Case CAT help -- dictionary losing entries -- kind of --

[Wade]

All:

I have been having a very mysterious problem with Case CAT for a couple of years now, and I was wondering if someone out there might have an idea as to why.

The issue: I will be writing merrily along and need to add a dictionary entry. Dutifully, I hit CNTRL + D to define to my personal dictionary. I add the entry, life is good, I move on. I continue writing, the entry continues to work beautifully. I finish my job, end the job, end my session.

Cut to day two -- happily writing along again only to discover, much to my dismay, that the dictionary entries I entered and used the day before are no longer in my dictionary. But wait, it gets stranger -- when I press CNTRL+D this time, Case seems to remember EXACTLY what I defined this stroke as from the day before, and it auto-fills the text window with my intended entry from the day before -- YET, this is not a working dictionary entry.

What's happening? I seem to lose A LOT of dictionary entries this way and all of the double, and sometimes triple defining is becoming tiresome.

I am selecting the same dictionaries and using them in the same priority hierarchy --

Thanks.

[Diane Hickman]

Hmmm...after reading your blog, I am experiencing the same problem as you are. I will forward this comment to Sandi Starbuck for her advice. I just took a realtime class with her. I'll post her comments when I get them. I thought I was the only person who had this problem (or is this a problem?)

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

Wade,

That is totally strange. I keep track of the number of PD entries I have just so I can figure out if something that seems odd is actually odd.

I verify my update and PD each night and then verify PD again after I've added update entries. you might want to do that. Verifiy frequently finds PD errors.

marge

[Diane Hickman]

my thoughts ran that direction as to how often I update my persDix. Maybe that is the culprit. I don't update after every job, but maybe I should. I'll try that.

[Wade]

All: I update every evening and this still happens. I am at a loss. I will start tracking the numbers and verifying the update.

Sometimes when I'm real-timing a job I will re-use the same job file instead of create a new one -- kind of a catch-all job which I use. Maybe it has something to do with my choice to "overwrite" that file. I can't imagine why -- but maybe. Does anyone know if this is a bug that has been reported. Anecdotally, I've heard of it from others, but never bothered to call Stenograph. I figure I'd wait on hold longer than it will take me to just re-enter the entries.

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

[[ Sometimes when I'm real-timing a job I will re-use the same job file instead of create a new one ]]

you're talkng about job dictionary (JD) here?
If I'm on the same case, say, day 2, I will move or copy (mostly I move it) day 1 JD into day 2 and then look through it to delete any crap.

Don't know what you're talking about when you say overwrite that file.

[Wade]

When I say "overwrite" i mean that I would choose to "Tran/edit" day 1's job as if I were going to continue the file, but when it says "file already exists, append/overwrite?" I choose "overwrite." This way, I don't create excessive jobs that I'm never going to save because I'm doing all of this output real-time to StenoKeys and saving it in Word and discarding the Case file.

I just realize I was a bit confusing. I have a case for a specific client, Client X. When I work for Client X., they want all of their work done via StenoKeys output into Word because Word has to interface with a very complicated television/film time-coding plug-in thing that I can't even go into -- the point is, I need to output to Word via StenoKeys for this client. Inside my case labeled "Client X" I have three files: Client X Job 1, Client X Case Dictionary, and Client X StenoKeys dictionary. Since there is NEVER anything to save, I always open and re-use the same file, Job 1, so that I don't have to reset all of my translation settings every time I start work for this client.

I am translating against my update area, job dictionary, case dictionary, personal dictionary, and StenoKeys dictionary (in that order) into which I have all of my Word formatting programmed for some proprietary stuff I have to do only in Word.

When I'm done with the session, I save my move my update area into my personal dictionary, verify the entries have moved, and click "Save." I then exit the personal dictionary, delete the entries from the update area, backup my dictionary to five locations (no, i'm not kidding), and I'm done.

Essentially my job dictionary for this file, Job 1, is overwritten every day. It's not the job dictionary that I'm having problems with. I rarely use it except with PowerDefine to key in a proper name or unusual term which will never again be needed.

I am losing entries from the personal dictionary. And I find it odd that when I redefine them the next day, the software already has filled in the text field form me -- it KNOWS what I want in there somehow, but the steno is coming up as an undefine.

Maybe I'm just cursed! I also can't ever get number formatting to work the way any of the manuals say it should work. Never. But that's another post.

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

This is way over my head, Wade. I'd call SG and take advantage of your support contract!! Although the fact that you've had this problem for a few years I think you said maybe means that you don't have one. Good luck figuring this all out!

[Wade]

No, I'm a student so I don't have a support contract! Maybe I can buy a single call or something.

Yes, I am a student using Case like this on a daily basis. Guess when I get up to speed I'll be really good at it!!

Any ideas on my number formatting issue, then? When I intend to write 164,048 I always get 164,00048 -- my strokes are WUN/HN/SKOUR/THOUN/FRAEUGT -- I have heard that version 9 has fixed a lot of number formatting bugs. Maybe I'll just get my upgrade and give it a whirl.

Thanks for all of your help, Marge.

Wade

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

Numbers are a huge PITA for me too. I need to call support to find out why my stroke for 1994, wihch is in my PD as SNOER = 1994, sometimes translates as 1,994. so annoying!!!

I don't know why you're getting 164,00048. There's most likely something to change in the number conversion file. You could try here for an answer:
http://www.stenograph.com/marcom/RAQ/raq_archive.html

If you figure it out, let us know!

Marge

[Rhonda Hall Breuwet, RDR CRR CLR]

I bet you dollars to donuts you have 164,000 defined as a number in your dictionary. So when it sees the 48, it just tacks it on. The only numbers you need specifically defined in your PD are 1 through 99. Automatic Number Conversion will add the zeros for hundreds or thousands, and other numbers as necessary.

[Karen Margolis]

Did you ever figure out what the issue was? I continue to have this same dilemma to this day. I'm redefining things that are already in my dictionary but keep coming up as untranslates. When I press control, shift, I the entry comes up from my personal dictionary and shows that it's already in there!

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

I only update the night before going out on a job. But the routine when I do that is:
1. verify update
2. verify PD
3. add update to PD
4. jot down number of entries in PD before closing it (pdsize.doc)
5. verify PD again

So I don't update after every job either. Only when I'm going back out there to work. So there could be 1 or 2 or 3 jobs that I scope, sometimes more, before I finally update.