Adding the dictation commands to an empty vocabulary such as /Cap and /No-Space isn't easy in version 9. I had to use the unsupported VocEdit tool to do this. Here it is for anyone who is interested.

Keith,

Adding the dictation commands to an empty vocabulary such as /Cap and /No-Space looks like something worth investigating for inclusion in my NaturallySpeaking FAQ I've been working on. Right now I have no documentation there regarding empty vocabulary. I wouldn't know where to start writing an article on that. I guess what I'm doing is fishing for information to see what you'll say. If it doesn't help too well then I'll just do searches in the old and new knowbrainer forums for "empty vocabulary" and see what comes up.

Was that a question? I should stop typing and start sleeping... Good night Keith.

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Former primary author of Speechwiki NaturallySpeaking FAQ. 

Keith, this is great.  Thanks for sharing.

I also tried this, and used the vocedit tool, as you did, but found that it resulted in some problems with punctuation when I corrected errors.  Do you find that all of the punctuation is working correctly when you do corrections?

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Matt,

 I haven't had a chance to use the vocabularies I created based on this one very much yet.  As I use them more, I will let you know the results.

Nastajus,

Here is a more detailed explanation:

If you open your Vocabulary Editor and scroll all the way to the top of the list of words, you will see a couple pages of words that have no written form. These words have special properties set on them that control spacing, capitalization, etc. if you click on the Properties button, you will see properties set for some of these words, but not others. The properties dialog available from the Vocabulary Editor does not list all of the NaturallySpeaking word properties available.

In version 8, if you wanted to add these words to a blank vocabulary you simply created a word list like this:

\No-Space
\Caps-On
\No-caps
etc...

You then used the "Add a list of words to your vocabulary" option from Accuracy Center to add these words To the vocabulary. NaturallySpeaking 8 would recognize that these were special words and add the appropriate properties automatically.

Version 9, however, doesn't do this. It adds the words with no special properties and simply treats them like blank words. Since you cannot access the advanced properties from the Vocabulary Editor, configuring all of these words with the built-in NaturallySpeaking tools is not on option.

The solution is to use an unsupported tool called VocEdit:
http://www.synapseadaptive.com/joel/voceditautilityaprogram_m.htm

Not only does it let you access all of the word properties, but it also has "behaviors" that set a group of properties the same as an existing word.

Unfortunately, there are almost 1000 words with special properties in a standard vocabulary (such as 's having no space before it). In my vocabulary, I included only enough to dictate formatting, dates, times, numbers, and letters.

I'm grateful to Keith for sharing this file, but I think I should warn everyone that in my experience using, or even simply creating, an empty vocabulary and including those special punctuation characters can have unforeseen consequences, at least in version 9.

To give an example, this morning I created a new vocabulary based on the empty model, then imported Keith's's vocabulary into that.  I then switched back to my normal vocabulary, and was dictating merrily away when I tried to dictate a custom word: "12b-1".  It came out "12 B-1".  I then checked my vocabulary to make sure the proper custom word was still there, and it was.  After doing a few more tests, I realized that the problem was created by the mere presence of the new empty vocabulary.

I deleted that new empty vocabulary and the problem went away.

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Matt, 

I just tested some of my custom words in my main vocabulary, and I'm not experiencing the same problem.

To create my new vocabularies based on this one, I selected "Base General - Symbols Only" from the "Based on" drop-down box instead of importing the words.

If you have time, try this experiment: Import the "Base General - Symbols Only" vocabulary using the Manage Vocabularies screen. Create a new vocabulary based on this one instead of "Base General - Empty Dictation". Does the problem you had before still occur?

Thanks

Keith, I can't import that vocabulary without having a vocabulary into which to import it.  I don't have the options to create a new vocabulary based on Base General -- Symbols Only.  The only reason you have that option is because you have such a vocabulary already existing. 

It's not a big deal.  I was just curious about Empty vocabularies.

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Keith,

I appreciate your quick and detailed response. I will definately be parusing it in detail. I'm also glad to see Matt and you discussing your different experienes - I'll learn some meaty details for inclusion that way. You know, useful stuff, often omitted from a certain manual.

Ian

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Former primary author of Speechwiki NaturallySpeaking FAQ. 

The "Base General - Empty Dictation" bug has been fixed in 9.5. You can now add the special words such as /Cap to the vocabulary and it works correctly.

 

-Keith