Plover Steno

[Mary Jo Cochran]

Thanks to Glen Warner I learned about Plover Steno.  I watched the (forever-long) seminar given on the Web.  I downloaded.  It has a simple dictionary.  I opened up a Word doc.  I'm looking at this stuff and I'm thinking, wow.  It's so easy to add to the dictionary.

Plover Steno is completely free.  No, it is not even comparative to CaseCat or Eclipse - no bells and whistles.  But I am doing practice steno strokes, look at my Word file - and there they are.

For those who do not have CAT software Plover Steno is a must to look at.  If you download, do it on your laptop (a good laptop).

Thanks Glen.

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

I'm still confused as to what it is.  Is it reporter software?  Is it just suggestions how to write words?  

[Mary Jo Cochran]

No, it is not "reporter software" per se.  I had to watch that whole video and review many other things.  To say it legally, it is comparative to low-end cheap steno translation software.  It translates steno into a Word doc.  Simple as that. 

It has no ability for realtime hookups (unless someone knows how to do that), has no audiosinc and does not write to a disc.  Since it translates to a Word doc, all the necessities/luxuries/expectations of what a user gets with CaseCat or Eclipse are not there.

However, for a low-end court reporter, someone who is not realtime, someone just starting out, or someone just working part time, someone who doesn't make a lot of money, Plover would work.  

I was playing around with it today.  I downloaded it.  I opened it.  I went to the Menu.  I picked my writer, then went to my writer to make sure I had the right screen.  I got my connection (always exciting).  It gives me a basic dictionary.  I now have that dictionary and adding to it.

The Plover video states there are court reporters using it.  For someone who is low-end the Plover website is worth checking and watching the seminar video.  Plover also has a Facebook page.

[Glen Warner]

Hi, Mary!

Glad you're enjoying Plover! One thing, though ... if you have an .rtf version of your existing dictionaries, you can uncheck the built-in dictionaries and just use yours!

If you still have digitalCAT on your system, you should be able to export your dictionaries as an .rtf dictionary, and Plover will read that.

Also, steno phenom Stan Sakai uses Plover exclusively in his CART work, and, in fact, used some of the information from one of the web development classes he was writing to put together a program called "Aloft," which you can read about here:

http://stanographer.com/aloft

Finally, I have a couple of articles up on Cheap and Sleazy about Plover, but they are in sore need of an update (I'm workin' on it, I'm workin' on it ...!), but the old version pretty much works like the new version, but the new version has more bells and whistles. Here's the shortest one:

http://www.cheapandsleazy.net/lb_plover.html

Well. Those articles won't update themselves ...

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

Hmmmmm...   Very interesting.  I'm on Eclipse and do realtime, so this won't work for me but I can definitely see a need for someone starting out.  The fact you can use your own dictionary is huge.  

[Glen Warner]

Yep! Stan used to be on Eclipse too. Now he's one hundred percent Plover.