Matt, we had no intention of implying that “specular” needed to purchase UniVoice.  We also stated that he could find a step-by-step solution by downloading our Quick Tips but to eliminate confusion we will include the information here:

How to Dictate Curly Quotes (Smart Quotes) Instead of Straight Quotes – Thanks to Graham Hendry

You can add the ANSI characters for left/right double quote to your Vocabulary (Smart Quotes in Microsoft Word, IE6, DragonPad and WordPerfect).

1. Say “Edit Vocabulary” or go to Words|View/Edit and with the cursor in the Written Form hold down the Alt key and on the NUMERIC KEYPAD type 0147(for Left double quote). Add a suitable phrase for the Spoken Form like “Left Quote”.

2. Click the Properties button and select “Keeps capitalization and has no following space”.

3. Repeat for Right double quote - Alt + 0148 and with Properties as “Keeps capitalization and has no preceding space”. 

You can add any ANSII characters in this way - but not UNICODE characters. ANSII codes are shown when you go to the Windows Character Map (charmap.exe) and click on the appropriate character. You can also download various character charts from Microsoft at:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/assistance/HA011...

KnowBrainer Support Staff - Lunis Orcutt

Dictated with DNS 9, KnowBrainer and UniVoice

Thank you all for the tips. I think I'll go with a Word macro. Editing the vocabulary would be tedious, as I would have to change every contraction, i.e. "can't", "wouldn't", etc. I'm really surprised that Nuance doesn't have the support for Word down correctly. After all, it is the most popular word processing program, and smart quotes is what most people want. Plus, it can't be that hard to get right since WordPerfect works perfectly with DNS. Oh well. Do people think that if I sent an e-mail that they would actually try to fix the problem?

bpchia,

For whatever reasons, DNS applies its own rules when dictating punctuation. What this means is that in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, particularly versions 2000-2007, the auto correct and autoformat features settings are bypassed, or more likely ignored.

Setting up curly quotes (smart quotes) is a relatively simple process done through the Vocabulary Editor. However, dealing with apostrophes is a little bit more complex.

First, what you meant above was either ANSI or ASCII. There is no such animal as ANSII.

Second, the curly or smart apostrophe is really, and simply, a curly or smart single quote. Used in contractions or dictated as "apostrophe-ess" it is simply a "close single quote". However, getting this to work properly when attempting to dictate contractions is tricky. This is simply because the ITN rules for contractions use the "straight close single quote". Contractions do not use the settings in the Vocabulary Editor. On the other hand, you can change the properties settings for "apostrophe-ess" so that it will always display the appropriate curly quote when and where this is supported by the specific font that you're using. Note that some applications (mostly the type of font that is used or allowed) may not support any kind of "smart quote" regardless of whether it's double or single. So, how do you go about managing this issue.

As regards "apostrophe-ess", try the following:

1. Open the Vocabulary Editor.
2. Locate the "apostrophe-ess" entry in the punctuation section.
3. Click on the Properties button.
4. Put a checkmark in the Use alternate written form 1 checkbox
5. In the text box to the right of alternate written form 1, press and hold down the Alt key, then with the Alt key held down, type in 0146.
6. When you release the Alt key you will see what appears to be a single quote (standard). However, what will result when you dictate "apostrophe-ess" is that it will place a "close smart single quote" quotation mark in your document if the font used supports this. Otherwise, it will use a standard end single quotation mark. So, essentially you have what you're looking for unless the font does not support it.
7. One other thing that you need to do is to decide what spacing you want before and after this form. For example, in general, you don't want spacing before before dictating "apostrophe-ess", so you have to change the formatting for the alternate written form by clicking on the Format button to the right of the "Use alternate written form 1" and make sure that you set the "Insert space before and after" settings so that they reflect the spacing that you want. Note that you need to change the spacing properties in the format dialog for the alternate written form. Otherwise, you may not get the results that you want and you can't change it for the original form because these are grayed out when using an alternate written form. Also, the formats for the original form and the alternate written form can be different, so you need to make sure that you make the changes in the appropriate place.

Note that Alt 0146 is the ASCII, not ANSI, code for the "smart single end quote". You have a sequence of ASCII codes for these types of quotation marks. Alt 0145, Alt 0146, Alt 0147, and Alt 0148. The first two have to do with single quotes. The second two have to do with double quotes. Regardless, all of these ASCII codes, when properly used in the Vocabulary Editor, produce the smart quotation marks as appropriate to the specific ASCII code used.

The problem with contractions must be handled a little differently. Basically, you use the exact same procedures as noted in #1 through #6 above for "apostrophe-ess", except that you perform this operation on the "apostrophe", which is above the "apostrophe-ess".

However, when dictating contractions, as already noted above, DNS uses the ITN rules which uses a straight single quote. For example, "can't", "don't", etc. won't display the style of single curly quote that you want. If you're dictating a word and you want to add your own personal contraction to it (i.e., the word that doesn't normally display as a contraction when dictated), then you can simply dictate by saying "apostrophe" wherever you want the apostrophe displayed, and it will display the way you want it (smart/curly).

For contractions that you want the "apostrophe" to be smart/curly, you will have to select it and then re-dictate it. Take the following example:

My mother can't go to the store.

Notice that in the above, the "apostrophe" is the standard straight apostrophe. You can change it by selecting it (i.e., saying "select apostrophe") and then re-dictating "apostrophe" so that you get the following:

My mother can’t go to the store.

It may be difficult to see in this example but by using this process I have replaced the "straight apostrophe" with a curly one.

Also, pay careful attention to #7 above. You may find that you do not get exactly the results that you want unless you set the before and after spacing appropriately and in the proper place otherwise you may get "can ’ t" instead of "can’t".

Lastly, it is probably a good idea to retrain any of the changes that you have made. It is also a good idea to save your user, as well as close it and reopen it just to make sure that your changes are saved and that they take effect. Generally it isn't necessary to do this. But if you take that to the bank, you may find an occasion from time to time where the bank is closed. What I mean is that it can happen that the changes don't reflect themselves in your dictation immediately, in which case saving your user files, closing your user and reopening it usually resolves this circumstance.

Chuck Runquist
Owner, GEMCCON - The Choice of Intelligence
Speech Recognition Consulting and Training

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change. - Stephen Hawking