How do you do new lines and new paragraphs when dictating?

[wrecklass]

It has always been difficult getting computers to wreck a nice beach...


Read that last out loud.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

 

[douglerner]

I think Google tech support is not very good. It's nice you can call them, but

1. They keep just suggesting to restore to factory defaults to solve the problem. Because there is no good "backup and restore" feature built into Android (like there is with an iPad with iTunes) it's a huge waste of time for something that worked that way out of the box after a restore was just done. It's a typical thing a support center says if they don't know what's wrong and just want to toss the ball back into your court.

2. I keep asking for a complete list of voice commands for things like new line, new paragraph, quote marks, colons, etc. and they keep replying with irrelevant answers like, "And for the voice recognition with speech commands I would recommend searching for a 3rd party voice keyboard that would better suit your needs. (Download off the Play Store)."

I wrote back and said surely there must be some documentation somewhere. I'll see if they answer. Sigh.

doug

 

[YAYTech]

They may not be even trying to keep up public documentation on it because it's in continual development. *shrug* I'm surprised it's as tough as it is to find a list, though - you'd think an enthusiast site would build & maintain something.

 

[douglerner]

I'm still trying to nail this down. Google Tech Support emailed me to say they have no documentation on it and to "Google for more info"! Unbelievable.

I did try to Google. I found one YouTube demo where "new line" and "new paragraph" seemed to work on last year's Nexus, but it sure doesn't work on mine.

doug

 

[douglerner]

I found this thread where people are having exactly the same problems I am. It's a general Android issue though - not just with the Nexus 7.

Issue 29283 - android - Add "New Line" and "New Paragraph" commands to voice recognition feature - Android Open Source Project - Issue Tracker - Google Project Hosting

doug

 

[douglerner]

Google and Asus support on this are so bad I'm tempted to just return the Nexus and wait another year. I can't remember dealing with tech support this bad before. I'll see how I feel tomorrow. But honestly, nobody at Google or Asus seem to care at all.

 

[douglerner]

I'm dictating this right now.

I think I may have figured it out.

The trick is, you have to say the words "new paragraph" without any pausing while you are dictating.

In that case you do seem to consistently get a new paragraph.

But it's tricky.

 

[Jeremy8000]

Google and Asus support on this are so bad I'm tempted to just return the Nexus and wait another year. I can't remember dealing with tech support this bad before. I'll see how I feel tomorrow. But honestly, nobody at Google or Asus seem to care at all.

To be fair to Asus, they're strictly on the hardware side of this, so shouldn't be held accountable for supporting Google's software.

As to Google, there's no doubt there's a product team responsible for the voice recognition product... Since that's not listed as being a 'beta' service product, I agree with you 100% that it's only reasonable to expect to receive on request some support or documentation on what they clearly would have had to code into the solution as recognized punctuation/formatting commands. The challenge is finding a rep who is willing (and empowered) to communicate with that team to get the answer.

In general, the bigger the business, the clumsier its parts.

 

[douglerner]

To be fair to Asus, they're strictly on the hardware side of this, so shouldn't be held accountable for supporting Google's software.

As to Google, there's no doubt there's a product team responsible for the voice recognition product... Since that's not listed as being a 'beta' service product, I agree with you 100% that it's only reasonable to expect to receive on request some support or documentation on what they clearly would have had to code into the solution as recognized punctuation/formatting commands. The challenge is finding a rep who is willing (and empowered) to communicate with that team to get the answer.

In general, the bigger the business, the clumsier its parts.

I agree about Asus, but I contacted them because Google tried to palm me off on them and gave me their support contact. But Asus's unwillingness to try to help didn't sit well either.

Apple support at least tries to help. So does Microsoft whenever I tried to contact them.

I woke up still feeling angry towards Google. I probably won't return the Nexus over this, but will advise people that if one of your criteria in making a purchase is support quality than avoid it. It wasn't just this one instance either. I've contacted Google support to ask them 3 questions so far and nobody there seems to know what they are doing and have given me what turned out to be completely wrong info each time.

Doug

 

[Alan Cath]

I'm a bit late to this discussion. Perhaps you guys have figured everything out by now; if so I'd love to hear what else you might have found. I just had shoulder surgery yesterday and therefore have a compelling new reason to want to master dictation in my new Android phone. I did eventually figure out that to get a new pargraph, you have to say "new paragraph" immediately after saying "period". Comma, question mark, exclamation mark all work fine. I can't get it to do any other punctuation, and would love to find that elusive list of verbal punctuation commands either, but will post again if I do.Google Now action commands are easy to find, but the punctuation commands are missing in action. As an interesting supplementary point, I try to dictate this post but it was nearly impossible since I was trying to type the very commands we expect Android to respond to with actions. Further, editing what you have dictated is incredibly difficult; support for deleting misinterpreted words or phrases has a long way to go. With my previous phone, and iPhone 4, I tried to use the nuance apps with similarly frustrating results. Android is better but still, its a very difficult process to dictate into the phone. I'm thinking of trying to party apps but I'm concerned about how they may or may not integrate throughout the phone.

 

[douglerner]

I think the situation as you sum it up is exactly where I am at as well.

doug

 

[Jeremy8000]

Further, editing what you have dictated is incredibly difficult; support for deleting misinterpreted words or phrases has a long way to go.

Have you found any spoken commands for editing, deleting 'x' number of words, etc? That's something I hadn't thought they had integrated, and any means of doing so has so far eluded me.

On the note of punctuation, pretty much everything I ordinarily use is accepted properly except for quotation marks...

 

[George Stevens]

Google tech support got back to me by email and their only suggestion was to restore to factory default and start over.
----------------

That's their canned answer no matter what you ask them. if you told them your tablet got run over by a freight train theyd tell you to restore to factory default and start over

 

[Lestah_613]

Honestly, SWYPE is a much better alternative. It's faster and more reliable than Voice Typing. Unless you're driving (and in which case you shouldn't be interacting with your phone anyhow! ) Swype will be pretty reliable for you.

 

[Winger-1]

Worked perfectly. You just taught me how to save hours and hours of work. A million thanks.

 

[meljaxx]

I've been playing around and found that if you wait too long after a punctuation mark it will just enter your command as text. Such as...
"This is a test" then wait two seconds before saying "return" and it will just type in the word "return" But if you say "return" immediately after the punctuation mark such as "Period" it will enter the carriage return perfectly.
This may be the reason it was working for you sometimes and other times not. It's all in the timing.

 

[douglerner]

I've been playing around and found that if you wait too long after a punctuation mark it will just enter your command as text. Such as...
"This is a test" then wait two seconds before saying "return" and it will just type in the word "return" But if you say "return" immediately after the punctuation mark such as "Period" it will enter the carriage return perfectly.
This may be the reason it was working for you sometimes and other times not. It's all in the timing.

Yes, I mentioned above, "The trick is, you have to say the words "new paragraph" without any pausing while you are dictating."

Still, there are lots of punctuation I can't get to work (quote, colon, dash). And frequently entire sections of words are just dropped.

doug

 

[BarefootHank]

To perform the function of a keyboard ENTER keystroke or Carriage Return, say "period return".
You're welcome
?D

 

[George Stevens]

Personally I've found voice typing anything long more trouble than it is worth because it is such a hassle to correct errors, and there are always errors.

 

[helenfoxwillow]

"period new line" and "period new paragraph" work consistantly. As do
"comma new line" and "comma new paragraph"
"exclamation point new line" and "exclamation point new paragraph"

(ooops. Late to the conversation. All been said before "period new line"
Sorry)