SECTION ONE INTRODUCING VOCAL-EYES! 1.1: WELCOME TO VOCAL-EYES! Congratulations on your purchase of Vocal-Eyes! We think you will agree that it is without doubt an extremely powerful and versatile screen reading program. In this, your Vocal-Eyes users' guide, we will cover the many features of Vocal-Eyes. To whet your appetite, we'll summarize just a few of the more significant features here: - No macros required! - Separate screen and keyboard voices - Over 60 assignable hot key speech features - 46 definable cursor tracking features - Advanced light-bar tracking with an intelligent automatic mode - 10 simultaneous standard windows - 40 extended windows - "Float" windows which can read areas relative to the cursor or light bar - 10 independent "Hyperactive" monitoring windows - Autoloading of voice environments, character dictionary and key label dictionaries - Automatic pop-up box reading - Review mode - Interactive review cursor (VE cursor) - User exception dictionary - Easy-to-use pull-down menu system for setup and control - Up to 9 different voice environments available at a single keystroke - Cursor routing - Visual highlight tracking (great for learning disabilities) - Capitalization alert and format alert for proofreading - Compatibility with popular screen enlargement software - The ability to take advantage of extended memory - Compatibility with most commercially available macro processors - A bonus screen cut and paste facility - Works with many voice synthesizers including full support of the Sounding Board hot keys - It not only works well with speech, but is also visually appealing and easy to use for sighted users 1.2: WHAT'S IN YOUR VOCAL-EYES PACKAGE Before we get started, let's take a few moments to inventory the contents of your Vocal-Eyes package. Here is what should be there. 1. An album containing this manual (a cassette copy, large-type ink print copy and ASCII format on your manual diskette(s).) 2. Your Vocal-Eyes master diskettes-- four 5-1/4" and two 3-1/2". The 3-1/2" diskettes contain the same information as all four of the 5-1/4". Use whichever format matches your type of disk drive. The entire manual for Vocal-Eyes can be found on two of the four 5-1/4" diskettes and on one of the 3-1/2" diskettes. You can use your favorite word processor to read the manual or you can use the supplied VIEW.COM utility. VIEW.COM will be described shortly. 3. Your user registration card. Please take time, now, to complete and return this pre-addressed postage paid registration card. This is the only way you can be guaranteed technical support should you ever need it. Also, the information on the card will give us a way to keep you informed about product upgrades and new products. Each version of Vocal-Eyes contains a unique serial number registered to the purchaser. This number has been assigned to you before shipping from the factory. Your registration card is required to verify this information. This is essential for future upgrades and support. Thank you for taking the time to register your purchase. 1.3: THIS MANUAL Everything you'll need to know in order to add powerful and easy to use voice features to your PC is contained within this Vocal-Eyes users' guide. It is divided into 16 sections, with each section focusing on a different area of the complete Vocal-Eyes software package. We have also provided you with a number of appendices and quick reference guides for your convenience. This manual is tutorially styled with several examples. This makes it especially easy for the beginning user. If however, you are already familiar with screen readers in general and you do not want to be bogged down with a large manual, you can refer to the appendices at the end of this manual. The appendices allow for a quick reference of all the Vocal- Eyes features/commands. It is still suggested you read through the entire manual but if you wish to get started quickly, the appendices may be helpful. Additionally, in the root or main directory of your master diskette, you may find a file named README.DOC. This file, if it is present, is an addendum to this manual and will contain any additional information you will need to know about Vocal-Eyes that didn't make it into this manual. If the file does not exist, you can assume your manual is completely up to date. If this file does exist, we suggest you read it as soon as possible. If you own NOTEWORTHY you can use it. If not, use either the DOS command TYPE README.DOC or TYPE README.DOC|MORE to read this important file. If you are not familiar with these commands, see your DOS manual for an explanation. Still a better way to read the README.DOC file if it exists or even the entire Vocal-Eyes manual is to use the enclosed VIEW.COM utility. This utility will be described shortly. As we said before, the instructions provided in this manual are tutorially oriented. We will teach you by showing you how and asking you to work along with us. We'll be giving you lots of examples of how best to incorporate Vocal-Eyes into your PC work, using some very popular software packages such as Word Perfect. We're going to be relaxed and casual, and take you step by step through the lessons. So sit back, relax, and read on. 1.4: THE VIEW.COM UTILITY We have included a file viewer utility called VIEW. This version of VIEW was specially designed for GW Micro. It has been developed by Access Technologies Inc. This utility is designed for you to easily read through standard ASCII text files such as the Vocal-Eyes manual. The documentation for VIEW has also been included and is called VIEW.DOC. Both VIEW.COM and VIEW.DOC can be found on the program diskette. Feel free to use VIEW to read through the Vocal-Eyes manual. We suggest you first read the short documentation file for VIEW called VIEW.DOC. Simply type: VIEW VIEW.DOC and press enter. Now press the up and down arrows to read a line at a time or the page up and page down keys to read a screen at a time. All the commands for VIEW will be explained in the VIEW.DOC documentation. Another way to startup VIEW is to simply type: VIEW and press enter. This time, a list of all files in the current logged directory will be displayed. Simply use the up and down arrows to move to the file you wish to view and press enter. Of course you can use your favorite word processor to read the Vocal-Eyes manual but you will find VIEW to be a very quick and handy filer viewer. As you will find, VIEW also has some disk management utilities. 1.5: FIRST THINGS FIRST Before you begin your exploration of Vocal-Eyes' multitudinous voice features, the first thing you'll want to do is make a backup copy of your master diskette. To do this, place your Vocal-Eyes master diskette in Drive A:, and a blank, diskette in Drive B:. Feel free to use either the 5 1/4" or 3 1/2" diskette. Or if you wish, you can backup both types assuming your machine can read both formats. Note that if you are backing up the 5 1/4" diskettes, you will have to repeat this process for all four diskettes. If you are backing up the 3 1/2" diskettes, you will have to repeat this process for both diskettes. From the DOS A: prompt, type the following: DISKCOPY A: B: Users of PC's equipped with only a single drive or have two drives but neither is of the same format, simply type the following: DISKCOPY A: A: or DISKCOPY B: B: Your computer will prompt you when to insert your source (your Vocal- Eyes master diskette) and your target (your blank) diskette. Now that you've made a backup copy of your Vocal-Eyes master diskette, place the originals in a safe place that is dry, not too hot or cold, and as far as possible from electromagnetic sources such as phones, monitors, etc. This way, should something ever happen to the copy of your master diskette you just made, you'll still have the original to work with. 1.6: AN OPEN LETTER TO MACRO USERS Those of you who have had previous experience with screen reading software are probably aware, occasionally painfully so, that many of these programs rely on macros and macro processors to produce many of their advanced speech functions. The program offers a basic set of commands, and then forces you, the user, to combine and string these basic commands into advanced speech functions pretty much the same way that you would connect a collection of Tinker toys together to construct a windmill or some other multi-piece structure. Well, with Vocal-Eyes you don't need macros! Ninety to ninety-five percent of your work with Vocal-Eyes can be accomplished with single keystrokes. The voice functions are numerous, advanced, and very simple to operate. Of course Vocal-Eyes will operate just fine with any commercially available macro processor. You will find, however, that with Vocal-Eyes your macros will tend to be work oriented--which is to say they will help you work more effectively with DOS or your favorite piece of applications software. Vocal-Eyes can handle the voice features all by itself. In SECTION 16 of this manual we will discuss how to use macro processors with Vocal-Eyes. Until then we strongly encourage you to uninstall your macro software from your PC and give Vocal-Eyes a chance to shine all by itself. And if you don't know what macros are yet, don't worry--you won't need them with Vocal-Eyes! You will be able to operate Vocal-Eyes just as effectively as any user with years of macro experience.