Oh great – the scary post about all the horrible things that will happen if you don’t back up regularly. How many hours would it take you to recreate your lost data, pictures, Smartype libraries? Not scared yet? Fine. You know there are all kinds of things poised to pounce on your computer….crashes, viruses, power surges, monkeys, etc.

Okay, I’m done now. That was my obligatory dire warning about backing up.

In Smartype, all you have to do is go to the Main Menu>Library Management>Open Library Folder and make a copy of anything in there you want to save. You could also do this in My Computer/Program Files and make a copy of the entire folder.  Easy enough to do often especially while you are first starting out and adding lots of entries.

I like to e-mail these to myself at a web-based service like Yahoo or Google that give you plenty of storage space, make a Backup folder, and save the e-mails there. This way, all I have to do is sign in from anywhere on any computer and have access to my files. I also save a copy of the original e-mail from Smartype with my user name and serial number in that folder.

Have you backed up recently?

Kim

Smartbox Menu

Right click in the Smartbox to see your options. You can have the box horizontal or vertical. You have the option of having the box follow the cursor or in a fixed position. In the fixed position, drag the box anywhere you want it to hang out, for example a vertical box can sit right outside your document on the right or left. It is going to stay in that position and not float up and down the page.

I personally use the “Dock Prompt Box” option, which gives me a horizontal box all the way along the bottom of my monitor screen that stays in one place. You choose if you want it to dock at the top/bottom of your screen or left/right side. Try out a few options and see which one feels best for you.

Let’s not forget your personal style here! Right click in the Smartbox for the menu and click “Custom Style.” Here you can choose a predefined color scheme from the drop-down menu (where you see the word “Classic” or make up your own custom color scheme from dark background and light letters, to a lower-contrast background to go easy on the eyes. You can even have the word/phrase that is going to expand be a third color by changing the “Selected text” option as I have done in the example.  I love the preview box where you can play with the settings until you get it just the way you want it.  While you are here, change the font that displays in the Smartbox if you wish, larger/smaller, bold/italic, Times New Roman or your preferred font.

The “Show Small Buttons” option you see in both the main menu options and the Smartbox menu options will toggle on/off a small bar in the Smartbox that contains some of the Smartbox menu options rather than having to right click for them.

Find a scheme that works for you and stay with it – or change it every week!

Kim

Commercial expanders offer a wide range of features to increase your productivity well beyond the capabilities of autocorrect and vary from complex to simple. While I am addressing Smartype here, this applies to commercial expanders in general.

While you enter your abbreviations and expansions in a similar fashion in Smartype and with Autocorrect, you will have to rely on memorization to fully utilize all of your Autocorrect entries. Smartype has an advisory box (Smartbox) that shows you what you will be expanding. No more adding entries and forgetting to use them later.

Smartype has a default abbreviation system or you can use your own. You won’t be spending all of your time adding words and phrases either….Smartype comes with thousands of single words and phrases preloaded for you. Just launch the program and start transcribing. You will find yourself cutting back on spellcheck use and even looking up word spellings – they are all there for you.

Portability: Maybe you work on more than one account, more than one platform, and/or more than one company. With a commercial expander like Smartype, all of your entries are available to you all the time. No more building up an Autocorrect library only to have to start over if you move to another company or platform.

Capacity: Word’s autocorrect program has limitations on how many expansions it will hold. Rather than limit yourself, get a commercial expander and add abbreviations for everything (or let Smartype learn for you…)

Smartype is ~ well ~ SMART! Smartype’s learning feature will learn your words and phrases as you type. It will learn your more frequently-used words and phrases and move them to the top of the list so you type less characters to expand them. Try that with Autocorrect.

Kim

Back in those days, Smartype did not work anywhere other than directly in MSWord 2003 or prior. Well, it does now! At the time of this writing, before even officially launching Smartype, we have tested it in Notepad, Wordpad, Word Perfect9, Word 2007 and 2010, various e-mail programs, Open Office, Emdat, Dictaphone Extext, Medent, and Iscriptor.

Multiple vocabularies: Smartype now offers the ability to use multiple vocabularies and choose the one(s) you want active depending on what you are working on. These can be separate doctor name lists, separate specialty lists, procedure vocabularies – lists as small or large as you want with the flexibility to use them when you need them.

Scanning documents and directories: Yes – Smartype can now scan your documents and directories and compile word and phrase lists.

There is more, but you get the idea. A lot has been changed, added, and improved since the previous releases of Smartype. Come and see what we do now – Check it out for yourself with the 30-day free trial here -

http://www.smartype.com/id9.html

Kim

We are pleased to announce the return of Smartype for medical transcriptionists and the opening of our new blog.  Check back, as we will be adding content in the future for productivity software users.

As we launch the new release of Smartype, we will be discussing our most common questions and comments right here, so maybe the answer to your question will already be on the blog. We also will be including tips and tricks for Smartypers and anyone who uses expander/productivity software.

Kim