How to Use Speech Recognition Profiles and Dictionaries with a Tablet PC
Published: March 21, 2005
Whenever a new Tablet PC user asks me how to get the most out of his new Tablet PC, I suggest the same two things:
| • | Customize it to fit your personal style. |
| • | Learn how to use all of its data input features. |
In Customize Windows XP for Power Tablet Use, I explain how to adjust settings to personalize your Tablet PC. Improved features for speech and handwriting input are included with Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005. In this column, I'll explain how to use speech recognition profiles and dictionaries with the Dictation mode in Tablet PC Input Panel. I'll also explain how to edit and back up these files.
You can always use the on-screen, or built-in, keyboard to enter text, but I think it creates a more natural computing experience when you can also use handwriting or your voice to input data. Entering text with a tablet pen or with your voice rivals the benefit of using a keyboard (or beats it if you don't touch-type), and gives you the freedom that only a Tablet PC can offer.
Good speech recognition requires that you take the time to customize a speech recognition profile for your personal use. And you'll get better handwriting recognition results after you've added words and terms from your own vocabulary to the dictionary.
Creating a Speech Recognition Profile
A speech recognition profile includes the results from your speech training and the recognition settings that you chose. The speech recognition profile adapts to match your personal way of speaking. This means that even though New Englanders and people from southern California start out using the same profile, in time, the profile adjusts to the way the speaker pronounces words and the quality of speech recognition improves.
If you're using anything other than American English with your Tablet PC, you'll want to install Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 Recognizer Pack so that your handwriting can be converted from digital ink into typed text in one of the 20 other supported languages. This is not to be confused with Multilingual User Interface (MUI) Pack, which supports changing the language in dialog boxes, menus, help files, and tutorials.
The speech recognition profile is part of your user log on. Your profile will not affect the speech recognition profiles of people who log on to your Tablet PC with different user names. After you've trained your profile, it's a good idea to discourage other people from using the speech features when you're logged on. It will provide poor results for them and will degrade speech recognition performance for you.
Before you can use the speech feature for the first time, you must complete the Microphone Wizard and the Voice Training Wizard to begin training your Tablet PC to recognize your voice. Later, you can do more training to improve speech recognition.
To use speech recognition for the first time
1. | Tap Tablet PC Input Panel on the taskbar. |
2. | On the Tools and Options menu, tap Speech, as shown in Figure 1.  Figure 1 Additional speech buttons will be added to Input Panel, allowing you to start dictation mode or voice command mode, as shown in Figure 2.  Figure 2 |
The first time you tap Speech, the Microphone Wizard opens to help you set the appropriate input volume for your microphone, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3
Note that good speech recognition requires a good quality microphone, preferably one that cancels noise. Quality doesn't necessarily mean expensive either. I get excellent results from a $10 microphone and headset that I purchased at Radio Shack.
After adjusting the microphone, you'll be prompted to do a speech training session. Follow the prompts in the wizard and read the sample text. The words you read are highlighted after the wizard recognizes them, as shown in Figure 4. When the wizard doesn't recognize a word, repeat the word until it's been highlighted or press Skip.
Figure 4
After you complete the training, you can start using the speech features.
1. | Place the cursor where you want the text to go, and then open Input Panel. |
2. | Tap Dictation, and then start speaking. |
You can continue to add voice training whenever you want by tapping Speech Tools in Input Panel, and then tapping Voice Training. The more you perform voice training, the better the quality of your speech recognition. It may be boring but it really pays off in the long run. Note that you should do the training in a similar environment to the one where you'll use your Tablet PC because the level of background noise becomes part of your speech recognition profile. If you routinely use your Tablet PC in significantly different environments, it's a good idea to create a recognition profile for each environment, and then switch between the profiles as needed.
Tip: If you use speech a lot, consider defining a keyboard shortcut on your Tablet PC that uses a keystroke that you can also use to open Speech. I use F9 to open Speech when I have a keyboard available and a button on the face of my Tablet PC to open Speech when I do not.
To activate the keyboard shortcuts:
1. | Open Input Panel, tap Tool and Options, and then tap Options. |
2. | On the Speech tab, tap Keyboard Mode Key Settings. |
3. | Select the Assign Mode Buttons check box. |
4. | Tap Okay to close each window. |
Customizing the Handwriting Recognition Dictionary
Handwriting recognition differs from speech recognition on a Tablet PC. In a nutshell, the Tablet PC can't learn your handwriting, but it can learn your vocabulary. Handwriting recognition relies on a combination of thousands of writing samples and a large dictionary of possible words. To improve the likelihood of accurate handwriting-recognition results, the writing pad compares its interpretation of what you wrote with words and characters in the handwriting-recognition dictionary. The dictionary contains common words.
If you frequently need to correct the same word when you use the writing pad, consider adding that word to the dictionary. This is especially useful for unique words, such as names and acronyms. There is a separate handwriting dictionary for each person who logs on to your Tablet PC. When you add words, you add them only to your dictionary.
You add words to the handwriting-recognition dictionary from the correction area in Input Panel.
To add a word to the handwriting-recognition dictionary
1. | Open Input Panel. |
2. | To display the writing pad, tap the Writing Pad button. |
3. | In the writing area, write the word that you want to add to the dictionary. |
4. | Tap the recognized text that you want to correct. |
5. | In the correction area, revise the converted text so that the word that you want to add to the dictionary appears. |
6. | Tap Add to dictionary. |
The dictionary is the heart of handwriting recognition, so if the Tablet PC doesn't know a word you regularly use, you should add it to the dictionary to achieve good recognition.
The easiest way to add a word to the dictionary is in Input Panel immediately after you correct the misinterpreted word. If the word is not in the dictionary, tap Add to dictionary, as shown in Figure 5, in the correction area after you correct the misinterpreted word to add it. If Add to dictionary is unavailable, the word is already in the dictionary.
Figure 5
User dictionary words go into a list that was created so speech users could add custom pronunciations for words. This means that words added to your dictionary for handwriting can have custom pronunciations as well. For more information, see Using Speech Dictionaries to Improve Handwriting Recognition Results.
Teach the Tablet Custom Words
No matter how good the training, there will be some words your Tablet PC consistently misunderstands each time you say them. This is a common occurrence if you use acronyms that lack vowels. These baffle the speech recognizer.
To fix this problem, you must add the pronunciation for that word.
To add the pronunciation of a word
1. | Open Input Panel and on the Speech menu, tap Add Pronunciation for a Word. The Add Pronunciation window opens. It contains an alphabetical listing of words with custom pronunciations as well as any words you added by using Add to dictionary in Input Panel. |
2. | In the Word box, type the word that you want to pronounce. If the word is already in the list, it will be selected. |
3. | Tap Record pronunciation, and then say the word in your normal speaking voice. The pronunciation for that word is now part of your speech recognition profile. |
4. | Record pronunciations for any other words you want to add and then close the window. |
In the future these words should be recognized with a greater degree of accuracy. You can also remove a word from this list. This can be helpful if the Tablet PC consistently confuses a word with another custom word. Removing the word from the list can fix the problem.
Back up or Duplicate Your Speech Recognition Profile
After you've invested time and effort training your voice recognition profile, the last thing you want is to have to redo it after a system failure or when you move your profile to a new Tablet PC. Until recently the speech profile was located in several files scattered around the hard disk. Unless you backed up the entire contents of your hard drive, you'd be unlikely to have a backup of these files. However, a new tool helps fix that problem.
The Speech Recognition Profile Manager tool is a free download. After it is installed, you can move your entire speech profile to a backup folder and restore it. Or, you can export it to a new Tablet PC. If you do import it on a new Tablet PC, you'll need to rerun the Microphone Wizard to adjust the profile for the new sound card and new microphone. Speech recognition will be slightly worse on the new Tablet PC until the profile adjusts for the new hardware.
To install Speech Profile Manager
1. | Download the Speech Recognition Profile Manager tool. |
2. | Double-tap it to unzip it. |
3. | Click Yes to accept the License agreement. |
4. | When the WinZip Self Extractor Window opens, change the Unzip to Folder field to go to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Accessories. |
5. | Click Unzip. |
6. | Close the WinZip Self Extractor Window. |
To use Speech Profile Manager
1. | Tap Start, tap All Programs, tap Accessories, and then tap SpProfileMgr. |
2. | Select a voice profile from the list. Most users have only one default profile, as shown in Figure 6. |
3. | Tap Export, and then specify a location in which to save the file. If you're backing up the profile, this should be on another computer or on some kind of removable media. |
Figure 6
If you want to reinstall the profile, simply open Speech Profile Manager, tap Import, and then choose the correct profile. After importing it, you may need to go to Speech in Control Panel, and then select the appropriate profile to use for speech. You'll also need to rerun the Microphone Wizard. Because the Tablet PC's handwriting user dictionary piggy-backs on the custom words dictionary used by handwriting, backing up the speech recognition profile will back up your user dictionary as well.
Editing Your Dictionaries
Suppose you'd like to add an entire list of words specific to your profession or industry to your Tablet PC dictionary all at once rather than one word at a time. You can do this with these two tools:
| • | Microsoft Dictionary Tool for Tablet PC |
| • | abletDictionaryMgr |
You'll find the first tool at Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, where you can download the Dictionary Tool for Tablet PC and install it.
To open the Dictionary Tool for Tablet PC
| • | Tap Start, tap All Programs, tap PowerToys for Tablet PC, and then tap Dictionary Tool. |
You can enter words into your dictionary one at a time similar to how the Add Pronunciation tool worked. You'll also see a tab for the Microsoft Office dictionary, as shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7
Some programs supply their own dictionaries. The most common instance of this occurs in Microsoft Office programs such as Word and Outlook. The Office dictionaries come primarily from the lists you create when you add a word to the dictionary during spell check. Words in these dictionaries are not available every time you use Input Panel unless you specifically add them to your dictionary with the Import Office Dictionary button. You can use of the Dictionary Tool's File menu to import a text file. This lets you add a list of words that have been separated by carriage returns to the user dictionary all at once. For industries with thousands of technical terms such as the medical industry, importing a long list of words like this is critical for effective use of the Tablet PC at work.
The abletDictionaryMgr from abletFactory lets you add and remove words from your user dictionary like the Dictionary Tool PowerToy. It also provides other features, such as the ability to add all the names and e-mail addresses from your Outlook account to the dictionary. Plus, it allows you to back up your dictionary to a text file, and in the process, removes all duplicates.
The company also offers pre-made Special Interest Dictionaries (SPIDs) for a wide variety of professions and languages. These are basically lists of thousands of words that have already been collected for you, as shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8
The Tablet PC offers a range of use that no other portable computer can match. To deliver on this promise, however, you need to make the effort to train your voice profile and build a comprehensive user dictionary. It's up to you to back up your data too. Take the time to do both and you'll be one happy Tablet PC owner.
 | Jeff Van West is the author of over a dozen books, CDs, and training curricula about computers, technology, and aviation.
Titles include Microsoft Tablet PC Quick Reference (Microsoft Press, 2002) and
Illustrator CS Hands-On-Training (Peachpit Press, 2004).
His multimedia training programs are used in North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan. An advocate of what he terms "appropriate technology," Jeff focuses on applying the best solution to accomplish the task, rather than using cool features just because they're there. He can be reached at Van West Communications.
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