Windows 7 Speech to Text

[GolabJ]

I am Legally Blind using a win 7 64bit system with open office 4, when I goto use windows speech to text with open office writer for instance if I say Hello the computer types a letter K, how can I get the 2 to work together.

[John_Ha]

Welcome to the forum.

Edit: This 2010 Speech Recognition With Open Office post says Windows 7 Speech Recognition works OK with Notepad, Firefox and email, but not OpenOffice, which if correct, suggests it is an AOO problem. Also, this bug report OO 3.3.0 does not respond to Windows 7 built-in Speech Recognition suggests there was a problem with AOO v3 which may still occur I have now confirmed still occurs in AOO 4.1.0.

I did a google search with Windows 7 speech recognition openoffice and it appears that Windows 7 speech recognition only works with Microsoft programs. For example see Speech recognition not working with non-microsoft programs which says

I'm starting to use Windows 7's speech recognition program which is proving to be much better than the alternatives, especially Dragon.

However, I can't get it to work with non-microsoft programs. It won't work with Adobe products (Photoshop, Illustrator, iDesign), Open Office, or the Chrome browser. It will work with Wordpad, Expression Web, Live Writer, etc.

A later post says

Thanks for the reply, Jerry. I do wonder if the Microsoft-only use for Speech Recognition is intentional; MSFT has always had a talent for shooting itself in the foot.
getting the response:
Naw is just most other applications have failed to utilize the accessibility APIs built into Windows which the speech recognition uses. Almost all of Microsoft's applications make heavy use of the accessibility APIs thus they mostly work with speech recognition.

All I can therefore suggest is that you faithfully follow the steps outlined in Windows 7 Help and try it first with some Microsoft programs. I found two useful items:

1 Start > Help and Support > type speech. This gives (W7 Home Edition) six results and 4 Use the computer without the mouse or keyboard is the one you want.

2 Start > type speech into the search box. This brings up Windows Speech Recognition and the Wizard leads you through what to do.

Now try to use it with a Microsoft program like Notepad or Wordpad or Windows Live Mail (Start > All Programs > Accessories > Notepad (or Wordpad)). When you have it working, try it with OpenOffice.

I think the application you want to dictate into does not know that you are using speech recognition - Windows 7 converts your speech into text, and Windows 7 then sends the text to the program as though you were using a keyboard.

You might like to both search, and perhaps post, on one of the Microsoft forums like Windows 7 Forum or one of the independent forums like Seven Forums.

A colleague used Dragon Naturally Speaking under Windows XP and found it to be very good - he hasn't tried it with W7.

Let us know how you get on.

[John_Ha]

I have now tested Speech Recognition with Windows 7 (Home Edition, 64 bit) and while it works with MS Notepad and with Mozilla Firefox, it does not work with AOO Writer 4.1.0.

I have added a comment to the bug report confirming the problem exists.

[John_Ha]

The bug has been closed with the following comment:

*** This issue has been marked as a duplicate of issue 70567 ***

Further background detail given is as below, so it seems very unlikely that the problem will be resolved in the foreseeable future:

Apache OpenOffice is a cross platform program supporting Linux, OS X and Windows environments--for that reason the UNO Accessibility API will remain the basis of support for all AT at comparable levels across all platforms.

However, as no agreed "standard" exists for Speach recognition services, that lessens the potential of implementing cross platform support.

On the Windows platform, Apache OpenOffice, IBM Symphony before that, and now LibreOffice implement the Linux Foundation IAccessible2 (v1.3) accessibility API. It is providing the AT hooks needed to implement Windows Speech Recognition (MSSR) to both Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice via legacy MSAA and Text Services Framework but it will likely never integrate with Microsoft UI Automation.

Realistically it remains for projects external to Apache OpenOffice to implement Speech Recognition AT for mobility impaired users who would benefit from that AT.

At present Microsoft has gone its own way with UI and MSSR. And Nuance, with its current Dragon NS 12--Full Text Control function--looks to again have omitted Apache OpenOffice and TDF LibreOffice support for UNO API, and only supporting Microsoft productivity products.

So, while it is possible we might see a Nuance DNS commercial module, I'd lean more to an Extension for AOO/LibreOffice using the Python based Dragonfly speech recognition framework and a AOO/LibreOffice specific command-module for the Microsoft WSR for use on Windows. Perhaps a cross over from the NVDA community.

So, this enhancement has merit, but it is not a bug or omission in the Apache OpenOffice project.

Bug 70567 includes this comment (my emphasis):

It's not up to OOo to provide speech recognition, but the API that developers of speech recognition programs can support OOo.

This is already possible via UNO API (all platforms), but will be easier for Windows AT when we get MSAA (in progress).

But you can already use the latest version of Dragon Natural Speaking for OOo Writer.

Please keep in mind the it's up to the speech recognition software vendors to decide which products they support and which they don't support.

[John_Ha]

I came across this extension SpeechOO - Dictation pad for OpenOffice which seems to be a Spanish Speech to text add on for AOO.

[John_Ha]

See Writer and Dragon Naturally Speaking.

Dragon Naturally Speaking Home 12 supports OpenOffice Writer under Windows 7.