Kurzweil 1000
Version 14
New Features Guide
Introduction.
The following is a summary of what’s new in Version 14. For complete details, go to the online Manual by pressing Alt+H+O. Where applicable, Search key words are provided for you to use in the online Manual.
There may have been additional features added after this document was printed. For those, or for the most up-to-date feature information, refer to the Readme file on the product DVD.
File Operations.
Extracting Images into PDF Files (File->Utilities->Extract Images->PDF… or TIFF… and File->Utilities->Extract All Images->PDF… or TIFF…).
Extract Images and Extract All Images both contain submenu choices “PDF…” and “TIFF…” The shortcut keys are P for PDF and T for TIFF. They bring up a dialog for extracting and saving the images. If you choose TIFF a dialog asks for a folder into which the image files will be written. If you choose PDF a dialog asks for a filename to contain all of the images found in the file. Note that the PDF will only contain images. It will not have any recognized text. To recognize text, use KOCRUtil to process the PDF, specifying PDF also as the output format. The resulting file will still have the images, but it will also contain the recognized text, allowing others access to the contents with Acrobat Reader.
PNG has been Added as a Supported Image Format.
You can now use File->Open to select and recognize a PNG file.
Suggest a File Name, even for a Document Created by Typing.
Like scanned documents and even multipage copied documents, documents created by typing a single page now suggest a file name when one attempts to save a file. It suggests a name built from the contents of the file.
Scanning and Recognition.
OCR Upgrades.
We try to keep up with the most recent updates in optical recognition technology. This version supports ABBYY FineReader Version 11, and OmniPage Version 19. These are available from Kurzweil 1000 itself, and also from KOCRUtil. Kurzweil 1000 Version 14 now supports FineReader 11 and OmniPage 19 in both Kurzweil 1000 and KOCRUtil. Recognition of images made with document cameras has been improved. KOCRUtil can now be used to take a standard PDF file, which may not be accessible, and create a tagged PDF file, which can be read with the voice tools in the standard version of Acrobat Reader. Note that previous versions of Kurzweil1000 used a different name for OmniPage – ScanSoft. This was done at the request of the vendor. They have changed their mind, so we now are using the name that this technology normally goes by – OmniPage.
A New Scanning Mode (Settings->Scanning->Mode->Create a PDF File).
Create a PDF File is a new scanning mode. Selecting this mode creates an image-oriented PDF file. It is the first choice in the Mode setting in the Scanner settings dialog. The first scan after this mode is selected brings up a file dialog requesting the name of a PDF file. You can specify a new filename or an existing filename. Thereafter, until the scanning mode is changed or you exit from Kurzweil 1000, a scan will result in one new page for the PDF file.
It is possible to scan one side of a multipage double-sided document by first doing the odd numbered pages ascending, followed by using the Scan->Flip menu item and then scanning the even numbered pages, beginning with the back side of the last odd-numbered page scanned and then descending down to the back side of the first page scanned. If more scans follow, they are appended to the end of the document, making it possible to do double-sided scanning in groups: Odd ascending, then Even descending, then Odd ascending and Even descending again.
It is possible to create multiple PDF files with this canning mode, but it requires the process of going back to the scanning settings dialog, changing the scanning mode to another setting, applying the change, and then changing back to the Create a PDF File mode.
Note that the PDF files created with this technique are image only and largely inaccessible to the blind. You can, however, use KOCRUtil or Kurzweil 1000 itself to recognize the PDF file. If you use KOCRUtil, you can also specify to create a new PDF as output. That file will be accessible and readable by voice with Adobe Reader.
Use Bookmarks to Select a Page Range for Recognition.
If you open a PDF file that contains multiple pages, you can select a starting and ending page number. This is existing functionality. Now, if you change the range from “All” to “Pages” and tab, you will be told this as well: “You may press CONTROL+B to select a page number based on bookmarks in the document.” This is useful for specifying a section of a PDF file.
If you press CONTROL+B, you will get a list of bookmarks which have been extracted from the PDF file. They are ordered by page number, and the page number is prepended before each bookmark description. For the From page number, the default position is at the first bookmark. For the To page number, the default position is at lease the page number specified in the From page number. If you select one of these bookmarks and press enter, the list will close, and the page number associated with the bookmark will be entered in the text box. This can be done to set both the From and the To page numbers.
Recognition Engine Hint Message can now be Repeated.
The second press of Shift+F1 will repeat the most recent recognition engine hint, if any has been spoken in the current session.
Reading.
Voiceware Speech Update.
The voices we supply with NeoSpeech – VW Kate and VW Paul – have been updated. We also have added one new voice, VW James.
Read Current Note (Read->Read Current Note)
A new menu item has been added to the Read menu, “Read Current Note.” It is located immediately below “Read a Note.” To read the current note choose Read Current Note from the Read menu (or press ALT+R+U) or ALT+Shift+Q. It will read the contents of the current text note, or it will play the current voice note. If there is no note positioned at or very near the current word, the message "There is no note at the current word." will be spoken.
When it plays a voice note, it brings up a dialog. If you let the note play through to the end, the dialog will automatically close. If, however, you tab, the voice recorder dialog will activate and you can make use of the other features.
A Quick Mechanism for Proofreading.
Pressing ALT+F5 will cause Kurzweil 1000 to start reading continuously, and will announce all punctuation marks. When reading is stopped, the punctuation level will automatically return to whatever it had been set at.
Editing.
More Ways to Copy, Cut, and Paste Text.
You can now copy and cut plain text as well as formatted text. You can also paste text from the clipboard in a manner that ignores the formatting. Just add the shift key into the appropriate key combination. To copy plain text, use Control+Shift+C, to cut plain text, use Control+Shift+X, and to paste plain text use Control+Shift+V. You can also copy and cut in a manner that will append text to the clipboard rather than replacing what is already on the clipboard. Add the Alt key into the key combination. To append to the clipboard, use Control+Alt+C or Control+Alt+X. You can also append plain text. Use Control+Shift+Alt+C or Control+Shift+Alt+X. The various copy and cut key combinations will also interact with multipage selection using a mark, or using select all.
Voice Notes (Edit->Record a Voice Note).
A new menu item, Record a Voice Note, has been added after Create a Note. Its mnemonic is ALT+D which will bring up a dialog which is used for recording a voice note and for playing it back.
Record, Load, OK and Cancel are the only buttons enabled when the dialog first opens. After you start recording, the Save button is enabled.
Record / Stop: Toggle – starts and stops recording – press Record to activate the microphone to begin or continue recording a voice note, press again to Stop recording. Whenever you press the Stop button, the Play button is enabled.
Load (ALT+L): To select an existing MP3 file, whose contents will be copied to the voice note. After you load a file, the buttons for playback are enabled.
Save (ALT+S or S): Brings up a dialog to specify an MP3 file in which to copy the audio contents of a note. After you Save a file, all the buttons for playback are enabled.
OK (Enter): To accept the recording and close the dialog.
Cancel (Escape): To cancel the creation of the voice note and close the dialog.
To play back a recording:
Play / Pause (Alt+P or F5): Toggle – starts and pauses playback – press once to Play, press again to Pause.
Back (ALT+B or F6): In playback, to move back by one second (if the recording is short) otherwise by five seconds.
Forward (ALT+F or F8): In playback, to move forward by one second (if the recording is short) otherwise by five seconds.
Home (ALT+H or the Home key): In playback to move to the beginning of the recording.
End: In playback, to move to the end of the recording.
When you have made and accepted a recording, a voice note is entered into the current cursor position at the current page. There is no visual representation of the voice note, but if you read past it (and if the chime for reading past a note is enabled) a chime will indicate its presence.
To get to a note, choose Read a Note from the Read menu (or Press Control+Q). You can also choose Read Current Note from the Read menu (or Press Alt+Shift+Q). The first will bring up a dialog, explained below, while the second will immediately play the note nearest to your current position.
The description for any voice note in the list of notes will simply be "Voice Note" - there can be any number of such notes. If you press Enter, the dialog described earlier will come up with all of its buttons enabled, and the sound note will start playing. If it is played to its end without interruption, it will automatically close, and control will return to the edit window. Pressing any other button while playback is in progress will activate that button's behavior, and will also require pressing OK or Cancel to close the note. You can choose to re-record the note if you wish.
Editing and Announcement of Subscripts and Superscripts.
A new setting, Position, has been added in the font format properties dialog (Edit->Format->Font). The Position choices are Normal, Superscript (Control+Shift+Plus Sign), and Subscript (Control+Plus Sign). These keyboard shortcuts toggle between subscript or superscript and normal. When moving from one character to another, the word Subscript is inserted before a subscripted character. and the word Superscript is “announced” a superscript character.
Quickly Change the Case of some Text
The ability to modify the case of selected text has been added. This is available with a new menu item: Edit->Format->Case. The mnemonic for Case is "C". There is no short cut. Beneath it there are the following options: Lower, Upper, and Title. Their mnemonics are "L", "U", and "T". An error message will be spoken if no text is selected. Otherwise, the selected text is modified: for lower, all alphabetic text is turned to lower case, for upper, to upper case, and for title, lower case except that the first alphabetic character of each word becomes upper case.
Note that this can work in conjunction with the multiple page selection mark and also select all, though neither is recommended, as this has no intelligence regarding proper names, the word "I" in English, or the first letter of each sentence. It is best used for relatively short blocks of text.
Navigation.
Go to Phrase (Navigation->Go to Phrase).
A new menu item has been added to the Navigation menu immediately below Go to Bookmark. There is no hot key, but the mnemonic is H.
The idea of this feature is simple. Suppose you are reading a long novel by, say Dostoevsky, with a few hundred characters, all with Russian names. To keep track of these characters, use “Go to Phrase” to remind yourself of who these characters are. You can read the sentences containing the name in the list, or press enter and go to that spot in the document for further information.
Go to Phrase brings up a dialog that contains one combo box, an OK button, and a Cancel button. Use it to specify a word or phrase that you want to find in the document. It searches for all occurrences of the phrase and if it finds some, it brings up a dialog very similar to the bookmark dialog. It will list a number of sentences containing the phrase. The list is arranged in reading order. Just like the bookmark dialog you can modify descriptions.
Phrases can contain multiple words. If they do, partial words can be included in the match. If they contain only one word, partial words will not be matched. Matches are not case sensitive.
Over time the list may contain phrases that you have successfully searched for in the current document. When you bring up the Go to Phrase dialog it will initialize itself to a phrase found on the current page, if one is found.
The phrases themselves, as well as their positions, can be saved in the KES file, making it easy to build a collection of these phrases for any document.
Navigate in a Thesaurus or Dictionary Definition
You can now use ALT+Home in the definition or thesaurus dialog to go to the start of the current definition, and ALT+End to go to the end of it.
Search for a Page with a Full-Page Image
The third control in the Find dialog allows you to do some special searches. One new one has been added to the end of the list: “A page with an image.” Once you have found a page in this manner, you can use F3 to search for the next such page, and SHIFT+F3 to search for a previous page with a full-page image.
Create a Paragraph Based Bookmark
When you create a bookmark, it will use the selected text for a description. If no text is selected, it will use the current sentence as the description. Now, by pressing Control+Shift+G instead of the more usual Control+B the current paragraph will be used as the description. In a related change, creation of a bookmark will now pay attention to the presence of a multi-page mark. The region of text between the mark and the current position, if it is short enough, becomes the bookmark's description. Although CONTROL+B is the normal shortcut for creating a bookmark, if you'd rather use CONTROL+B to enable and disable bold formatting, use CONTROL+SHIFT+G to bookmark the current paragraph. This will only work if nothing is selected.
Create a Bookmark using a Mark
Mark a Position adds another way to create a bookmark. If a mark is before the current position, the mark becomes the position where the bookmark is made. Note that the text between the mark and the current position can be on a different page.
Mark or Unmark a Position (Edit->Mark or unmark a Position)
This feature is now a toggle. The shortcut key is CONTROL+M. Press once to set the Mark. If there is already a mark set in that position, CONTROL+M removes that mark.
Tools, Verbosity, and Help.
American Heritage Dictionary – Fifth Edition.
We have updated the American Heritage Dictionary to Version 5.
Spell Checking Bookmark and Note Descriptions.
A new setting, Check Spelling, has been added to the General Settings dialog. It is immediately after the setting for reading newly recognized pages. Its mnemonic is S. It is a list box with three options: Document Only, Notes and Bookmarks Only, and Everything. The everything setting spell checks both the Document and the Notes and Bookmarks.
The Spell Checker has Changed.
Kurzweil 1000 is now using an open source spell checker named Hunspell (.Net version NHunspell). This spell checker does a better job and brings up a longer list of suggestions for misspellings. So far nine spelling dictionaries are supplied: American English, British English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish. For more information about additional dictionaries go to www.crawler-lib.net/nhunspell. If you add dictionaries place the two files for each (one with an AFF extension and one with a DIC extension) in the folder named “Common Files” (Program Files (x86)->Kurzweil Educational Systems->Common Files or Program Files->Kurzweil Educational Systems->Common Files).
Spelling dictionaries are automatically loaded based on the language of the reading voice you use. If you don’t use active speech in Kurzweil 1000, the language specified as a recognition language by your OCR engine will be used. If you install one of your own, you can select it in the Spelling Properties dialog, using a list labeled “Dictionary Name”. This is a new setting in the Spelling Properties dialog.
Spelling Can be Interrupted.
When Kurzweil 1000 spells a word, the word is spoken first, and then the word is spelled. Now, by selecting the hotkey twice, the spoken word can be interrupted and you will only hear the spelling.
Bookshare “Freely Accessible” Books
Bookshare.org has some freely available books which are available without a login. The words "(Freely Available)" will follow those titles in the list of books returned when you do a search. If you select one or more of those books, they will be downloaded without first asking for a login.
Removed Features
News from KESI. The Online->News from KESI menu item has been removed. Marketing has no plans for new articles.
Additional Changes and Enhancements.
For the most up-to-date list of changes, please refer to the Read Me file on the product DVD.
Have Ideas for New Features or Enhancements?
Wondering what we might include in the next version? Have an idea for a new feature or an enhancement? Use the Kurzweil 1000 listserv. To sign up for the Kurzweil 1000 e-mail listserv go to
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