The Mac-only speech specialists at MacSpeech Inc. have released ScriptPak for Microsoft Word X, which adds over 150 spoken commands to the company’s flagship product iListen.
iListen has “TalkAnywhere” technology, which lets you dictate into a variety of Mac applications. 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. iListen costs US$99 for a downloadable version. It’s also available in a US$149 bundle that comes with a USB microphone.
ScriptPaks are add-ons that add application-specific commands to iListen’s vocabulary. The Microsoft Word X ScriptPak includes commands that let you control most of Word’s functions with voice commands. For example, you can use speech commands to show and hide Word’s toolbars and palettes, as well as commands that allow navigation and control of formatting options. The new Word X ScriptPak costs $20.