"Lesley Robertson" <l.a.robertson@tnw.tudelft.nl> writes: > "Dale DePriest" <Dale@gpsinformation.het> wrote > > Anne Brick wrote: > >> I have a pile of letters written during WW1 by my father and his brother > >> and would like to be able to type them up for family distribution > I am > >> a very slow typist and none of my children can read the older hand > >> writing. Does any one know of a share ware program that I would be able > >> to try? > > > > If a person cannot read it then a computer program is unlikely to be able > > to do it. Maybe you could teach your children to type. > > > The OP was aksing about speech recognition, NOT character recognition (see > the subject line). With speech recognition, the user reads the text aloud, > into a microphone, and the softweare does the typing. This message is coming > to you via such a system. I find it extremely useful, but it's not a > shareware programme. The OP said that his/her children couldn't /read/ the material. Recognizing spoken mumbles, hems, haws, etc. won't help anyone. If anyone can solve this problem, I'd like to hear about it. I have an umpteenth generation Xerox copy of a hand-written family genealogy of significant size...

Everett M. Greene wrote: > If anyone can solve this problem, I'd like to hear about it. > I have an umpteenth generation Xerox copy of a hand-written > family genealogy of significant size... I have various documents of varying quality. My grandmother typed her father's family history for him, and then added to it--using a Selectric ball that no OCR seems to cope with. Other documents are faded or hand-written. If they won't scan, I put on my headset and read them into ViaVoice. Even with genealogical material--lots of names of people and places, not in the program's dictionary, AND interference from noise in the house, I still manage to average 1200 words per hour including time for corrections and "retraining" the software. Dragon Naturally Speaking is better than ViaVoice. -- Wes Groleau I've noticed lately that the paranoid fear of computers becoming intelligent and taking over the world has almost entirely disappeared from the common culture. Near as I can tell, this coincides with the release of MS-DOS. -- Larry DeLuca

Does Dragon or Viavoice also work to input the data into genealogy software programs like Legacy or FTM? The only programs listed on the box are word processors, email and the like. If so, what genealogy program do you use and how steep is the curve to input the names? \Thanks "Wes Groleau" <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote in message news:HIMqj.30936$xE.5368@trnddc01... > Everett M. Greene wrote: >> If anyone can solve this problem, I'd like to hear about it. >> I have an umpteenth generation Xerox copy of a hand-written >> family genealogy of significant size... > > I have various documents of varying quality. > My grandmother typed her father's family history > for him, and then added to it--using a Selectric > ball that no OCR seems to cope with. Other documents > are faded or hand-written. If they won't scan, I put > on my headset and read them into ViaVoice. > > Even with genealogical material--lots of names of people > and places, not in the program's dictionary, AND interference > from noise in the house, I still manage to average 1200 words > per hour including time for corrections and "retraining" the software. > > Dragon Naturally Speaking is better than ViaVoice. > > -- > Wes Groleau > > I've noticed lately that the paranoid fear of computers becoming > intelligent and taking over the world has almost entirely disappeared > from the common culture. Near as I can tell, this coincides with > the release of MS-DOS. > -- Larry DeLuca

"Everett M. Greene" <mojaveg@mojaveg.lsan.mdsg-pacwest.com> wrote in message news:20080207.79CA280.A110@mojaveg.lsan.mdsg-pacwest.com... > "Lesley Robertson" <l.a.robertson@tnw.tudelft.nl> writes: >> "Dale DePriest" <Dale@gpsinformation.het> wrote >> > Anne Brick wrote: > >> >> I have a pile of letters written during WW1 by my father and his >> >> brother >> >> and would like to be able to type them up for family distribution > I >> >> am >> >> a very slow typist and none of my children can read the older hand >> >> writing. Does any one know of a share ware program that I would be >> >> able >> >> to try? >> > >> > If a person cannot read it then a computer program is unlikely to be >> > able >> > to do it. Maybe you could teach your children to type. >> > >> The OP was aksing about speech recognition, NOT character recognition >> (see >> the subject line). With speech recognition, the user reads the text >> aloud, >> into a microphone, and the softweare does the typing. This message is >> coming >> to you via such a system. I find it extremely useful, but it's not a >> shareware programme. > > The OP said that his/her children couldn't /read/ the material. > Recognizing spoken mumbles, hems, haws, etc. won't help anyone. Read the original post (I've left it at the top for your convenience). OP wants to type them up because the children can't read them. Doesn't say that OP can't read them, indeed the comment about being a slow typist impleies that the OP CAN read them. Lesley Robertson