Skip to main content

Intro to Stenography

Hello my name is Peter. I'm here to bring steno to everyone.

Learning stenography doesn't have to be expensive.

What is stenography?
Stenography is a form of writing where you can write whole words or phrases by pressing multiple keys at once. The entire system is based on the pronunciation of a word, for example, you can stroke the word "quality" by pressing "KWALT" on the steno machine.

The steno layout:

Why stenography?
With only 23 keys, stenography is much more efficient than the traditional method of typing. The world record for stenography is currently at 360 words per minute, held by Mark Kislingbury, but the average court reporter must be able to write at over 200 words per minute. Compare this to the measly 70 wpm average of a "fast typist".

By the way, you can do anything a normal keyboard can do on a steno keyboard and I mean anything. Punctuations, symbols, capitalization, numbers, characters, emojis, shorcuts, functions are all possible with steno.

Where can I start?
Traditional stenograph machines costs thousand of dollars and the software adds a couple thousand more. For a total of about ten thousand dollars you have bought all the harware and software that is required to enroll yourself in a steno course (which is also more money) and finally discover whether steno is right for you.

All of this changed with Plover, the open source stenography software, which allows anyone to use steno on their computer if they just have an N-key rollover (nkro) mechanical keyboard.

StenoKeyboards.com
The Uni is a mechanical keyboard tailored specifically for users who do their stenoing with Plover. Some call it a "hobbyist steno machine" because it is essentially a steno machine that more people can afford. It is much cheaper than traditional steno machines, and it also happens to be one of the cheapest hobbyist steno keyboards out on the market.

You can do steno too.

Peter
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Steno In a Nutshell

Quick, read this sentence out loud. Now, try to type that same sentence. Which was faster? Most people can read much faster than they can type. Stenographers, on the other hand, can type as fast as you read! But what is steno anyways? Sometimes, steno feels like magic. Words. Entire words, magically appearing on the screen. Steno is a method of writing that allows the user to press multiple keys at the same time to make an entire word. Here's a video of me doing stenography. Huh? Watch it again. Maybe you can understand it the second time around. Or maybe not. Still confused? I was too. But it turns out, it's not as complicated as it looks. Steno might look like playing a piano, and you're not wrong... Piano and steno are actually quite similar. Both use chords to represent sounds. Phonetic Spelling You write in steno by typing words as they sound. You spell "cat" by typing "KAT" in steno. There are only 22 letter keys on the steno layout even though the...
1 comment
Read more >>

Steno with the Uni: How to connect it with Plover.

See the updated guide on setting up the Uni here! Thanks for purchasing the Uni! This is the layout: If you bought the PCB version click  here  for the build guide. Everything below is for those who ordered the fully assembled version. Fully Assembled Setup The fully assembled Uni will come ready to use out of the box. Almost. You just need to have Plover installed on your computer. Make sure to get the latest build. How to install Plover  : Click on the latest version of Plover (continuous 4.0.0 or whatever is newest). Under Assets install the Windows Installer (or macOS or Linux depending on your operating system). Go through the installation setup If you already have Plover installed do this: Open Plover. Click the Configure gear icon on the top left corner. Click on the Machine tab. Click on the drop down next to Machine: and select Gemini PR Below, click on the button that says Scan. Click on the drop down for Port and select the COM number that popped up. If more ...
Post a Comment
Read more >>

How to do NKRO on QMK for stenography

This is not an in-depth tutorial, but a pile of resources for future reference. If your keyboard is mechanical and it uses QMK Firmware, try holding LeftShift+RightShift+N to enable nkro. If that doesn't work, check the  QMK docs . If you're really savvy, you can manually edit the firmware code. The most important piece of code is the #define FORCE_NKRO in the config.h file. More information on qmk and steno can be found  here . You can also check out the_uni branch on my fork of the qmk firmware github to see an example of the firmware that a Uni uses.
Post a Comment
Read more >>