A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry

Instant Text - Totally Confused! - Angie

Posted: May 20, 2012

I'm supposed to be working now and don't have hours to spend trying to figure out how to set up and use IT 7. All other expanders I've used are so easy to start immediately. Can anyone just give me the commands I need to transcribe, I. E. (sorry it insists on capping that even though I never entered that short form). I copied the keyboard commands, I. E. Add New: ALT +=. This opens a short form that starts with the equals sign, which I don't want. I entered "normocephalic atraumatic" and "ncat" for the short form. It won't expand in word. What did I do wrong?

Where do you place short forms? In address? Business? Or Medstart?

Could I get the keyboard command to create a short form?

(Not it is forcing double spacing) ???

How do I set it up to use a marker vs expansion key?

Thanks for any help. This has totally ruined my first day with new client so far.

Could someone at least tell me, ASAP ... - Angie

[ In Reply To ..]
Just how to create a short form and what section to put it in?

Short forms - MT

[ In Reply To ..]
Short forms can be added to any folder. Medstart has medical terms so you would want to use that. While in that glossary, type your word, phrase, etc. For example "normocephalic atraumatic". Highlight it. Then hit ALT and the = key. Your word or phrase has been added to the glossary and your cursor will be in the box "In short", where you can put "ncat" for your short form. It defaults to a semicolon to expand unless you change it, so would type in ncat; to get "normocephalic atraumatic"

So, to simplify: Type word, highlight, hit Alt and =, put in your short form, hit OK.

For marker selection, right click on Short Phrases line, then click Options, then click Markers.

It really doesn't take hours to learn IT. It's too bad you had no time to review it at all before you started using it - half an hour would be enough for the basics. I absolutely love it, and it's helped me increase my speed as opposed to other expander programs I've used in the past. I trained myself to get used to the semicolon as an expander instead of a space because this way you can use multiple phrases with the same short form. For instance, I have all my doctors names stored as their initials and just choose from the list. For example, Michael A. Doherty, MD or Melissa J. Dunning, MD are both listed under MDMD.

Not sure why it's doing those things - time4achange

[ In Reply To ..]
but I can only think it has something to do with your default settings? When you get time to play around, I would go to fitaly.com and go to the IT main forum and look through the posts. I'm the same as above poster -- it's super easy to get started on and very intuitive if you can just take that initial time to get set up. I also totally agree with using the semicolon or colon instead of the space bar. That will make your ability to expand infinitely more versatile. SO sorry this is frustrating you so much. Don't give up, it's a terrific program.

Thank you! - Angie

[ In Reply To ..]
The Key shortcuts were confusing because on some commands where they said ALT + __ It means ALT and the plus sign, on others it means ALT plus the other but not the plus sign. Also what they had available to download with it was not the manual but several pages that didn't cover the basics at all. Everything on their web site was strictly promotions not instruction. A YouTube video on it didn't work and I finally had to just figure it out through trial and error. It is very time consuming to set up. Other programs you can just open and add your long and short forms. With IT you have to open word, type the long form, highlight it, then click multiple times to get the menu where you can add them, then close that, open Word back up, highlight another term, and over and over. I spent the whole time setting it up and still haven't started work yet that I tried to start 7 hours ago. It does seem to be a good program, but I wanted a blank glossary, as one that is already made up for medical is going to enable a ton of errors while you learn it. Finally figure out how to find a blank glossary and now I just HOPE I saved the 7 hours of entries I made to it! That also was not self explanatory. Anyway, sorry for venting, and thank you so much for explaining it to me. I should have come back sooner. :o Now to start work.

I have a similar question - landroverlady

[ In Reply To ..]
I just downloaded IT 7 and have always used IT Pro so understand it but for some reason I can't get it to link to my work. Any suggestions from you all who are smarter than me? I'm at a loss.

Figured something out - landroverlady

[ In Reply To ..]
So figured out I needed to use the semicolon/colon instead of space bar but how do I make it the space bar instead?

To expand with the space bar, click on - Classic Options

[ In Reply To ..]

under Options/Marker Selection

Have you tried to use the Short Instant Text 7 Guide to get started? See link below.

You can also use the Search or Topic Tab in the Help file by clicking on the ? button above the active Glossary list.

Thank you!!!!! - landroverlady

[ In Reply To ..]
I searched the help but that was not one of them I looked at. Duh. I'm just not that proficient with this stuff. Thank you sooooo much!

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