Windows Vista Vista Speech Recognition won't work in my Word 2000

7/11/2007

Vista Speech Recognition won't work in my copy of Word 2000

I have just set up Windows Speech Recognition in my Gateway laptop (1 GB RAM; Dual-core processor) copy of Vista Home Premium. Went through the speech training tutorial as well as Improve voice recognition. During training, Windows Speech Recognition recognized my voice just fine. I am using a microphone head set, the non-USB type with the 2 old-fashioned, RCA-style plugs. I am aware that the speech pros recommend a USB-style headset.

Here's my problem. If I use the Vista versions of Wordpad or Notepad, Windows Speech Recognition recognizes my speech very well, both spoken text and commands. It even works in my favorite Notepad substitute --- Metapad!

My laptop came with MS Works and I have also installed MS Office 2000 Pro. Office Pro works in all other aspects of Vista with no glitches, by the way.

EXCEPT -- If I open either the bundled Works Word Processor or Word 2000 with Speech Recognition running, no text I speak in either word processor is recognized. I just get the speech text box repeatedly coming back with "What was that?" But it's only text that's not recognized.

Conversely, if I utter a voice command like File|Save or File|Exit, in either Works or Word 2000, Speech recognizes and executes it immediately. So I assume that Word 2000 (my main word processor of choice, of course) is to some degree compatible with Vista Speech Recognition (or vice-versa.)

But I am at a loss as to why Word 2000 won't type out regular spoken text.

My first thought was that maybe I do need the better USB-style mike. But if voice menu commands are recognized through my current mike, why not spoken text?

Anyone have any ideas or answers? Like maybe text is more demanding of the recognition software and therefor does require a quality USB mike (any user recommendations about what mike or USB add-on box would also be appreciated as I probably will get a USB mike anyway as I also run Dragon 8 on my XP desktop)

Thanks for your time and attention,

TV Johns

 

Unfortunately, Word 2000 does not have the native Text Services Framework support that Windows Speech Recognition needs to support dictation. (The Text Services Framework didn't even exist at the time Word 2000 was released, so it would have been difficult to add support for it.) I know that Word 2003 and Word 2007 have the required support, and dictation works fine there.

Dictation works in Notepad because Vista has special support for plain edit controls and rich edit controls to enable Text Services Framework.

You *can* get (very limited) dictation to work in Word 2000 by checking the 'Enable Dictation Everywhere' menu item in the Options submenu.

However, you will have to confirm each recognition, so it's a rather painful way to dictate.

Eric

 

Word 2003 works with Vista Speech Recognition?

Eric,

In your reply to me about Word 2000 not supported in Vista Speech Recognition, (I rather thought that would turn out to be the case) you made the comment that Word 2003 will work in Vista Speech Recognition.

I know where I can purchase a copy of Works 2003 which includes Word 2003. I don't wish to offend you or sound mistrustful, but would appreciate some added reassurance. What I mean is, I'd hate to buy 2003 only to find it also has unresolvable problems in Vista.

So I'm curious if you do know for sure, perhaps from your own experience or someone you know and trust, that Word 2003 will work with full compatibility in Vista Home premium speech recognition!? [This being the case, I would assume that the version of Word 2003 included in the Works package will perform just as well.]

Also, you mentioned that Word 2007 is supported in Vista speech recognition, as one would expect, it being the latest version.

I am ignorant of both 2003 and 2007. But if I recall correctly, Word 2007 is the version with the radically redesigned menu ribbon rather than the old Toolbar controls?

My conservative inclination is to prefer the old style Toolbar with which I am very familiar, rather than the radically new version which, knowing Microsoft, likely has some unresolved bugs. But if you are personally familiar with both versions, can you advise me which, in your opinion, would be the better buy? If Version 2007 is truly the latest and greatest, I might as well buy that version, but it would have to be compatible with a dozen macros I use pretty regularly as a writer. Don't think I could stand to part with my macros.

Once again, thanks for your time and consideration.