you attempt to run 100 documents or a 100
page Microsoft Word formatted document through the Vocabulary Builder you stand
a good chance of choking DNS and causing it to crash. A plain text file is
significantly faster and much easier on the system.
4. Forget about MS-DOS which we doubt is even an option but even if it is, #3
eliminates the need.
PS: If you're asking about Voctool then you must be using one of the professional
versions of NaturallySpeaking. Voctool is a utility that is designed for
creating specialty vocabularies for numerous users by editing the middle
vocabulary slot. For individual use, stick with the Vocabulary Builder.
PSS: Forget about running your e-mail through the
Vocabulary Builder. When NaturallySpeaking runs your e-mail through the
Vocabulary Builder it additionally examines the spellings and vocabulary style
of people who send you messages because it looks in your Send to folder. The
Send to folder typically includes the original message that you are replying to
so the last thing you want is for NaturallySpeaking to examine vocabulary that
was typed on a PalmPilot with just enough vowels so that you can guess what
some of the words mean in someone else’s writing style. Avoid this feature like
the plague.
Lunis
Orcutt - Developer of KnowBrainer
&
Host of the
http://www.thevoicerecognitionstore.com
A Nuance Gold Certified Endorsed Dragon
NaturallySpeaking Vendor/Trainer
ALWAYS Ask If Your Speech Recognition Vendor Is
Nuance Certified
Thanks much
Thank you for much for the great information and insights.
I will not plan to use the vocabulary optimizer in the future, since I agree that it is less discriminating than the targetted "add words" and "adapt" functions that allow selection of specific documents.
I assume, then, that the "adapt" function there works the same as the "optimization" function of Vocabulary Optimizer, but only on the material selected for optimization.
For reference, I am using DNS 9.5 both at home (on Vista) and in the office (on XP) with the Epic EMR.
So, by dictating patient charts, I am generating large volumes of fairly routinized and structured text.
I have been creating a running composite WordPad file of each day's dictation, by ALT/TAB'ing back-and-forth, doing a copy and paste into the open RFT document.
Then, at the end of the day, I have been running the "add words" and "adapt" functions on this file, which gives me a day-by-day upgrade on my vocabulary.
In addition, since I am generating one file at home and another file at work and, I have been saving the file in Epic (to keep it HIPPA compliant) and then running the vocabulary builder functions at each location on both sets of files.
Once I have run the vocabulary builder functions, then I delete the WordPad files and start a new set the next day.
However, going forward, I will save these daily files as plain .txt files instead of the RTF files that include the formatting of Word (Although I have never had a choke or crash episode on even several hundred pages of RTF text)
Thanks again.
Sounds like a lot of work
Hello MarkO,
that cut n paste alt tab business sounds like a lot of work. So does running the tools both at the office and at home.
Are you alt-tabbing from Word to WordPad? or from ERM? If it's from Word you can automate that really easily by doing your rtf in Word and recording the alt-tab-copy-paste operation with the macro recorder. If not you can still automate it with Dragon's macros and you shouldn't even need to use advanced scripting. Since you're going to start doing it all in .txt you should probably use Word as your destination for pasting, then you can do paste special as plain text and avoid the message telling you you're going to lose formatting every time you save.
As for running the tool twice at home and at the office, why don't you just email yourself the speech file from one place to the other and then overwrite? A batch file and XCopy will do that extremely quickly. It would also give you the advantage that your email would also be a backup.
To make a batch file you simply open notepad (or wordpad) type something like this
XCOPY C:\EMAIL\MYFILE C:\DRAGON\MYFILE /D /H /Y
and save as "MyBatch.bat" the .bat turns it into a batch file which means the copmuter will run the inctruction rather than open the file when double clinked.
The line breaks down like this. XCOPY is the DOS routine that will do the copying - it's very powerful. The first file is the source, the space after it is essential, the second file is the destination - it doesn't have to hacve the same name as the first, but in your case it will, the letters are options - here I have put D which means the file won't be copied if it's older than the destination (your computers' clocks must be correct, or at least the same), the H means it will copy system files and hidden files and the Y means it won't stop to ask questions.
If you want to see other options, click run on start menu, type cmd, hit enter, type xcopy /? and you'll get xcopy's help file.
Hope this helps you to spend a little less time doing stuff you didn't spend years at medical school to waste your now valuable time on!
Rob
same
oh, by the way, you probably won't ever have problems with rtf - it's .doc files that confuse just about every text parsing program ever built. However, .txt is always the smallest version of the three so you'll get speed improvements and storage savings (important if you're going to use email).