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shorthand expanding too slowly

Posted By: Crystal Peterson on 2008-09-15
In Reply to:

Just wondering if anyone can tell me how to get my ShortHand to expand the text faster?  I know there is a settng under preferences, and I have tried several variations, but still not expanding any faster.  Thanks in advance.


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Slowly. It works more slowly, but not quite as bad
much better to get broadband of some sort for DQS, no question about it.
Expanding on the expanders
I also create Expanders for two words in a sequence that I mess up all the time. For example, I often type onteh instead of on the, so I have an Expander for that. I make a lot of these double mistakes where it is a misspelling plus a missed spacebar. I also misspell some of my expanders sometimes so I have made expanders for my misspelled expanders! For example, I have TOLW and TOWL for tolerated the procedure well.
Expanding if you are not supposed to
can be called on an audit and I have seen people fired for what they call "line padding" by doing such things.
Advice on expanding my skills..

If I  want to specialize in Orthopedic or Cardiology or some other specialty, what is the best way to do this?  I currently only do ER.


Would I  have to enroll in an on-line school or can I just use practice tapes? 


Any advice is appreciated!!


spelling numbers out is expanding for more $$$..nm
x
Yeah, they might be expanding and getting new accounts ! - sm
look on the bright side. Anyway its not best to jump ship from one job until you know you will be happy at another....which is why I always work 2....cover your butt.
Ctrl + Alt + A also stops expanding.
nm
...funny! (expanding my post above, got cut off)
x
My trick for stopping expansions from expanding....SM
This might not work for you but I find it quicker to add it in my shortcuts. I simply add the last letter on it again when I don't want it to expand. For example, BP = blood pressure but BPP = blood pressure. COPD = chronic.... but COPDD = COPD. That's a lot faster for me than to do all those other steps. Just thought I would throw that out there in case it might work for someone else too.
Re: expanding with punctuation, more info inside
I have been working on this platform for over a year and absolutely LOVE it. It is not the same as autocorrect expansions. This platform offers a LOT more.

I will type this directly from my manual to explain how the ESP abbreviations are expanded:

Press or type a delinter (a spacebar, enter, period, colon, semicolon, comma, question mark or exclamation point) that is appropriate to the sentence text or punctuation. The exapansion appears AS SOON AS you type the delimiter.

You can highlight entire sentences, paragraphs, etc and enter them directly into the ESP list and make a short abbrev. to retrieve them.

To add an ESP, press control, control and type it directly in, or highlight text in your document and then press control control and name your short abbreviation for it.

Sometimes, depending if your sentences are really LONG you will have to copy/paste directly into ESP and then give it a short.

In addition, with ESPs you can format words to be BOLD by inserting a tag. You can also put a tag in for something underlined, italic, etc. They also allow you to insert pauses and backups in your ESP so that you can type yof and get the hyphen first -year-old female.

Pauses are really neat when you want to nest an ESP inside another one. For example: if you put the following entries in your ESP:

lt (left)
tphp (The patient had pain in the)

(The ESPs need to first be created and exist)

Now you type the abbreviation containing the pause then press spacebar. The sentence expands to the point of pause and then type the abbreviation you want to nest, press the spacebar and hit enter. The complete next appears in your document. Believe me, this is something Autocorrect cannot do and really comes in handy especially when you have really repitious dictators who always give the same order on vital signs, etc.

You can also run a microsoft word macro as part of an expansion if you want. There is a special dialog box that the ESP uses for this.

ESPs also allow suffixes to be added to root words (another feature) but this is something I haven't used much yet.


You can also create more than one list of ESPs (can have 2 open at a time).

This platform also allows you to make "normals" for really long documents. Say you have a 2 page op report that a doctor will use over and over. You can just bring the entire document in. You can edit these normals at any time. These are like templates that you can insert jump codes, all your headings, numbering formats, etc.

On this board, I've been reading a lot about how people run to buy either Instant Text or ShortHand (as these are compatible with Dictatphone) but this is not something you have to run out and purchase. The ESPs offer a lot more than autocorrect.

So far, my one list of ESPs has over 20,000 entries and my line counts daily for 8 hours average between 1500 and 1800. Not bad.

The platform is REALLY easy to work from as another poster said you can pull up previous dictation from another Transcriptionist and copy/paste directly into the document you are typing. This is a really great feature when you have those really lousy dictators who pretty much say the same physical exam, etc. You can then just follow along and edit as you go.

It really is easy to use, and personally I love the Expander and have no complaints. Good luck.




Start slowly and try this ...
Proof 3 out of 4 reports for the next day or two. Then, proof 2 out of 4 reports for a couple of days. Then cut that down to 1 out of 4 reports. Keep yourself abreast by proofing 1 of 10 reports. Proof the reports and let them go -- don't sit and worry!

Two things will happen:
1) You will become more comfortable with your own level of skill
2) Your lines will increase

*slowly* - hey, I'm off-duty! ;-)
xx
Looks like field of MT-ing is slowly
fading out. I have seen 3 MAJOR hospital transcription departments close due to outsourcing. I'm not going to sit around waiting until the place I now work decides to follow suit. I'm training right now for the field of broadcast captioning for the hearing impaired. Hear they make between $25-100/hour for captioning television shows and the company supplies your equipment. I should be able to pay my rent with that!

I learned this many years ago: I type in phrases ,even when I'm not expanding but SM
I use Expanders VERY extensively. Doesn't ever have to be a canned report. Everybody says "the patient" and everybody says "within normal limits" for two examples that I'm sure you already are using. No telling how many thousands of abbreviations I have.
Alt + Shift will toggle the esp off for a quick pause in expanding...
Using the example given were pt expands to prothrombin time but you want to keep it as PT, you would type PT and then hit the Alt + Shift key combination, continue typing, no need to hit the key combo after PT because it's a "one-stop" fix.  Hope this helps :-)
Are you referring to expanding text or real macros?
Can't tell you what you are doing wrong if you don't tell us what you are doing.
Wow, it's all slowly coming back to me

flexibility.  As long as you do your 40 or plus pages per day.


Maybe you should slowly re-read the posts.
They seem pretty concerned to me. Um, even the moderator commented. That's kinda like having your mom step in when you're fighting with your little brother. IMO, you turned on us.
My monitor is slowly dying...sm
I have a Dell computer and monitor, but my monitor appears to be on its last leg.  I'm already looking for its replacement but instead of ordering another Dell, does anyone know of any other brands that are compatible or not compatible with Dell?  I'd really rather not pay the shipping from Dell, but I do remember when I originally purchased the computer my printer was not compatible.  Thanks for your help.
Have you noticed that companies are slowly sm
offering less and less. It was 9 cpl, then the norm for a while was 8 cpl and now slowly I've noticed 7-8 and 7 cpl. Pretty soon we'll be competing with the Indian MTs for 4 cpl. very sad.
I'm slowly getting the knack of this keyboard....

i think you have to think of each hand working on separate keyboards.  Hoping my speed will increase.  It definitely relieves the pressure on my neck,


My previous one was the standard Dell rectangular keyboard.


I do have Stedman's smartype and I using it slowly getting used to it
The lines do not go by charcter count. They are actual lines in the document no matter if they are full/partial/one word it is counted as a line. Do not include blank lines of course. I am an IC.

Thanks for all your input.
oops... I'm 46.. and obviously losing my mind slowly.. nm
.
the supply slowly dwindles, and you give up and go elsewhere...sm
what is the point of making a high line rate, when there is so little work available, you have to find two, three and four services to make the same amount that you did at ONE! This is a very sad biz!!
It will be slowly integrated over a period of a few years.
x
Take the time slowly to go thru some jobs and figure out
s
the definitive chair slowly undulates, sort of like
those air-filled things they have in hospitals....plus, the place I seem to need support is across my back up high - maybe I just get too tense and thats why it hurts there all the time...

Anyway, a chair is next for me. What a pipe dream, I can barely affort groceries...
SpeedType and Shorthand are the exact same program. Shorthand is lots cheaper and also has a trial.
.
{@KEY BkSp}-pack-per-year is for Shorthand. Using the semicolon works with both Shorthand and

;yo = -year-old


;py= -pack-year


etc...


Shorthand and SpeedType are exact same program. Shorthand will cost you lots less.
you can import your autocorrect into Shorthand.
I took shorthand too. But it sure comes in helpful for my expanders. I view words in shorthand for
i did use shorthand once in a job but i was so nervous the "boss" took pity and dictated the report on dictaphone.
If it is Shorthand, save the SPF file to a disk, then if you buy Shorthand yourself....
you can just drop the SPF file into it. That is not dishonest since you are the one who put the macros in. I am sure is it is another Expander there is a way to save the macro file and then drop it in the expander you buy on your own.
Shorthand ? sm
Is Shorthand compatible with and is it much different than the standard autocorrect in Word?
I use Shorthand with DQS

It is very compatible.  You can set it up so that you can see a hint window while you type.  I tried using the built in Expander in DQS, and you have to have a great memory, because there is no hint window or suggestion window, like Smartype.  I also know that Instant Text is compatible with DQS, also; but I prefer Shorthand.  I hear so many great things about Smartype and wish I could learn it, but it won't work with DQS; however, there is a way you can get around that.  You can use Smartype and transcribe in Word, set your font size to 14 and save your file in Rich Text Format, then copy and paste into the DQS platform.  Then select all and hit Ctrl 5 to get the spacing right.  It sounds like a lot of steps and you will also lose your place as far as leaving any QA markers, so I personally don't care for the hassle, but I know of some MTs that do it that way, so you can try it.


Hope this helps. 


shorthand
cool, i'll look into that thanks
Shorthand SM
Shorthand should work with ChartScript, since ChartScript uses Microsoft Word, but you would want to disable ChartScript's built in expander.  If you are referring to ChartScript.net, Shorthand should work in that too.
shorthand
Wow! Thanks! I had asked that question a little while ago on the production board.
shorthand sm
Where did you find a free program? Did it load right into Word for Windows?
Shorthand
The Hospital I came from uses Meditech with Shorthand-, works fine. There is something built into Meditech like a word Expander but everyones stuff mixes in together and was a nightmare- love shorthand.
Shorthand
I would be very interested.
shorthand
I use ShortHand with Meditech. Works great....
In Shorthand, there must be (sm)
a shortcut key or something that allows you to add on the fly?? The only thing I see is to actually open the ShortHand window then I can click the insert button on my keyboard or click on the little "add" icon. Is there a key combination for doing this while I am in the document - to just bring that "add" window up?
I use Shorthand. nm
x
Shorthand
Is there a way to copy text with bold headers into shorthand, bold headers and all? The text copies fine but I have to go back and use the special keys for adding the bold back in at every header because the bold from the finished text will not carry over. I've gone through the help section but maybe I'm not asking "how to" the right way. It just seems that my old version of SH carried everything over, but I can't remember. Anyhow, if anyone has the answer, would appreciate it.
Shorthand
No, you hit Ctrl K and B before the entry, type the entry how you want it, and then hit Ctrl K and B again to toggle the bolding off.  It will come up with a little window showing you the B is the next key typed or something to that effect, and you click 'OK' both times that window comes up.
Shorthand
If you need everything in CAPS use CAPS Lock. If you only want the first letter of the sentence just do as you would for a regular sentence by holding down the Shift key and type the first letter whatever it may be. It will bring up your expansion with the first letter only capitalized.
Need help w/Shorthand 9
I downloaded the 30-day trial of Shorthand.  I cannot figure out how to bold a word in MSWord.  Every time I try to input CTL+B into the expansion, the program puts the - {@KEY - or something like that.  I have read and tried everything I could find in the Help section with no luck.  Can someone type out what I need to input to get a word capitalized and bolded.  I would really, really appreciate the help.  I am thinking it must be something super easy that I am just not getting!  TIA
I really like Shorthand
I worked for MQ and liked the expansion program. With my new company I have Shorthand. I really like it. You can try it out for a 30-day period and see if you like it before you buy it.
Shorthand!

Is there a way you can import addresses into ShortHand all at once, instead of one by one?


Thanks in advance!


Shorthand
There is an AWESOME board you can join that will help also. It is productivity talk, and it is at http://www.productivitytalk.com/

It will not only help you with ShortHand but also with Instant Text, Smartype (sp?) and MS Word.
shorthand help
Does anyone know how to add to ShortHand the following:  PLa then subscript the #2 in font of 8 instead of 12.  It is annoying to keep going to font size and then to subscript and then back to font size and then back to no subscript.  I am looking for an easy fix, any help?