Lunis,

While I was following KnowBrain's instructions for installing DNS 11, I missed the importance of the "If you see any user files that you do not wish to update, click the Remove button followed by clicking Next."  As fate would have it, the second user file was one that I had been meaning to delete because it was corrupt.  Dragon got confused and I do not remember the sequence of events but the outcome was that I wound up without the custom words and without the commands.

What is the best way to get those custom words and commands from the user in DNS 10 into DNS 11? Can I use the "Get Words" and "Put Words"programs? Can I import the commands?

Thanks so much for the prompt delivery of the programs.

Tee

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Put words does not work with DNS 11, unfortunately. So I just decided to manually import my word list into DNS 11. It was a good opportunity for me to clean out words that are no longer needed as well.

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Bill
DNS Pro v12.5, KB 2012, Mtech Desktop PC (i7 960 3.2 gHz with 12 GB RAM), Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, 240 GB SSD, Philips SpeechMike 3500, SpeechWare 3-in-1 TableMike, Philips SpeechMike 5274 Classic, MS Office 2010 Professional

Tee & Bill,

GetWords and PutWords do in fact work even in DNS 11. However, because of the underlying changes in the vocabulary in DNS 11, you can experience some new issues, and there is one old issue that has been discussed many times.

First, you cannot use GetWords with an earlier version of DNS and use the following option.

In addition, if your custom words from an earlier version of DNS do not conform to the requirements and restrictions in DNS 11, you will get the same error.

The bottom line is that it does work: (a) as long as you use it properly, and (b) as long as there are no errors or invalid entries in your previous version vocabulary.  The bottom line is that as major changes are being made to the vocabulary in every version, we are getting to the end of the GetWords/PutWords beneficial lifecycle.

However, GetWords/PutWords does seem to work properly in DNS 11 you are exporting and importing custom words from DNS 11 to import into a new user profile created in DNS 11.  In this case, you can use the add pronunciation option in GetWords.  You just can't use it across versions, you can only use it within versions.

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower® Ultimate

"Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without one." -  Chinese Proverb

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Chuck,

I don't think you can do this, get the pronunciations with GetWords, and it must have started with version 11.

Rüdiger

 

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Well, it's past the point where we can make any changes in the code, but we can still make changes to the Easter Egg!

Rüdiger,

I don't know about you, but I've been able to successfully use GetWords and PutWords with the pronunciation addition copying from one DNS 11 user profile to a new one.  The only reason it doesn't work is if there is an invalid entry.  Nevertheless, I've tested this out thoroughly and only had one instance where there was an invalid vocabulary word, which I deleted and after which PutWords imported all my custom vocabulary with pronunciations.  I always test this thoroughly in any new version.

Sorry to disagree with you, but this is one of the first things that I tested when I got my initial copy of DNS 11.

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower® Ultimate

"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it" -- Gandhi

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Chuck,

please also look at the quote below from the same author - not referring to Gandhi.

http://www.knowbrainer.com/pubforum/index.cfm?page=viewForumTopic&topicId=10413&pageNo=4#8C8E22E5-95D7-B944-52510BF4DA70732Athread53672

So, once I had a copy of version 11 (Premium), one of the first things I tested was whether or not you can still get the pronuciations of custom words using GetWords in this version, and no, you can't.

Rüdiger

 

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Well, it's past the point where we can make any changes in the code, but we can still make changes to the Easter Egg!

Rüdiger,

I just did it again.  It worked for me.  Granted, there's a little trick to it when you come up with the error message, but it works just fine.

Don't tell me that it doesn't work when I can prove to you that it does.  Just because it doesn't show the pronunciations any longer in the word list, doesn't mean it doesn't transfer them.  I have some very complex custom words and phrases that normally wouldn't be recognized unless they were trained (had a pronunciation associated with them).  When I create an entirely new user profile and I use PutWords after using GetWords adding pronunciations, these words and phrases are recognized accurately every time.  When I created a new user and use the DNS 11 export/import for vocabulary, and imported them into a brand-new user with no custom words, these words and phrases were not recognized when I dictated them.  So, you may not see the pronunciations, but they are there.

I will grant you this, what I said originally was that GetWords/PutWords is reaching the end of its useful life cycle, however, IT STILL WORKS if and when used properly.  Sorry to give you a hard time on this, but I've been testing this for a very long time just to see what works and what doesn't work and where the caveats are.

Still, because of some of the problems that can arise in the fact that the fix is not intuitive and involves some playing around with the file using a new user with no custom words, it still can be made to work.  However, I'm at the point where I don't recommend it to uninitiated users.

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower® Ultimate

"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it" -- Gandhi

-------------------------

Chuck,

the problem is just that taking things for granted of which I am not convinced has never been my style. In addition to that, and not intending to embarrass you, believe me, in making your above statements you don't only contradict my findings, but you are also contradicting yourself, considering the statements quoted below.

Nevertheless, what you are basically saying now is that in exporting the custom words (written form, and spoken form if available) to a TXT file, using GetWords, the underlying pronunciations are also transferred somehow? Is this what you are saying now?

Rüdiger

 

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Well, it's past the point where we can make any changes in the code, but we can still make changes to the Easter Egg!

Thanks to everyone who participated in this discussion. I did use the program "Get Words" to get the list of words without including pronunciation in the word list from a slightly older version of my user files from DNS 10. It was interesting to me that where the written form was different from the spoken form, for example, a telephone number and the spoken form was identifying the phone number, the spoken form was included in the text file. However, the spoken form was not in included in DNS 11 when I use the "Put Words" program to add the words to the vocabulary.

As Bill suggested, I am also taking this opportunity to clean out my custom words :-).

Thanks again — this is a great forum.

Tee

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Tee,

they would have been included if you had changed the input file a little bit. The new format requires written forms and spoken forms being divided by double slashes. This is also where the problem comes in as far as pronunciations not being transferred any longer.

Rüdiger

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Well, it's past the point where we can make any changes in the code, but we can still make changes to the Easter Egg!

Rüdiger,

I'm not trying to argue with you any further on this matter.  Just let me make a couple of points with regard to my use of GetWords and PutWords.

First, because of the difference between the formatting for the Spoken form in DNS 10 is displayed in word list vs. the way it is required in DNS 11, the loss of Spoken formsis both understandable and was my experience initially when I tested it.  No argument here.

Second, some words can be invalid when moving from DNS 10 to DNS 11, and even in DNS 11 when moving between profiles in DNS 11.  When this happens, you get the error: An error occurred communicating with DNS.  The function ILexPronounce:: Add return 0x80041038.  Under that condition you have to go back and search through the words in your list and find the word that is causing the problem.  This can be done fairly easily but it's tedious because you have to work with a brand-new user profile that has no custom words and then you have to find the last word that is properly imported.  It is the next word in the word list that is the offending word entry.  I've done this many times and have helped several clients with this.  I also posted this a long time ago on the forum relative to a problem that Edmart was having.  There have always been instances of this when using GetWords and PutWords as far back as DNS 7.0.

Third, when I used GetWords and PutWords with the option to add pronunciations, which you obviously can't do between versions of DNS, or across versions of DNS as we all well know, to export my custom words from my main DNS 11 user profile and then import them into a brand-new user with no custom words, there were some words whereby not having the pronunciation transferred would have resulted in immediate misrecognition.  The one example that I would use to demonstrate that pronunciations do get transferred is that I have a friend who's last name is Ukrainian and is pronounced using Ukrainian (Russian) dialect.  There is absolutely no way that his name would be recognized accurately if pronunciations were not transferred.  However, after doing so, and dictating his name, his last name was recognized perfectly without the need for any training.  This is just my observation and experience.  If you can explain it otherwise, be my guest.  Regardless, there is no way in hell that his name would be recognized accurately with out some underlying pronunciation being present because anything that DNS might assigned to it would produce a result that would be unrecognizable.  In fact, when I enter his name without any training at all in a new profile, the result is "show moved".  After it's train it comes out "Chamut".  Nevertheless, when I transferred to another profile with no custom words using the using the add pronunciations option with GetWords and importing the list with PutWords, applying the correct pronunciation always produces "Chamut"without the necessity to train.  Does this prove that pronunciations are transferred, no.  However, since I get consistently the same results for other custom words that would have to be retrained, I have no other explanation except that, regardless of whether they show up in the word list or not, pronunciations appear to be being transferred.  Yes, I said that they don't show up in the word list.  But that's a whole other issue.

Lastly, obviously properties don't get transferred, but we all know that also.

I've done this now consistently with four or five new user profiles all set up under different Dictation sources just to make sure that it's not a microphone/soundcard issue.  I consistently get the exact same results.  Go figure!!! Explain that.

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower® Ultimate

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. - Attributed to Dr. Carl Sagan

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Chuck,

I would love to. I guess from one of the previous versions while GetWords was still working as we know it, you're likely to have the pronunciation for this particular name, and if you want to do me a favor, please provide it.

Rüdiger

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Well, it's past the point where we can make any changes in the code, but we can still make changes to the Easter Egg!

Chuck,

In the meantime I did some figuring, and I would like to try and explain now.

When entering the name "Chamut" (please note that all I did with it was entering it as custom word to the vocabulary in the profile that I'm currently using without any training for the words, however it instantly showed up when I dictated it), the underlying pronunciation automatically generated by Dragon looks like this:

Chamut \\Sam@t \\Cam@t

In order to understand, in case anyone is unsure, what these phonetic transcription symbols being used here stand for, please also look at the examples below:

chama \\C)m@ \\Cam@
Shame \\SAm

Therefore it is quite obvious that you can pronounce the first syllable of the name "Chamut", after it has been entered to the vocabulary has written form, either similar to "shame", or similar to "chama", and most certainly it may not work always right from the start, because there are quite a few other words being homophonic with it, such as "chamber" for instance, and I should admit perhaps that being a non-native speaker of English things are even a bit more difficult for me at times with those kind of words being involved, but anyway what ever you do in terms of training the word according to your individual pronunciation of it, you wouldn't come up with anything being particularly different to what you get anyway from the pronunciation automatically generated.

All things considered, it really doesn't surprise me that it also worked for you in this particular case also with the underlying pronunciation obviously not having been transferred, which simply isn't possible in my opinion if they don't show up visibly in the TXT file used for the transfer.

Rüdiger

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Well, it's past the point where we can make any changes in the code, but we can still make changes to the Easter Egg!

Rüdiger,

That would be a great explanation if that were the way it was announced.  However, the phonetic pronunciation isn't even close to the actual pronunciation.  So, you would be able to get it to display the way you explain it, but that's not even close to the way that Alex pronounces it.  The Way, Alex pronounces it, and I'm still looking for it but my XP machine is down for repairs and that's the one that has DNS 10.1 on it, all you would get is garbage.

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower® Ultimate

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. - Attributed to Dr. Carl Sagan

-------------------------

Rüdiger,

I just heard back from one of my colleagues at Nuance.  According to what I was told the entire argument as to whether or not pronunciations are preserved with GetWords/PutWords is moot.  Here's why.

The way that the vocabulary is now designed to work in DNS 11, if you have trained a custom word, that training is brought across when you use the standard vocabulary Export/Import feature.  They redesigned it so that it would function the same as GetWords with the add pronunciation feature.  This was on the to do list for DNS 10 but never got implemented until now.  Also, the underlying pronunciation generator that automatically assigns pronunciations to unknown words is vastly improved.

So, the only advantage to using GetWords and PutWords is if the user is having a problem using the standard "import a list of words or phrases" feature as has been noted in previous posts whereby not all words get added.  Even so, if the list is created with invalid words, using GetWords/PutWords can still result in the "An error occurred communicating with DNS.  The function ILexPronounce:: Add return 0x80041038", which would end up requiring the user to edit their work list anyway.

Basically what this means is that GetWords/PutWords is at the end of its lifecycle.  Also, according to what I was told, is that the Export/Import feature built into DNS was what Joel originally used to create GetWords/PutWords.  Because pronunciations were not transferred in earlier versions of DNS, he added it.  This makes sense in terms of my discussions with Joel back in 2000 after the acquisition of Dragon Systems by L&H and during the short period that Joel remained at L&H and help me with the SDK for version 5 of DNS when I temporarily took over that version as the Product Manager in August of 2000.

So the bottom line is that except for the pronunciation feature, the Export/Import function in DNS and GetWords/PutWords are basically, in terms of the core functionality, the same.  The only difference is that Nuance doesn't from within DNS and GetWords/PutWords are basically the same but separate utilities.  After the acquisition of DNS by ScanSoft, all of the functionality of GetWords/PutWords became the intellectual property of ScanSoft (Nuance) anyway.  Nevertheless, Joel simply extracted that function and made it more practical.

The long and the short of it is that it's basically a dead issue.

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower® Ultimate

"About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends." Herbert Hoover

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Chuck/Rüdiger

GetWords and PutWords (like the Dragon API) are using the SAPI 4 interface and SAPI 4 extensions to access the words and the pronunciations. Some of the extensions to SAPI 4 (these are Dragon extensions) are published but some are not otherwise it would be too easy to steal vocabularies etc

With version 11 Dragon have changed the interface (and that means probably changed the extensions) and you can no longer get the pronunciations using GetWords and therefore you can no longer take pronunciations from a user in version 11 and pass them on to another user, at least not using GetWord/PutWords in its current form. Chuck I don't know how this explains what you are saying but there is no hidden information in the text file which includes pronunciations so they simply are not passed on. The text file is the only link between getting the words from one user and putting them into another user and is also the only link for getting the pronunciations of the words and passing them on if you have chosen this option via the checkbox.

One possible reason why Dragon have done this (and this is pure speculation) is that certain people and applications are able to access these extensions and get this information and Dragon have decided to stop this. If you think about it accessing the user added words is no big deal as you can do this with VocTools but the pronunciation information is the real big deal and not the lists of words as such since anybody can make up, and have done, their own lists of words (but these are not true vocabularies (in the Dragon sense) if they don't contain pronunciation information).

I talked to JGould about this just over one month ago.

Lindsay

Chuck I have just read what you have added.  If version 11 export and import function is now designed to import and export the pronunciations as well then these pronunciations must be present in the text file.  It's obvious really because if you export the words on one PC with a particular user and then import these onto another PC with a different user then the only information being transferred between the PCs is the text file unless the two PCs are telepathic.  So in other words if the pronunciations are not in the text file (and I don't know, but I doubt it, because I haven't looked but will do later this evening when I come back) your colleague at Nuance is talking nonsense quite frankly.  Sorry to be so blunt but otherwise please explain how the pronunciations get moved from one PC to another unless you are of course importing user files.

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www.pcbyvoice.com
www.pcbyvoice.co.uk

Chuck

I have just exported my custom words using version 11 professional UK and there are no pronunciations listed in the text file.  As the text file is the only method of exporting just the custom words then how on earth can the pronunciations be exported.  If you take the example of moving the custom words from one user on one PC using version 11 to another user on another PC using version 11 then it can clearly be seen that the text file is the only link.  So no pronunciation information in that text file and no pronunciations transferred. 

Lindsay

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www.pcbyvoice.com
www.pcbyvoice.co.uk

Lindsay,

Take it up with Nuance.  Don't shoot the messenger.  Just because they don't show doesn't mean they aren't there.  That's what I was told.  So if anybody's wrong, it's Nuance.  I'm just the messenger.  It's entirely possible that they're doing it via another method that is inaccessible.  It's also possible that the information that I was given is not correct.  Nevertheless, I'm simply passing it along because I'm well aware of what you're saying and I can't find them either.  Whatever the case may be, it's now moot.

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower® Ultimate

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. - Attributed to Dr. Carl Sagan

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Tee,

See my previous post regarding GetWords/PutWords.  That away someplace so that you know what you can and can't do with these two utilities.  Remember that these were created way back in 2000 and never meant to extend beyond DNS 5.0.  It's only by virtue of the fact that Joel Gould, who was the original architect for Dragon NaturallySpeaking and that much of his underlying code is still intact, these utilities still work at all.  Nevertheless, always exercise caution and remember what the limits are.  That is, you can use GetWords/PutWords across versions as long as you exclude the add pronunciations option and as long as the underlying vocabulary that you are exporting doesn't contain invalid entries relative to the newer version, or just invalid custom words period.

As regards importing your custom commands, as long as you have a copy of your original DNS 10 mycmds.dat, which is located in user folder under the \current\voice_container folder, you can simply copy that from your DNS 10 user profile right into your DNS 11 user profile and overwrite the mycmds.dat that's in the DNS 11 user profile.  This does no harm, is easier to do, and works quite effectively.  There is nothing inherent in the mycmds.dat that would create any conflict between versions.  That portion of DNS has not changed in the last several versions and all of the built-in DNS commands that come with DNS 11 out-of-the-box are not included in your mycmds.dat file.  These are all hardcoded so you don't have to worry about losing any of these.

On the other hand, it might be useful just in case you lose your previous version user profile to export your custom commands as you can do this having the Medical version, which is what I assume that you have even though your KnowBrainer profile says 9.5 Medical.  Having an exported copy of your own custom commands and storing it somewhere safe where it won't accidentally get deleted, is always a good idea.

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower® Ultimate

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

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Has anyone opened one of the text files in an HEX editor? The one generated by DNS 10.1 is just text.

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-Edgar
DNS 11 Pro & KnowBrainer2010, 64-bit Windows 7 Pro SP1 beta, Office 2010 Ultimate (Beta), Norton 360 Premium Samson Hybrid 77 wireless mic into AudioFire4 external sound podAsus P5E3 Deluxe, Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 3.0 GHz FSB13332 (not OCed), 8GB OCZ DDR3 PC3-12800, SAPPHIRE HD3870 graphics card OCed to 885MHZ GPU clock & 1351 Mhz Memory clock)