3 Version 11 New Features For the most up-to-date feature information, refer to the Readme file on the product CD-ROM. The following is a quick list of what’s new in Version 11. For additional details, go to the Summary of New Features section. Because the requirements of and suggestions from our customer base are what drive the feature set, many of you will find your ideas translated into real features and functions. • Among the most exciting new features are Forms Recognition, the Appointment Calendar application, Document and Settings Linkage, Writing Files to CD, Scanner Button Support, and the addition of Conversion Settings. • As always, Kurzweil 1000 has the latest OCR engines, FineReader 8 and ScanSoft 15 and we continue to improve on the scanning and recognition processes. This time, we added Recognition Optimization, Table Output in HTML and DAISY files, and Reading Newly Recognized Pages. • You’ll find numerous other enhancements in dictionary lookup, audio files, search, reading in lists and dialogs, Encyclopedia sources, and even in Time and Date. Wondering what we might include in the next version? Have an idea for a new feature or an enhancement? Sign up for the Kurzweil 1000 listserv on www.kesi.com, and give us your feedback. In the summary of each new feature that follows, you'll find general information on how to use the functionality. For complete details, go to the online reference manual. Form Recognition You can use Kurzweil 1000 to scan and recognize most types of forms. Kurzweil 1000 automatically uses the ScanSoft engine, keeps an image of the page and presents you with the fields, labels, boxes, text areas, as well as the positions of those items, and in an appropriate reading order. You can read, save, edit, cut and paste in forms, just as you do in any document. There are two ways to fill in a form. You can use the Fill a Field command from the Edit menu, ALT+E, then L, shortcut CONTROL+F3. If you have some vision or have an assistant, you can fill out the form using the image of the form by choosing Show Image from the Tools menu (ALT+O, then W). The shortcuts and functions presented in the general steps are applicable when filling forms using either method. When using Show Image, you can magnify the image, invert it, read the recognized text, move among the form fields and select or type in responses as you would in when using Fill a Field. The general steps for working with forms are: • Scan the form using the Scan as a Form command from the Scan menu; the mnemonics are ALT+S, then M. Scanning a page as a form only affects one page at a time. This is true even if you are using a document feeder, in which case, place one page at a time in the document feeder when scanning multi-page forms. • If you are reading a page and determine that it should have been recognized as a form, use Rerecognize a Form from the Scan menu, ALT+S, then E. Note that Rerecognize a Form will not work if the page you have open does not have an associated image. • Read through the form document to orient yourself and get a general idea of where there might be fields you will need to fill, and the context of those fields. By default, when Kurzweil 1000 encounters a field, you hear a chime. F5 starts and stops reading, and you can move in the text in the usual manner. • Fill in the form by choosing the Fill a Field command from the Edit menu, ALT+E, then L, or use the shortcut CONTROL+F3. This brings up one or more Form Fill dialogs in a series, and Kurzweil 1000 guides you through the fields. If there are multiple dialogs, you can use Back (ALT+B) or Next (ALT+N) to navigate, in either case Kurzweil 1000 saves the changes you’ve made. You can TAB and SHIFT+TAB to move through the fields. If there are check boxes or list boxes, Kurzweil 1000 announces them and their status. • When you have completed filling in a form, save your edits and close the Form Fill dialog by pressing ENTER or ALT+O. Your cursor returns to the open document. To close the dialog without saving edits, press ESCAPE or ALT+C. • You can use the Save function to save the document.The information you have filled out in the recognized fields is saved, along with the recognized text and the image of the form. • You can use the Print command to print the image file containing the contents of the fields you have filled out. In the Print dialog, TAB to the Use Images option or press ALT+I and select Yes. Then press Enter. There’s more you can do while working with forms, including rerecognizing a form, and adding a signature. • If you have a signature file, you may add it to any form field that is a text box and that contains a variable number of characters. With your cursor in the desired field, press CONTROL+UP or DOWN ARROW until you reach the desired signature file. For details on signature files, go to Scanning, Creating and Inserting a Signature File in the section entitled, Additional Recognition and Scanning Features. • You may encounter fields that are unlabeled or uninformative; to hear the recognized text found near the field, press CONTROL+X. Press it again to hear additional text. • If you want to hear the state of a field, press F7. For additional information about the field, such as its type, label, position and size, press SHIFT+F7. • Some text fields may contain multiple lines. Use CONTROL+ENTER to end one line and begin another. If you are using Show Image to fill out the form, you may use the ENTER key instead. Notes: • If you are using a document feeder, place only one form page at a time in the feeder, as Scanning a page as a form only affects one page. • It's possible to change the chime or message for a form field. To do so, go to the Verbosity setting called Reading Past a Form Field. Additional Recognition and Scanning Features Scanning, Creating and Inserting a Signature File. Signature files enable you to insert a scanned image of your signature into a document. You can also add a signature into any form field that is a text box. For details on adding a signature to a form, go to the Form Recognition section. Note that signature files are saved in TIFF format in a folder called "Signatures" in the Kurzweil Educational Systems/Images directory. To scan and create a signature file: 1. First, write your signature in the upper left portion of a blank piece of paper, making sure it is not too close to the edges, and that there is not too much spacing between the different parts of the name. 2. Next select Create a Signature File from the Scan menu. (ALT+S, then C). 3. Place the paper on the scanner following directions from Kurzweil 1000, and press Enter. 4. A dialog appears displaying the signature. You can increase or decrease magnification in this dialog by using CONTROL+UP ARROW and CONTROL+DOWN ARROW, respectively. If you are satisfied with the current signature, you can accept it by pressing Enter or ALT+O for OK. To discard the current signature, press Escape or ALT+C for Cancel. 5. After accepting a signature, another dialog appears asking you to enter the name you want for the signature file. If you would rather overwrite an existing signature file, use the UP/DOWN ARROWs to select the desired one. To insert a signature file into a document, place the cursor where you want to insert the signature. Choose Insert Signature from the Edit menu (ALT+E, then I). If there are multiple signature files, use the UP or DOWN ARROW key to select one from the list. Scanner Button Configuration. Some scanners come with one or more buttons. You can now assign those buttons to functions within Kurzweil 1000, such as starting a scan, starting Kurzweil 1000 Photocopier or FAX applications. Note that this works only if the scanner manufacturer supplied software conforms to certain Microsoft specifications; not all of them do. To configure Kurzweil 1000 Scan, press the desired scanner button; select Scan with Kurzweil. If you have both Kurzweil 1000 and Kurzweil 3000 applications on your system, and both are currently running or neither are running, you will have to specify with which of the two you want the Scan function associated. To set the next button for either Scan and Print or Scan and Fax, press the desired button and select the desired option. Once configured, you can press the button to perform the designated function. For Scan, Kurzweil 1000 begins scanning and its window opens if it isn’t already. For Scan and Print, the Kurzweil 1000 Photocopier application window opens and you can specify the number of copies and complete the Make Copies process. For Scan and Fax, the Kurzweil 1000 Fax application window opens and you can specify a recipient and complete the Send process. If you want to reconfigure the buttons, use the ScanConf application in the Diags folder in the Kurzweil Educational Systems folder in your Program Files. Recognition Optimization. Like Optimize Scanning, Optimize Recognition directs Kurzweil 1000 to automatically find the best settings for producing optimal OCR results for an open page. Accessible from the Scan menu, this command opens a dialog containing two settings: Text Quality and Engine; both are set by default to Optimize. When Kurzweil 1000 completes the recognition, you can opt to keep the newly recognized page by pressing ENTER or ESCAPE to discard it. Because this feature works with a page image, the Keep Images setting in General Settings must be enabled when scanning the page. Reading Newly Recognized Pages. It's often helpful to be able to listen to material as you scan, for example when you are sorting through the mail. To set Kurzweil 1000 in this mode, go to General Settings (ALT+T, then G). In the General Settings tab, press ALT+R to go to Read Newly Recognized Pages and use the DOWN ARROW to Enable the setting. This setting is savable. Scanning from Microsoft Word. You can use Kurzweil 1000 to scan a page while in a Microsoft Word document. Kurzweil Scan and Recognize is on the Insert menu. It’s also possible to choose a scanner from Microsoft Word from the Tools menu. Expanded Use of Batch Scanning Prefix. This setting is in the Scanning Settings tab, mnemonic P. You can now use backslashes and colons to specify the name of a folder to store image files or of a source folder containing files to scan. If you specify a folder or subfolder that does not exist, Kurzweil 1000 creates one. Scan Time. There’s a way to determine the time elapsed between the press of the scan button and when the scan is complete. Open the Recognition Statistics dialog for the Last Page (mnemonics ALT+T, then O and L), and because Scan Time is the first item in that dialog, Kurzweil 1000 will announce the time in seconds. New ScanConf Option. By default, Kurzweil 1000 continually shifts focus back to itself during a scanning session. Suppose, however, that you prefer to use Kurzweil 1000 as a background application, scanning with a document feeder or using the scanning hot key. You can opt to suppress this feature by changing the setting labeled, Keep Kurzweil in Foreground option to Never. This setting is in the ScanConf application, which is located in the directory, Program Files\Kurzweil Educational Systems\Diags. New Appointment Calendar Application The Kurzweil Appointment Calendar is a simple-to-use application that allows you to create and receive appointment reminders. It automatically installs on your system when you install Kurzweil 1000. There are two ways to launch the Appointment Calendar application. You can select Appointment Calendar from the File Launch submenu, mnemonics, ALT+ F, then L and M, or use the default shortcut keys CONTROL+ALT+A. Note that it's possible to change this default shortcut in the Tools Preferences dialog, ALT+T, then P. After running the application for the first time, the application is accessible from the Windows Task Tray and you can use the Right-Click method to access commands. Appointment Calendar will continue to run in the background automatically every time you restart your computer unless you opt to not load the application. You may decide that you do not want the Appointment Calendar, for instance, you may already use another application, such as Outlook for your appointments. In that case, you can select to not load it. You do this by opening the Tools Preferences dialog, and unchecking the Load Appointment Calendar at Startup option. To create and edit appointments: There are two ways of accessing the Add and Edit Event dialogs. You can: • Use the Right-Click method to choose New Event for adding a new event, or Show and Select for editing an existing event. • Or you can use the default shortcut keys CONTROL+ALT+A, or hot keys that you may have set. This opens the main window, in which you will find three menus: File, Tools, and Help. From the File menu, you can Add, Edit, Delete, Close the window without stopping the application, and Exit which closes the window and stops the application. The Tools menu contains two items: Preferences which lets you set the Startup Hot Key options and Select Notify Sound which enables you to select sound files from your system for the reminders. The cursor will be in the Events box. Do one of the following: press CONTROL+N to Add a new event, or press CONTROL+E to Edit an existing event. The Add Event or Edit Event dialog opens, and the cursor is in the event Name box. If you are adding an event, use the UP/DOWN ARROW to go through the list of templates and select the one that is most similar to the type of event you want to create. Specify, enter or change the appropriate information, then press ENTER. Once you’ve created your appointments, the application displays their reminder dialogs at the specified dates and times, alerting you to the up-coming event. To hear the event message again, press F7. In the Reminder dialog, there is a Remind Again check box, which is unchecked by default. Somewhat akin to the "Snooze" button on your clock alarm, you can check the Remind Again box, then select the timeframe, minutes, hours, or days, in which you want to be reminded again. If you OK without checking the Remind Again box, Kurzweil 1000 removes it from the event list if it's a one time event. If it's a repeating event, the event will stay in the list and the reminder will occur again based on your specifications. To change the Appointment Calendar Preferences press ALT+T, then P, or use the Right-Click method and select Preferences. There are two items in the Preferences dialog: • Load Appointment Calendar at Startup which is checked by default. Uncheck it if you do not want or need to use the application. • Hot Key option enables you to reset the default CONTROL+ALT+A for opening the main application window to another letter key in the list. To delete an event, select it from the Events list in the main Appointment Calendar window, then press the DELETE key. New File Features Support for Bookmarks, Notes and Last Reading Position in any saved file format. Kurzweil 1000 now retains bookmarks, notes and last reading position in any document that you save in any file format, not just .kes, so you can enjoy those features in a Word document, an RTF file or any other file type that you can open in the program. You can lose these features in documents that are not in the .kes or DAISY .opf formats when you move it to another computer, or alter it in any way outside of Kurzweil 1000. Linking Documents and Settings You can link scanning and certain other settings to documents. With this setting enabled, Kurzweil 1000 creates a settings file whenever you close an existing document or whenever you change settings. To enable Link Documents and Settings: 1. Open the Configurations Settings tab (ALT+T, then F). 2. In the dialog, go to Link Documents and Settings by pressing ALT+I. The options are as follows: Disabled, which is the default. Scanning Settings Only, which loads scanning, recognition and scanner margin settings whenever you open a document. Most Settings, which loads the settings associated with the Scanning Settings Only option, in addition to Voice, Reading, General and Verbosity settings whenever you open a document or whenever you switch from one active file to another. Writing Files to a CD. If your system has a CD burner and is running Windows 2003, Windows XP or a more recent operating system, you can find the CD Writing Tasks submenu from the Tools menu by pressing ALT+O, then C. In addition to adding and writing files to CD, you can check the status, remove files, erase the CD and write a folder directly to the CD bypassing the queue, which is a timesaver when copying CDs. The general procedure follows: 1. Be sure you have a writable CD in the CD burner. 2. If you have multiple CD drives that can write CDs, press L from the CD Writing Tasks submenu to Select a Drive, otherwise go to the next step. 3. Add Files to the queue by pressing A from the CD Writing Tasks submenu. In the File dialog, select the desired folder, file or files. 4. Start Writing the files to the CD by pressing W from the CD Writing Tasks submenu. To obtain status before you begin writing to CD, press S from the CD Writing Tasks submenu. You may hear some or all of the following information: total size of the files, whether or not a CD is in the drive, and how much free space is available on the CD. To remove files from the queue, press R. To erase all the files from a CD, press E. To write directly to the CD, press D, then select the folder whose contents you want to write directly to the CD. Note: the selected drive is a saveable setting. The Conversion Settings Tab. This dialog contains settings for how you want files in particular formats to open and/or to be saved. There are two main controls: Action, mnemonic A and Format, mnemonic F. In the Action list, select Opening Documents or Saving Documents. In the Format list, the selections for Opening Documents are Text, Braille, RTF, PDF, Other, and for Saving Documents, the list consists of Text, Braille and Other. Subsequent controls depend on the selections you make for the Action and Format. The following controls and their associated mnemonics are organized by the different Action/Format combinations: When Opening Text Documents, the settings are: Split Long Page, mnemonic P. Select Enabled or Disabled. Enabled is the default which inserts page breaks. Paragraph Analysis, mnemonic A. Select Enabled or Disabled. Enabled is the default which evaluates whether each end of line mark should be treated as a space or as an end of paragraph. In the Disabled state, each end of line mark is treated as an end of paragraph. Language, L. Choose Default or a language from the list. Left on Default, Kurzweil 1000 uses the language supported by the currently selected Reading Voice to read the Braille document. When Opening RTF Documents, there is only one setting: Split Long Page, mnemonic P. Select Enabled or Disabled. Enabled is the default which inserts page breaks. When Opening PDF Documents, there are two options in a list for the Emphasis setting (mnemonic E): Recognition of Images and Extract Text. PDF files can contain any combination of images and text. Sometimes, a PDF page may have embedded graphics, pictures and text. The results you get depend on your selected recognition engine and the Emphasis you choose. By default, the Emphasis is set to Recognition of images. Depending on the recognition engine you are using, this method recognizes or extracts all the text, and could potentially recognize everything on the page including labels that are embedded in a graph. This method may be slow but it produces complete results. If you want to only extract the text, select the Extract Text option. This method provides quick and accurate results, however, it ignores pictures, graphics and/or embedded text. Note that if there is no embedded text on a page, you could get a blank page or the results of image recognition depending on the recognition engine you are using. When Opening Documents with the Other option, there is only one setting: Use Microsoft Office for Conversions, mnemonic M. Select Enabled or Disabled. The default is Enabled, which uses Microsoft Office, if it is on your system, to convert certain types of documents to RTF, which Kurzweil 1000 then converts to KES. In the Disabled state, Kurzweil 1000 uses Stellent’s Outside In™ technology to perform the conversion to RTF. When Saving Text Documents, the settings available are: Add a Blank Line after each paragraph, mnemonic B. The default is Disabled, which adds blank lines only if they are present in the original document. To add blank lines, select Enabled. Indent the First Line of each paragraph, mnemonic I. The default is Disabled, which adds indents only if they are present in the original document. To add indents, select Enabled. Spaces used for a First Line Indent, mnemonic S. If you opted to add indents in the previous setting, type a value from 0 to 10 for the number of spaces you want for the indents. Zero is the default, and it adds a Tab space. Line Endings, mnemonic L. Select Preserve, Remove, or Wrap to Fit. The default, Preserve, retains the length of the text line that is in the original page scanned in Kurzweil 1000. Remove directs Kurzweil 1000 to make each text line equal to a paragraph. Wrap to Fit allows you to ensure that no text line will exceed a certain number of characters, by inserting line endings between words within paragraphs as necessary. Maximum Width of Each Text Line, mnemonic M. If you opted to have Line Endings Wrap to Fit, in the previous setting, type a value from 30 to 250. The default is 80. When Saving Braille Documents, the settings available are: Type of Braille, mnemonic T. Select Grade 1 or Grade 2. Language, L. Choose Default or a language from the list. Left on Default, Kurzweil 1000 uses the language supported by the currently selected Reading Voice to associate with the Braille document. When Saving Documents with the Other option, there is only one setting: Use Microsoft Office for Conversions, mnemonic M. Select Enabled or Disabled. The default is Enabled, which uses Microsoft Office when converting certain types of documents. In the Disabled state, Kurzweil 1000 uses Stellent’s Outside In™ technology. More File Enhancements Table Support for HTML and DAISY files. When saving documents in HTML or DAISY format, Kurzweil 1000 now preserves any tables that are in the original. Play More Audio Files. With Version 11, you can open and play DAISY Audio 2.02 books, and MP3, WAV, and Windows Media (WMA) files directly in Kurzweil 1000. If there are human voice(s) and/or music used on the original recording, that’s what you’d hear. While in these files, you can: • Use Reading and Navigational keys as you would in any document. If the DAISY audio book has page numbers, you can use the Page keys for navigation. • Annotate the MP3, WAV and WMA files by using Bookmarks or Notes, and use Bookmarks for navigation as well. (This is not available for DAISY files.) Opening Recently Opened Files. Now Kurzweil 1000 keeps track of up to 10 of the files you have opened in a session. Their mnemonics are 1 through 9, 1 being the most recently opened file. The number one is also designated for the tenth item. Extracting All Images. There may be circumstances where you wish to create image files that correspond to the pages in a particular document. You can do so with either the existing Extract Image command which stores a single page image or Extract All Images, mnemonic X, for all pages in a file. Both are in the File Utilities submenu, mnemonics ALT+F, then U. In the File dialog, specify a name for the file or folder in which the image should go. Kurzweil 1000 stores the images as TIFF files. If you used Extract All Images, the individual files are named using the first five characters from the document name, followed by a four-digit page number, with leading zeroes, if necessary. Once Kurzweil 1000 completes creating the files, it will notify you. Note: For either command, be sure you have Keep Images enabled in General Settings before scanning so that there is an image associated with each page. HumanWare Maestro support. To send files to Maestro, first dock the Maestro and verify connection. Choose Send To from the File menu. In the File dialog, select the desired files and press Enter. Next select Maestro from the Devices list, then press ALT+R to go to Properties. In the Properties dialog, TAB to the Files Format list, and select a file format. Press Enter two times. Note: The DAISY file format is for DAISY 3 documents. To send Audio DAISY files, copy the files from outside of Kurzweil 1000. Enhancements to Document Exploration Searching for Blank Pages. You can now find blank pages, that is pages that contain no displayable text. Note, though, that a blank page may have spaces, tab and new line characters. In the Format list (ALT+O) in the Find dialog, type the letter B until you hear "Blank Pages." You can use ALT+N to search forward or ALT+V to search backward. Enhanced Explore Layout. When you choose Explore Layout from the Tools menu, you will find new categories of "text regions" that are designed to help you better discern what’s in a document. A text region might be one of the following: table, header, footer, caption, title or text block. You’ll hear the name of the category and the page number on which it is found. There is also a new button in the Explore Layout dialog, labeled Extract. If activated when the current grid row is for an image region, a File dialog opens, in which you can give the name of the TIFF file you want the image to go into. You can activate this command from the grid by pressing CONTROL+E. New Dictionary Lookup Features Eighteen Bilingual Dictionaries. Now you can look up words in any of 18 bilingual language dictionaries, including AHD English to Spanish, Larousse Concise French to English, and LSI Dutch to English, and LSI English to German or Italian. The dictionaries are in the Dictionary Source list in the Define a Word dialog, which is accessible from the Tools menu. If you have the language voice installed, Kurzweil 1000 reads the definition in the appropriate language; if not, it will use the system voice. All dictionary shortcuts are applicable when using the bilingual dictionaries, except for Read and Spell, in which case, you must use SHIFT+RIGHT ARROW to spell and CONTROL+Y to read the selection. You can save a bilingual language selection in a Settings file for quick and convenient access. Suggestions for Misspelled Words. When using Define a Word, and the Dictionary is unable to find the word you specified, it will suggest another one based on words that have a similar spelling. For instance, if you look up the word, "braile" using only one "l," the dictionary will ask if you mean the word, "braille," containing two l’s. Copy Whole Dictionary Definition. Once you have a definition, you can press CONTROL+W to copy it to the clipboard and paste it into any other document, even one in another application. Two More Parts of Speech when looking up words. It is now possible to search for Slang when using the American Heritage Dictionary and Plural Nouns when using American Heritage or Concise Oxford. Changes to Dialog Box Features Continuous Reading in Dialog Boxes. By pressing the F5 key while in Lists or Treeviews, Kurzweil 1000 reads continuously from the current selection to the end of the list. In a Treeview, Kurzweil 1000 expands an item and reads its subitems, as the cursor progresses down the list. To stop continuous reading in dialog lists, press any key. Automatically Read Punctuation in Dialogs. You’ll find that for certain lists in dialogs, such as the Spelling dialog, Ranked Spelling dialog, Edit Word List dialogs and in all File lists, that Kurzweil 1000 will speak punctuation. Additional Changes and Enhancements 1. New Features Guides for multiple versions of Kurzweil 1000 are now available in the Help menu: press ALT+H, then N, and select the version you want. 2. Keypad addition for switching currently active document. While using the Kurzweil 1000 Reading Keypad Layer, you can press SHIFT+UP ARROW, also known as the 8 key, to change the currently active document. 3. Get Time and/or Date. Pressing CONTROL+T in the past would give you the time followed by the date. Now, press it once to hear the time, press it twice to hear the date. 4. Ability to create a list of misspelled words when using Ranked Spelling. With the cursor in the Ranked Spelling list, you can press CONTROL+C to copy the list to the clipboard, ready to paste into a new document in Kurzweil 1000 or in another application. 5. The ability to hear menu items spelled aloud by pressing CONTROL+L and CONTROL+SHIFT+L. 6. Changed Scanner Threshold default. In the Scanning Settings tab, the Thresholding option now has Dynamic rather than Static as the default. 7. Changes to Font Properties dialog. In Version 11, the Font Format dialog includes Bold and Italic. You can either Enable or Disable them. Note: If you have text selected and the selection includes a multiple styles, any or all of the properties in this dialog can be "Mixed." 8. Settings changes. Maximum Text Length in General Settings has been taken out now that we’ve replaced it with options in Conversion Settings. Saving Partial Settings dialog box now includes the Conversion, so that you may save Conversion settings. 9. When you set Verbosity for Top of List, Bottom of List, and Position of an Item in a List, they now take effect in Kurzweil 1000 applications: Appointment Calendar, Calculator, Fax and Photocopier. 10. Verbosity Events now include Reading Past Form Field, Completion of a Long Recognition Task, and Completion of Audio File Creation. 11. Merriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary has been added to the list of selections in Use an Encyclopedia on the Online menu.