1 Introduction
Welcome to Natural Word from Software Theories Inc. This document provides help and documentation on how to use the natural interface.
1.1 What Is Natural Word?
Natural Word is an interface into Microsoft’s Word that allows the user to type into Word, using their own words, what they would like. Rather than learning and memorizing Word’s intricate menus and dialogs, Natural Word attempts to understand you, the user, and translates your requests into actions Word can understand.
For instance, to change the color of text, rather than searching options in toolbars and menus, the user can tell word ‘make the text blue’, or ‘blue text’, or even simply ‘blue’. Natural Word acts as a translator between the user and the computer – its role is to understand the user without forcing memorization of command syntax or menu charts.
1.2 So… now I need to learn text commands?
No – not really. Natural Word tries to understand commands the way you would say them without any training (well, within reason). As long as you are trying to be understood (in other words, you’re not purposely trying to be hard to understand, or testing the limits of the system) it should make sense of what you type. If it gets it wrong, try to rephrase your command.
Of course, there are limits. You may need to learn what Word can or can’t do and how to phrase certain actions. But ultimately, Natural Word tries to make learning and using Word as easy as possible.
1.3 System Requirements
Microsoft Word 2000+
512 MB RAM
2 Command Dialog
To access the command dialog, press the ` (forward single quote) button, usually found in the upper-left of the keyboard together with the ~ symbol. Pressing the button once brings forth the command dialog:
Pressing it a second time causes the ` symbol to be inserted.
2.1 Changing the Command Dialog Key
You can change the command dialog key to be any key you want. Type in ‘natural word options’ or go to the menu
|
Office Version |
Command |
|
Word 2007 |
Office Button ® Natural Word ® Natural Word Options |
|
Pre Word 2007 |
Tools ® Natural Word… ® Natural Word Options…
|
Pressing the command dialog key the first time will pop-up the command dialog. Pressing the key a second time will perform the original function of the key.
2.2 Commands on Toolbar
A toolbar command box is available. You can type in commands there as you would type them in the popup command dialog. Commands are case insensitive.
3 Entering Commands
When entering commands, keep a few things in mind:
· Enter commands, not requests
· One command at a time
· Commands are context sensitive
· Be as terse as you want
· When in doubt, use ‘change <thing>’
· Don’t reference previous commands
3.1 Commands, Not Requests
Natural Word is designed to understand commands in imperative form (such as ‘do this’, or ‘make that happen’). Natural Word is not designed to understand other forms, such as requests, questions, or statements of fact (such as ‘can you please make sure my text is aligned?’, ‘how many words are in my document?’, ‘my paragraph is not aligned’). Try to always phrase your commands as commands.
3.2 One Command at a Time
This version of Natural Word only supports one command at a time. Try to make word do only one thing at a time.
For instance, rather than
“make the text blue and then underline it”
Use
“make the text blue”
“underline”
3.3 Context Sensitive
Natural Word is context sensitive. All commands are applied to the selection or cursor unless otherwise specified in the command. Where the cursor is, or what is selected, matters, and changes what commands are available. For instance, if the cursor is in a table, the command ‘add a column’ means something different than if the cursor is outside a table. Typing ‘bold’ will cause the current selection to become bold, or if nothing is selected, will cause new text typed at the cursor to be bold. Typing ‘bold paragraph’, on the other hand, will cause the current paragraph at the cursor/selection to become bold. Some commands, such as ‘add a row’ are meaningless outside a table. In general, tables and lists have some commands that can be accessed only when the cursor is within the list or table. Try to move the cursor into the table or list that you want changed before issuing a command for the list or table.
3.4 Be Terse
Natural Word not only tries to make Word easier to use, but also more efficient. Natural Word tries to infer the most popular or obvious action based on the current context, allowing you to be as terse as you want. For instance, rather than
‘make the text color blue’
Try
‘blue’
If you wanted the text background to be changed, try
‘blue background’
If you wanted the page background color to be changed, try
‘blue page background’
Rather than
‘justify text into the middle’
Try
‘middle’, ‘center’
If you want to change the text font size, rather than
‘make the text 24 points large’
Try
‘24’
Rather than
‘insert table with 3 rows and 2 columns’
Try
‘3 by 2 table’
In general, if the implied action seems obvious, Natural Word should perform the action without a problem.
3.5 Change ‘<thing>’
When in doubt, when having a problem being understood, or when wishing to be prompted with options about something, you can always type
‘change <something>’
such as ‘change font’, ‘change table’, ‘change list’, ‘change text size’, ‘change numbering’, ‘change background’, ‘change background image’, etc. This command causes the most relevant Word dialog box to be displayed, allowing you to figure out how to make something happen, or if it’s possible to make something happen.
3.6 Don’t Reference Previous Commands
This version of Natural Word does not allow you to reference previous commands. In other words, you can’t say things such as ‘No. I meant to the right’, ‘a little bit more’, ‘repeat last command’, ‘red, not blue’, etc. Think of each command as being the first command you entered.
4 Useful Commands
The following is a list of some useful commands that you may want to know. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but is here to make you aware of some of the functionality.
4.1 Normal Text
One of the most popular commands, normal text, causes all text effects to be removed. However, this does not change the style of the text (such as heading, title, etc.). To change the style, type ‘Normal Style’
4.2 Insert ‘Symbol’
Some popular symbols, such as é, è, â, etc. can be inserted either by typing the name of the symbol (such as ‘e accent aigue’) or by a shortcut name (‘e/’). Here is a short list of some symbols, their long names, and a shortcut:
|
Symbol |
Long Name |
Shortcut |
|
© |
Copyright |
c |
|
® |
Registered |
r |
|
™ |
Trademark |
tm |
|
é |
e with accent aigue |
e/ |
|
è (à, ù) |
e with accent grave |
e\ |
|
É |
Upper case e with accent aigue |
big e/ |
|
È (À, Ù) |
Upper case e with accent grave |
big e\ |
|
â (ê, î, ô, û) |
a with circumflex |
a hat |
|
 (Ê, Î, Ô, Û) |
Upper case a with circumflex |
big a hat |
|
ë (ï, ü, ÿ) |
e with trema |
e: |
|
Ë (Ï, Ü, Ÿ) |
Upper case e with trema |
big e: |
|
ñ |
n with tilde |
n~ |
|
Ñ |
Upper case n with tilde |
big n~ |
Note: this is not a complete list of symbols that can be inserted – it only lists symbols with cryptic shortcuts. Most Symbol characters (especially Greek or logical) and a few Webdings characters can be inserted.
Note: if you wish to insert an arbitrary symbol, use ‘insert symbol <number> from <font>’, e.g: insert symbol 172 from Symbol
4.3 OLE Objects
Some OLE objects can be inserted by typing ‘insert <object>’, or just ‘<object>’, such as ‘insert excel sheet’, or ‘insert equation’, or ‘insert power point’.
4.4 Fields
You can insert popular ‘field’ types, such as ‘insert number of pages’, or ‘insert current date’.
5 Limitations
This version of Natural Word has a number of limitations:
· Only existing Word functionality is available. If Word couldn’t do it before, it won’t be able to do it now
· Word bugs and annoyances are still there. If Word can’t seem to align your text correctly, or keeps moving something over when you don’t want it to, it, unfortunately, Word will continue to do so.
· Only about 80% of Word’s functionality has been implemented. The Options panels and some less popular commands have not been implemented yet.
· When trying to search and/or replace text, make sure to enclose the text in double quotation marks. (e.g. find “someText”, find all occurrences of “someText” and replace by “newText”. The text in quotation marks uses C-Style escape codes (‘\n’, ‘\t’, etc.))
· Only most standard font text styles are defined within the grammar. Non-standard fonts or styles must be specified by exact name within quotes (e.g. use “Time New Roman” font)
· There is very little ability to specify ‘which’ target. Specifying the target directly by name is supported (such as paragraph, selection, line, sentence, etc.), but there is no ability to specify ‘which’ target from amongst many (such as ‘2nd sentence from the top’, or ‘3rd column’, etc.)
6 Other Features
6.1 Defining Aliases/User Commands
Natural Word allows the definition of aliases for arbitrary commands. An alias defines a text command for which an alternate command will be executed. The entire command must match, including white spaces, though the comparison is case insensitive. For instance, if ‘h’ is aliased to ‘go to header’, if the command entered is ‘h’, the command ‘go to header’ will be executed.
To define an alias, enter the command ‘natural word options’. In the User Command table, add a row populating text for the user command and text for an aliased command. Click Ok. Now, whenever the user command is entered, it will be replaced by the aliased command.
6.1.1 Aliasing Multiple Commands to a Single Command
It is possible to alias more than one command to a single user command. To do so, separate aliased commands by a semi-colon, and place the entire list within curly brackets.
e.g.
|
User Command |
Aliased Command |
|
Populate header |
{ go to header; insert current page number; insert "/"; insert total number of pages; insert "\t"; insert "Software Theories Inc."; exit; } |
Note that scripting of multiple commands is not fully supported within this version. There are many useful scripting commands that are missing (such as moving the cursor), and all commands will be executed within the same context (for instance, inserting a table will not cause the context to change to include the table for the next commands in a list). Use at your own risk.
Aliases are applied in the order in which they are defined. Once an alias is found that matches exactly the command entered, no more aliases are checked (referencing other aliases within an alias will not cause the other alias to be executed).
Also note that text inserted using the ‘insert “<text>”’ command uses standard C escape codes. An escape code begins with a backslash (‘\’), and may be followed by one of the following:
|
Escape Character |
Function |
|
n |
New line feed |
|
b |
Backspace |
|
t |
Tab |
|
v |
Vertical tab |
|
r |
Carriage return |
|
f |
Form feed |
|
\ |
Back slash |
|
" |
Double quote |
|
' |
Single quote |
7 Known Bugs
· Numbers must start with a digit. For instance, the following are illegal: +1.5, -1.5, .5. Use instead 1.5, 0-1.5, 0.5
8 Contact Information
We welcome your feedback! Please help make this product better with your suggestions. You can contact us at:
Email: info@softwaretheories.com
Web: http://www.softwaretheories.com
Support: http://www.softwaretheories.com/Support.html