F. Manipulating Windows

Many of the Windows features and commands described in this section are not part of the Standard versions of the software. To get the most out of Voice Xpress with Microsoft Word, you will need to have the Advanced or Professional versions of Voice Xpress.

Manipulating Windows and using Voice Xpress with other applications is one of the fun things to do with speech recognition. For instance, with the Advanced and Professional version of Voice Xpress you can dictate easily into Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Excel. You can also save your documents by simply saying Save Changes or open a document with the Open command. You can open and close most Windows programs at will. You can also open and use most menus by saying such commands as Start Menu. In fact, you can open almost any menu by simply saying the name of the menu followed by Menu.

Try some of the following examples and then find a few new commands using the What Can I Say? feature as demonstrated at the end of this section:

1. Start L&H Voice Xpress and open XpressPad.

2. Try manipulating your menus. Start with the View menu. Say:

View Menu <pause> Toolbar

View Menu <pause> Format bar

View Menu <pause> Dictation bar

View Menu <pause> Ruler

View Menu <pause> Status bar

3. Say the above commands again and replace your toolbars as you like to see them appear.

4. Close XpressPad with your voice. Try this:

File Menu <Pause> Exit (or say Close XpressPad)

54. With the professional version, Voice Xpress gives you some specialized voice activated programs such as a special voice calculator and a personal voice-activated planner. However, even with the last costly versions of the software you can still open many of the on board Windows applications.

Open Calculator <Pause> Close Calculator

Open Paint <Pause> Close Paint

6. Trying minimizing, restoring, and maximizing your Windows programs with the following commands. Reopen the paint program and try the following commands.

Open Paint <Pause>

Minimize <Paint >

Maximize <Paint >

Restore <Paint>

7. There are dozens of possible ways to use your voice to manipulate Windows and the programs in your personal computer. To learn more about what you can do, try the What Can I Say? options. The What Can I Say? options open up an extensive list of possible commands that you can use in various situations and in various other Windows applications. Scrolling down the list is the easiest way to find new commands you can use. (For instance, you can look up and research NLT commands easily using the What Can I Say? selection window.)

Say this:

What Can I Say? (or choose What Can I Say? from the L&H Voice Xpress menu)

8. Say the command you are looking for. In this practice segment say:

Go

Find (or say Enter or Enter Key)

9. You will then view a list of possible NLT commands that will work using the word Go. Choose the Find More tab to view more NLT commands containing the word Go.

Figure F-1: Use What Can I Say? to explore new, natural language commands.