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How to use Tablet PC Speech Assistant
Tablet PC Speech Assistant has four areas where you can pick text to build up a sentence that you want to be spoken, and also one area where you can use handwriting. The handwriting area can be used as a quick way to get to the text that Tablet PC Speech Assistant already knows about, or to add more words to its lists and have the words spoken.
Areas with words
Instant speak
If you tap one of these commonly used words, Tablet PC Speech Assistant will speak the word.
Phrases
When you tap on a phrase in this list, Tablet PC Speech Assistant will add the words in the phrase to the sentence area at the top of the screen. If there is already text in the sentence area, then Tablet PC Speech Assistant will add the words after the other words already there. By doing this, you can build up a sentence. For example, if you want to build up a sentence that starts with "Can you get me the", you can tap on that phrase.
Individual words
When you tap on a word from this list, Tablet PC Speech Assistant will add the word to the sentence area at the top of the screen. If there is already text in the sentence area, then Tablet PC Speech Assistant will add the word after the other words already there. By doing this, you can build up a sentence. For example, if the sentence area already contains the words "Can you get me the", you could tap on the word "blanket" to have the sentence be "Can you get me the blanket".
Once you have built up the entire phrase you would like spoken, you can tap the Speak button. The Speak button will speak whatever words are in the sentence area. To remove all the text from the sentence area, you can click the Clear button.
After you've tapped the Speak button and the words in the sentence area are spoken, the next time you add words to the sentence area, those words will replace whatever's in the sentence area rather than adding the new words after the other words in the sentence area.
Favourites
When you tap on a phrase in the Favourites list, Tablet PC Speech Assistant will put the entire phrase up into the sentence area, and speak the phrase immediately. You do not have to tap the Speak button after tapping on a phrase in the Favourites list.
There are two ways to add a phrase to the Favourites list. The first way is to tap the "Add text to Favourites" button. This button is near the top right corner of the screen, and contains a yellow star.
When you tap this button, any text in the sentence area will get added as a phrase to the Favourites list.
The other way you can have a phrase added to the Favourites list is for Tablet PC Speech Assistant to add the phrase automatically. Once you've had a phrase spoken five times, Tablet PC Speech Assistant will add that phrase to the Favourites list. For example, if you build up the phrase "Could you pass me the blanket" and have it spoken five times, then it will be added to the Favourites list. Once the phrase is in the Favourites list, all you need to do is tap it to have the phrase spoken immediately.
Note that once you've built up a phrase and had it spoken three times, that phrase will be added to the Phrases list to make it easier to pick again later.
If you only want to see the list of Favourites, tap the Favourites buttons. When you to this, the other lists of words and phrases, and the handwriting area, won't be shown any more.
To see all the lists again, tap the "Build a Sentence" button.
The handwriting area
You can use the handwriting area either as a quick way to get at the words in the list of words that Tablet PC Speech Assistant shows, or to add new words to those lists.
Adding new words to the lists
As an example, imagine the word "apple" isn't shown in the individual word list, but you'd like to add it. You can do this by handwriting the word "apple", and then selecting the recognized word "apple" from the list of choices at the top of the handwriting area.
Tablet PC Speech Assistant might also show other words that it thinks look like the word your wrote, so only tap the word "apple". Once you've tapped on the word, "apple" will appear in the sentence area and you can tap the Speak button to have the word read out. Once you have selected the recognized word "apple", the word will be added to the Individual Words list.
Note that once a word is in the individual word list, you don't need to write the whole word again before Tablet PC Speech Assistant will show the word at the top of the handwriting area. For example, you could just write "a", and Tablet PC Speech Assistant will show words that begin with "a", including "apple". This makes it much easier to get to the words you'd like spoken. Instead of tapping on the words in the Individual Words list, you can just write the first letter of the word in the handwriting area and then pick the full word from the list of choices at the top of the handwriting area.
The list of choices at the top of the handwriting area also includes the phrases in the Phrases list. So if the Phrases list contains "Good morning" and "Good night", when you write "good" in the handwriting area, both "Good morning" and "Good night" will appear at the top of the handwriting area.
When you write in the handwriting area, there could be many words or phrases that start with the letters you've written. For example, if you write "g", you may want to have any of "Good night", "Good morning", "glass", or "glove" spoken. Given that there isn't room at the top of the handwriting area for all the possible choices, Tablet PC Speech Assistant will show the choices that it thinks are the most likely that you want, based on how often you use them.
You can also have the first choice in the list added to the Sentence area, (after any other words already in the list,) by tapping the "Add to Sentence" button. If you'd like to have the first choice added like this and then have the whole sentence spoken immediately, you can do this by tapping the Speak Ink Words button.
Commonly used words or phrases
As described above, Tablet PC Speech Assistant will take into account how often you use certain words and phrases to make it quicker for you to have your commonly used phrases spoken.
Any word that's spoken three times will be added to the Individual Words list.
Any phrase that's spoken three times will be added to the Phrases list.
Any phrase that's spoken five times will be added to the Favourites list.
The most commonly used phrases and words will appear in the choices at the top of the handwriting area.
If you'd like to remove any words or phrases from the lists, right click on the entry in the list, and tap "Remove".
Tablet PC Speech Assistant makes it very easy to get at your most commonly used phrases. Either pick it from the Favourites list, or write the first couple of letters of the phrase in the handwriting area and tap on the recognized phrase.
For example, if "Can you turn on the radio please" is a phrase you commonly use, you only need to write a few letters before the phrase appears, which you can then pick to have the whole phrase spoken.
