LetMeType

Introduction

LetMeType helps you enter text. Running in the background, it analyses what you type. After some time it has collected enough information to guess a word after you have typed the first two or three letters. A list of the most probable words is displayed, and you can select one with a single keystroke or just continue typing.

This works independently of the program you enter the text into - be it a word processor, the editor of a development environment or a dialog box field.

LetMeType can be used for arbitrary Western languages and even in mixed language environments. It works best for long words or phrases that are frequently typed. Therefore it is best suited for software developers and people who use a lot of technical terms. (Which is not to say that people who just write informal email will not find it useful.)

LetMeType's behaviour is highly customizable. You can set the maximum number of suggestions and their frequency. For skilled typers it is possible to limit the suggestions to long words with a high probability, while others can gradually increase the number of suggestions. Unobtrusiveness is important for both groups. The window containing the suggestions is displayed and removed quickly and you can always ignore it and continue typing.

Two other important aspects are privacy and security. LetMeType only stores single words, but no connected texts. There also is a secure way to prevent passwords entered into other programs from being monitored and stored by LetMeType.

Suggestion Window

When you type the first few letters of a word that LetMeType knows, the suggestion window will appear. Selecting a suggestion is as easy as pressing the corresponding number key. Any other key (including Ctrl and Shift) causes the suggestion window to disappear and will be processed by the program you are working with.

Here you can complete the word aircraft by pressing 1, or type f if the word you had in mind was airfield.

Besides displaying the suggestions, the window offers two hidden features. If you click inside it with the right mouse button, a menu will appear, among other things allowing you to temporarily disable the suggestions.

When you move the window (by clicking the title bar with the left mouse button), LetMeType will ask where the suggestion window is to be displayed in the future:

The default is Next to the caret, i.e. at the point where you currently are writing. By moving the window, you can change its distance and position relative to the caret.

Fixed position will show it where you last moved it to, and Next to the mouse cursor will cause it to follow the mouse pointer.

Note: LetMeType cannot determine the caret position in programs which draw the caret manually instead of using the standard functions provided by Windows. (What blinks on your screen in these cases may look like a caret, but technically it isn’t one.) Among these programs is MS Word. LetMeType is able to detect the problem and will use the mouse cursor for positioning the suggestion window.

Settings

All settings specific to a vocabulary fileIDH_FileOptions are accessible via the File – Settings menu item.

File – Allowed Characters lets you define which charactersAllowedChars may occur in a word.

And then there is Settings – Passwords for protecting your passwordsTaboos from LetMeType’s eyes.

Suggestions and Vocabulary

The following dialog is invoked using File – Settings. More information about each setting can be obtained by clicking on it.

As these settings only affect the currently loaded vocabulary, they allow you to create custom files for different uses.

Word Characters

In case you are using a programming language where identifiers may contain unusual characters, you can tell LetMeType so by using the File – Word Characters menu item. It allows you to expand or limit the set of characters that constitute a word.

Additional to the characters selected in the dialog below, words may contain all letters including a variety of special characters used in European languages. The first character of a word has to be a letter.

Since these settings are saved together with the vocabulary, you can use a different character set for each of them.

See also: Word RecognitionWordRecognition

Importing Text

Instead of waiting for LetMeType to learn your favorite words, the program can be fed complete texts. All words contained in the text will be memorized. Although this function can be used for dictionary-like word lists, it is mainly intended for normal texts, where the words' frequency and order reflect your writing style.

You can limit LetMeType's vocabulary to the imported words by activating the Read-Only option under File – Settings. This prevents imported words from being automatically deleted and newly typed words from being saved to disk.

The imported file must only contain the text itself, but no information about its layout. If you want to import text from a Word document, you first have to save it using the file type Text. (Be careful not to use MS-DOS Text, as that would garble some characters.) Alternatively, you can copy text to the clipboard and import it using Edit – Read Clipboard.

Precompiled Dictionaries for LetMeType... by Grade Level

• Preschool Word List (1 KB text file) 163 words
  In preschool, spelling words start with basic two-letter words. An example of the starting point for these preschool spelling lists for the start of the year are: AT and ME. Children then start to expand the list by working through "word families". From AT, in preschool spelling, the curriculum, worksheets, and then spelling tests would cover BAT, CAT, HAT, and SAT. Also, they might vary the vowel and go to HOT. A list of preschool spelling words might start with MAD and include MAN, MAP, and MAT as well as DAD and SAD.

• Kindergarten Word List (2 KB text file) 326 words
  In kindergarten, spelling words start with basic two letter words, or three letter consonant-vowel-consonant words, and become more complex. During kindergarten, spelling words can be introduced that end with a silent e, changing the first vowel from short to long, for example, with a silent-e, HOP changes to HOPE. Also the double-e sound as in SEE, FEE and TREE and double-o as in BOOK are introduced. An example of the starting point for these kindergarten spelling lists for the start of the year are: DAD and MOM. Children then start to expand the list by working through "word families". From DAD, in kindergarten spelling, the curriculum, worksheets, and then spelling tests would cover BAD, SAD, HAD, and MAD. Also, they might vary the vowel and go to DID. A list of kindergarten spelling words might start with CAT and include BAT, FAT, and SAT as well as CAR and BAR. In kindergarten, spelling skills grow to cover blends, for example, T plus R make the TR sound, such as in TREE. F and R blend to make the FR sound in FROG. 

• 1st Grade Word List (4 KB text file) 636 words
  In first grade, the spelling words start with basic Consonant-Vowel-Consonant words. An example of the starting point for these first grade spelling lists for the start of the year are: DAD and MOM. Children then start to expand the list by working through "word families". From DAD, in first grade spelling, the curriculum, worksheets, and then spelling tests would cover BAD, SAD, HAD, and MAD. Also, they might vary the vowel and go to DID. A list of first grade spelling words might start with CAT and include BAT, FAT, and SAT as well as CAR and BAR. In first grade, spelling skills should grow to cover the blends such as T plus R make the TR sound such as in TREE. F and R blend to make the FR sound in FROG. 

• 2nd Grade Word List (6 KB text file) 918 words
  In second grade, the spelling curriculum should cover second grade dolche words, advanced phonics, and compound words. spelling words include frequently used, irregular words such as WAS, WERE, SAYS, SAID, WHO, WHAT, and WHY. Second grade children are expected to master short-vowel, long-vowel, r- controlled, and consonant-blend patterns correctly. Words using the -ight ending are introduced, including BRIGHT, FLIGHT, and NIGHT, plus a few compound words are included in second grade spelling word lists including GRANDFATHER, BEDROOM, and SAILBOAT.

• 3rd Grade Word List (8 KB text file) 1,125 words
  Third grade spelling students are expected to arrange words in alphabetical order. During the year they will be introduced to contractions such as ISN'T, CAN'T and DON'T. They will also learn more compound words such as BIRTHDAY, SOMEWHERE, and YOURSELF. Third grade spelling words include blends such as in AGREE, CHOOSE, and HALF. Words beginning with QU- are introduced, such as QUEEN and QUIT. Third grade spelling words include consonant doubling, as in BERRY, BUTTER, and PRETTY. Third grade spelling students also learn common homophones such as PAIL and PALE. They learn that words ending in Y become plural with the -IES ending, such as the plural of CHERRY, which is CHERRIES. 

• 4th Grade Word List (10 KB text file) 1,452 words
  During fourth grade spelling lessons children learn about suffixes such as -ED, -ING, and -TION, and inflections used with them, such as dropping the final letter on most words ending in E, for example, TIMING and USING. Fourth grade spelling lessons also introduce prefixes such as A-, EX-, IN-, and UN-. 

• 5th Grade Word List (12 KB text file) 1,703 words
  Fifth grade spelling lessons concentrate on further study of prefixes, for example, EX- and PRE-. Also fifth grade spelling words include numerous suffixes, such as -ER, -LY, and -TION. Children studying fifth grade spelling are expected to spell roots, suffixes, prefixes, contractions, and syllable constructions correctly. 

• 6th Grade Word List (14 KB text file) 1,932 words
  Sixth grade spelling lessons concentrate on introducing commonly misspelled words such as CRYSTAL, LARYNX, and JUDGMENT. At the same time, sixth grade spelling worksheets provide more practice with root words, prefixes and suffixes, including AD-, DES- and -MENT. 

• 7th Grade Word List (17 KB text file) 2,220 words
  Seventh grade spelling students are expected to be able to spell derivatives correctly by applying the spellings of bases and affixes. For example, CAPITAL with the -TION ending becomes CAPITALIZATION, and MATERIAL with the -ISM ending becomes MATERIALISM. Seventh grade spelling words contain many of these derivatives so students should be comfortable with and familiar with them. Also seventh grade spelling students will continue to learn commonly misspelled words such as ACCELERATE, MANEUVER, and SCHOLASTIC.

• 8th Grade Word List (20 KB text file) 2,500 words
  By eighth grade students should be familiar with around 15,000 words and will read over one million words annually. Eight grade spelling students should know how to decode words they have never seen before through understanding of English language spelling conventions. They also need knowledge and strategies for spelling words they've never spelled before. Therefore the emphasis in eight grade spelling is to be sure students are aware of spelling conventions and able to apply them correctly. One example of a spelling convention is that if a suffix starts with a vowel, such as -ABLE, -ED, or -ING, and a root word ends in a single vowel and consonant, the final letter will be doubled. We see that STOP becomes STOPPING, TAP becomes TAPPED, and CLAP becomes CLAPPING. There are many other spelling conventions introduced and discussed during eighth grade spelling, all of which contribute to the student's skill in reading and writing the English language.

• Additional Downloadable Word Lists
  Note: These additional word lists are being provided for your convenience and experimentation. You must convert all word lists to the file type Text. (Be careful not to use MS-DOS Text, as that would garble some characters.)

Creating a Shortcut

If you want to create a shortcut which runs LetMeType and loads the current vocabulary, use File – Shortcut. This lets you select the folder to put the shortcut in, which most often will be the Startup folder of your Windows Start menu.

Word Recognition

Normally, it is not necessary for you to know how LetMeType’s word recognition works. But in case you are wondering why it sometimes does not make a suggestion, you might find these explanations helpful.

The most important limitation of LetMeType is that it cannot read from the screen. Instead, it has to collect your keystrokes and try to assemble the words from them. This is quite easy when you are continually typing a long text, but gets harder when you correct mistakes or use the mouse to jump to different points in the text.

In general, LetMeType will discard a character sequence unless it is sure that the sequence is a complete word. Modifications are only recognized if you delete the last characters of the currently typed word.

While monitoring your keystrokes, LetMeType can be in one of two states. Either it assembles a word, or it ignores all input until certain events occur. The latter state is entered when you move the caret using the mouse or the keyboard, because that makes it impossible to know if the next typed character is the start of a word or is inserted into an (unknown) existing one.

Suggestion mode is reactivated by events that normally mark the beginning of a new word. This can be a switch to a different window (e.g. the Search dialog of a text editor) or the input of a character that separates words (space, comma, the Enter key, etc.).  These separation charactersAllowedChars are not only important for starting a word, but also for properly ending it. Only after one of these characters has been typed will the word be saved.

Additionally to the word itself, information about its frequency, its predecessors and the windows it normally is typed in are stored. These informations are used to sort the suggestions by their probable usefulness.

LetMeType will only start making suggestions after you have typed this many characters of a word. The higher the value, the more accurate the suggestions will be. On the other hand, lower values allow LetMeType to add larger parts of the words.

LetMeType will only suggest words for which at least this many characters would have to be typed. If you are a fast typer and only want suggestions that save you a sizeable number of keystrokes, you should set this to a high value.

If you set this value too high, the suggestion window will be cluttered with too many words. On the other hand, a high number will increase the chance that the right word is among the displayed.

A word will only be displayed as a suggestion if its probability is higher than this value. The probability is computed using the past frequency of all known words that start with the currently given characters. Higher values will limit the number of suggestions made, but might increase the ratio of right vs. wrong suggestions.

If you do not want to be interrupted while typing fast, but LetMeType should only make a suggestion when your typing has slowed down, use this setting. Only if the time between your last two keystrokes has been greater than it, LetMeType will make a suggestion.

Activates an accustic signal each time the suggestion window is displayed. This is especially useful for people who look at the keyboard while typing.

Normally, LetMeType’s suggestions can consist of up to two words including the characters separating them (most often, a space). This setting limits the suggestions to single words.

Activating this causes LetMeType to add a space after each automatically typed word. This is only useful for natural language texts, but even there it probably will create some unwanted spaces.

While LetMeType works case-sensitively, it ignores the first letter’s case by default when making a suggestion. This can be changed using this option.

If you frequently type words containing digits, you probably want to activate this option. Instead of the normal digit keys, the numerical keypad is then used for selecting a suggestion. (The Num LED has to be on for this to work.)

By default, the suggestion windowSuggestions is displayed next to the caret. Instead, you can use the mouse pointer or a (customizable) fixed position.

If a word has not been typed for at least this many days, it gets removed from the database to make room for new words.

When the vocabulary’s size rises above this limit, the words not used for the longest time get deleted to keep the size below the limit. This includes words that have not yet reached the maximum age (i.e. the size limit has a higher priority than the age limit).

If you want the vocabulary to be automatically saved every ten minutes, and when it or LetMeType is closed, activate this option.

If activated, newly typed words will be memorized by LetMeType, but not stored on disk. The words can be used as long as LetMeType runs, but will be discarded when the program exits or you open a different vocabulary file. Words added using File - Import Text will always be stored permanently.

If this is switched off, LetMeType will also save words entered in password fieldsTaboos.

If this is switched off, LetMeType will no longer save character sequences starting with a digit. Numbers already present in the vocabulary will not be removed – this can easily be done by hand, though.

The suggestion window is displayed until you press a key, including Ctrl or Shift. If you enter a number here, the window will automatically be hidden after the specified time.

Menus

Settings – Suggest can be used to temporarily disable suggestions. The words you type will still be memorized.

Settings – Learn Words is deactivated, new words you type will not be added to the vocabulary. This can be used to temporarily disable LetMeType while you enter a password, and can also be achieved by clicking on the tray icon in the taskbar. A red cross then indicates that LetMeType ignores new words.

The background color of the suggestion window can be adjusted using Settings – Background Color. A light yellow background e.g. increases the window’s visibility.

Settings – Font allows you to change the font and text color of the suggestion window.

If for privacy reasons you do not want LetMeType to count your keystrokes, you can disable it by using the menu item Settings – Count Keys. This does not affect LetMeType’s work in any way, since the count is only used for the statistics displayed in the About LetMeType dialog.

Settings – Monitor Clipboard causes LetMeType to automatically read texts that you copy to the clipboard while using other programs. This way, the vocabulary is built up faster, but possibly with words you would never manually enter.

Using File – Merge, you can add words from a file to the current vocabulary. This is mainly intended for people who regularly use LetMeType on more than one computer.

Words to be Ignored

There are a few words that LetMeType must not store or display as suggestions. These are the passwords you use for services like America Online or for protecting your documents.

LetMeType does not add new words to its vocabulary if Windows' built-in password field is used, where entered characters are displayed as asterisks. Should this not work, e.g. because the application uses a custom data entry method, you can explicitly tell LetMeType which words should be ignored.

LetMeType is able to ignore these words without having to store them. (Technically this is done by excluding whole classes of more or less random character sequences.) After having selected the menu item Settings – Exclude Passwords, you can enter the passwords using this dialog:

To make it easier for you to remember which words have already been added to the list, a description can be associated with each. While this description is saved as is by LetMeType, the password itself is not stored.

The list is saved in Windows' registry, i.e. it is independent of the used vocabulary. If you have configured Windows to use different settings for different users, each of them has his own list.

Because words cannot contain separation charactersAllowedChars, you might have to split a password into two words. E.g. Secret!Merlin would have to be entered as the two words Secret and Merlin.

About LetMeType

This dialog shows the version number and some statistics about the current vocabulary:

Total count of keystrokes made by you.

Total count and ratio of the keystrokes made by LetMeType after a suggestion was selected.

How many words there are in the vocabulary.

Average frequency with which the words in the vocabulary have been used.

Average number of days for which the words have not been used.

Updates

The most current version of LetMeType can be found at www.clasohm.com/lmt/en/

Resets the counters for manual and automatic keystrokes.

Licence

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA