I have cerebral palsy and as a result find typing to be slow and difficult. As both a freelance writer and a student studying criminology via distance education, this is a very big problem. There are many tools out there that many help.
One tool I use is a piece of computer software called Wordq2. Wordq2 is a word prediction program that works with almost any Windows-based piece of software that requires typing.
It is a very simple program to use and the files needed to download are quite small when compared with other similar software. The program was very easy to install and took just seconds to set up to use for the first time.
Users are able to choose a starter vocabulary that matches their own writing level or to start with a blank vocabulary and add in their own words. Wordq2 even remembers the words you type for later use.
How Wordq2 works
To begin using Wordq2, do the following:
- Open the document you wish to type in.
- Open Wordq2.
- Make sure words is selected on the little dialogue box that appears.
- Start typing and a list of suggested words (based on what you type) will appear.
- When the word you what to use appears, simply press the number beside the word and it will appear in your text.
For example, if you wish to type the word "because," you might type "bec" and it will appear in the list with a number beside it (say number 1). You then press number 1 and then the word because will be added into your document.
Wordq2 also has a speech feature which allows words to be read aloud as they are entered into a document. This is useful as it allows users to make sure that they have selected the word that they wanted to use.
It also has a read feature which reads each sentence of a document aloud as soon as punctuation is added. So, for example, if I type "the cat is black.", Wordq2 will read "the cat is black." to me as soon as I type the full stop. I find this to be very useful in terms of picking up grammar errors in my writing.
Advantages of WordQ2
There are many advantages of Wordq2, including the following:
- It is cheap.
- It is easy to install.
- It is customisable by user.
- It helps with spelling and grammar.
- It requires a small download makes it easy to use on more than one computer.
- It really sped up my typing time – without Wordq2, I type 20 words per minute; with Wordq2, I type 60.
Disadvantages of WordQ2
The disadvantages of the program include the following:
- The user can only choose an American or United Kingdom accent, which can make it difficult to understand what is said when you use Australian spelling rather than American or British spelling.
- I had to add a lot of words to the dictionary and teach Wordq2 that they were the words I wanted to use (because of those spelling differences) and this took time.
For more information on Wordq2 please click here.
Karen Peatt - Articles written by Karen Peatt
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