Issuing Voice Commands to Word
You control both voice commands and dictation from Word's Language Bar (see Figure 7.4). If the Language Bar does not appear, right-click the Restore button in the Windows taskbar. To turn on Voice Command, click Voice Command.
Figure 7.4. Word's Language Bar.
NOTE
The Language Bar may contain different commands depending on which features you are using, or have used.
Word recognizes the following commands:
Any menu command. First say the name of the menu and then say the name of the command.
Any command, setting, or button in a dialog box (but not numeric values in dialog boxes). To check a box, say Check, followed by the command name. To clear a box, say Uncheck, followed by the command name.
Tabs in dialog boxes with multiple tabs.
Any toolbar button; say the name of the button.
The word "select," which tells Word you want to select text or other document elements next.
The phrase "task pane," which displays the task pane.
Various navigation settings, as listed in Table 7.1.
To Do This… | Say This… |
|---|---|
Backspace | Backspace or Delete |
Go back one word | Back one word or Last word |
Go Down One Screen | Page down |
Go Down | Down or Go down |
Go forward one word | Forward one word or Next word |
Go left | Left or Go left |
Go right | Right or Go right |
Go to beginning | Home or Go Home |
Go to End | End or Go End |
Go to next page | Next page |
Go to previous page | Previous page |
Go up one screen | Previous screen |
Go up | Up or Go up |
Press Escape | Escape or Cancel |
Press the Enter key | Enter or Return |
Press the spacebar | Space or Spacebar |
Redo | Redo |
Right-click to show a shortcut menu | Right-click or Context menu or Right-click menu |
Tab | Tab |
Undo | Undo |
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It's unlikely you've memorized the names of all the toolbar buttons you'll ever want to use. For example, did you remember that the right-align button is called Align Right, not Right Align?
You can always display a button's name by hovering the mouse pointer over the toolbar button. Of course, if you can hover over the button, you can also click it?but at least you'll know the name for next time.
You may find yourself using Word to format text. You can instruct Word to select text by speaking the word "select," followed by whatever you want Word to select; for example: "select word," "select paragraph," "select table," or "select all" (which selects the entire document).
When text is selected, you can speak the name of the formatting you want to apply: "bold," "italic," "underline," "bullet," "numbering," "increase indent," and so forth. You can say "font" to display the list of fonts and then speak the name of a font you want to apply, such as Arial. You can also say "font size," and then speak the font size you want to apply.
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If Word is having trouble understanding your commands, you may want to adjust the margin of error it permits in recognizing commands. To do so, follow these steps:
From the Language Bar, choose Tools, Options.
Click the Settings button. The Recognition Profile Settings dialog box appears (refer to Figure 7.8, later in this chapter).
Figure 7.8. Adjusting the trade-off between accuracy and recognition.
In the Pronunciation Sensitivity area, drag the slider to the left, toward Low; then click OK twice.
