A few ideas
Hello Melinda, I’ve been using IT for several months, and it can be a little difficult to get used to in the early days. I truly believe it is worth persevering though, as the savings in keystrokes and time are huge once you are used to it. I know it’s hard, but if you can bring yourself to actually slow down to start with, you’ll pick it up that much quicker. I think Marianne’s idea of only using it for part of each day to begin with is a good one; it would make it easier for you to deliberately slow down if it wasn’t for your entire production time. Marianne has answered the question about pf1; expanding unexpectedly, so hopefully that won’t be a problem any more, although it is worth bearing in mind if you have any entries with numbers (suture sizes, dates, ages, drug dosages, etc.). If I were you, with a solid base from which to work (your radiology glossary), I’d merge or include – depending on which version of IT you have – one of IT’s glossaries with that, but I’d keep YOUR one first. That way, the words and phrases you expect to appear will be first in the advisories. Definitely import any lists you are used to using (as Marianne suggested), whether they be from another expansion program, or Word’s or WordPerfect’s built in systems. Depending on how big they are and how used to them you have become, you might elect to keep them as a “stand-alone” glossary for now, or you could merge or include the result with your radiology/base glossary. I found the biggest single factor that slowed me down was not knowing what was in the glossaries. I spent a lot of time typing a few letters expecting an expansion and not getting one, and conversely, I was wasting some of what was in there through not being aware of them. Sticking to one glossary (even if it has been expanded with one or two others) will enable you to get used to its contents more quickly, and you’ll see your speed increase. Also, be aware that whenever you add a phrase, IT puts it to the top of the two-letter group in the glossary. This means if you have tp for “the patient” and you add tpt for “the patient tolerated the procedure well,” the latter one will appear in your advisory ABOVE tp. You can still access “tp” by using the line number or shift key, but personally I prefer to use the “move” function immediately after adding it to keep the ones I use most (and with the shortest short forms) on top. It also means you’re not “relearning” exactly where your most common expansions are going to appear – it helped me to speed up. I hope these ideas help a little. As well as calling Marianne, please feel free to email me if there is anything I, as a fellow MT, can help with, MarieR
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