Changing words of some built-in commands

The command words of quite a few built-in commands of NatSpeak can be adapted. A few useful suggestions are at the bottom of this page.

Changing the commands words can be done in the file options.ini in the folder Current of your speech profile. This will often be the directory: C:\ProgramData\Nuance\NaturallySpeaking10\Users\USERNAME\Current.

The file option.ini can be edited in for example Notepad. In the section [Options] the key/value combinations can be added. Close Notepad (save changes) and close possibly opened (This computer) folders. Then restart NatSpeak.

xyz

Note all the xyz commands are so-called select-and-say commands, meaning for xyz you can use any words on the visible part of your active window. Provided the green select-and-say indicator is on.

For "non-standard windows", in practice you can dictate a few lines of text and use the features on the just dictated text.

The defaults

Also see: Changing a commands page of Joel Gould. Joel Gould made the then available list of an early version of NatSpeak. Note in version 10 the formatting and cut/copy/delete commands have been added.

 
enx insert before xyz command=insert before
enx insert after xyz command=insert after
enx insert before that command=insert before that
enx insert after that command=insert after that
 
enx scratch that command=scratch that
 
enx cap that command=\cap that
enx cap selection command=\cap selection
enx no caps that command=\no-caps that
enx no caps selection command=\no-caps selection
enx all caps that command=\all-caps that
enx all caps selection command=\all-caps selection
 
enx compound that command=compound that
enx compound selection command=compound selection
enx hyphenate that command=hyphenate that
enx hyphenate selection command=hyphenate selection
 
enx select that command=select that
enx select xyz command=select
enx select from xyz command=select from    (see advice below)
enx select again=select again
enx spell that command=spell that   ???
enx correct that command=correct that
enx correct xyz command=correct
 
enx press button=click %1                  (do not forget the %1, see below)
 
enx default font=Arial                     (for DragonPad, see below)
enx default font size=200                  (for DragonPad, see below)
 
NatSpeak 10:
enx cut xyz command=cut
enx delete xyz command=delete
enx delete from xyz command=delete from    (see advice below)
enx copy xyz command=please copy
 
enx select from xyz command=select
enx copy xyz command=copy
enx cut that command=cut that
enx delete that command=delete that
enx copy that command=copy that
 
NatSpeak 10:
enx bold xyz command=bold
enx italicize xyz command=italicize
enx underline xyz command=underline
 

NOT VALID COMMANDS:

Not valid are the following commands:

 
enx bold that command=n.a.
enx italicize that command=n.a.
enx underline that command=n.a.
enx compound xyz command=n.a.
enx hyphenate xyz command=n.a.
enx resume with xyz command=n.a.
enx spell xyz command=n.a.
enx cut selection command=n.a.
enx delete selection command=n.a.
enx copy selection command=n.a.
 

Command for selecting menu items and controls

The default for this command is: enx press button=click %1. Note the %1 can NOT be missed here!

You can change the word click to something of your taste (touch?). It is most sensible to use this if you also enable the option Require "Click" to select menu and controls in the Commands tab of the NatSpeak Options dialog.

When you switch on this option on and change the press button item to touch, you need to say touch Help to open the Help menu of your application, instead of just Help or click Help.

Fonts in DragonPad

The options enx default font and enx default font size are for DragonPad.

• For font you can choose "Calibri", "Times New Roman", etc. It is wise to keep the capitalisation like the examples in DragonPad it
• For font size you must choose 20 times the point size you want. So 220 gives a 11 point font.

Preferences select, cut, copy, delete and formatting commands

These commands are added in version 10 of NatSpeak.

Some of these commands (the Select-and-Say versions) are recognized too easy. The Cut/Delete and Copy commands you can therefore disable in the NatSpeak options dialog, Commands Tab.

Another strategy is to insert the word please (or something different if you like) in front of the commands. You can then use all these very powerful commands, but only if you friendly ask. For example, instead of cut for example you then say please cut for example. Etc.

Additional the suggestions below fix the annoying behavior of the delete from and select from command words. These are (IMHO) bad command words in order to say "select from ... ((to|through) ...)" and "delete from ... ((to|through) ...)". When you make these entries identical to the select xyz and delete xyz entries, this strange behavior is effectively disabled.

 
enx bold xyz command=please bold
enx italicize xyz command=please italicize
enx underline xyz command=please underline
 
enx cut xyz command=please cut
enx delete xyz command=please delete
enx delete from xyz command=please delete
enx copy xyz command=please copy
 
enx select from xyz command=select

Preferences correct and scratch

The command correct that is normally ambiguous, because it can either correct the last dictated phrase or selected text or it can correct the word that.

If you change the enx correct that command=correct you can get rid of this ambiguity, and simply correct the last phrase or the selected text by saying correct.

In analogy with correct, it may be convenient to define scratch (instead of scratch that) for deleting the last dictated phrase or the selected text. Note scratch that still works as another built in command.

 
enx correct that command=correct
enx scratch that command=scratch

Others languages

For non-English speech profiles, the enx prefix of all the relevant keys has to be changed obviously. The list is here: