MacSpeech, a Mac-only company that makes speech products for our favorite computing platform, has released four ScriptPaks for the Microsoft Office 2001 suite of products.
The ScriptPaks will sell for US$15 to $20 each or as a bundle. For a limited time, MacSpeech will be including all four Office 2001 ScriptPaks with every purchase of its $139 iListen program.
“These ScriptPaks collectively have over 200 commands, giving users unprecedented control of the Office 2001 programs with their voice,” said MacSpeech Chief Evangelist Chuck Rogers. “The Word 2001 ScriptPak alone has 70 commands — three times as many as our Word 98 ScriptPak.”
iListen, MacSpeech’s speech recognition software, has “TalkAnywhere” technology, which lets you dictate into virtually any Mac application. It translates speech to typed text and characters anywhere you would normally type. iListen is speaker dependent, meaning you have to spend some time “training” iListen to the unique cadence and timbre of your voice. However, it can handle multiple users, each with their own speech files.
ScriptPaks are designed to enhance the user’s ability to Command & Control the application for which it was written. They enhance the Command & Control of an application and are not required to take advantage of the TalkAnywhere dictation technology.
There are ScriptPaks for the following applications: America Online 5.0, AppleWorks 6, FileMaker Pro 5.0, Final Draft 5.0, iCab, iLiner 1.1, Internet Explorer 5.0, Microsoft Entourage 2001, Microsoft Excel 2001, Microsoft PowerPoint 2001, Microsoft Word 2001, MYOB Plus, Netscape 6, Nisus Email, Nisus Writer, Palm Desktop, QuarkXPress, Quicken Deluxe 2000, Quicken Deluxe 2001, Spaceward Ho!, and Street Atlas USA 6.0
iListen 1.0.1 sells for $139 without a headset, and includes a free upgrade to the next version. Analog and USB headsets are also available from the company’s Web site. MacSpeech is also offering a 25 percent discount on headsets purchased with iListen.