Keyboard Builders' Digest / Tips & Tricks
Stenotypy / Spellbook
Stenotypy (aka Spellbook) is a true QWERTY steno dictionary with a couple thousand entries by solomonkimrey.
Published December 12, 2021
Stenotypy is an AutoHotKey script based on Laszlo's code with a dictionary (set of commands) dubbed Spellbook created by Solomon Kimrey.
I've been always amazed by the concept of stenography but as someone typing in a heavily agglutinating language I can't really utilize steno.
Anyway, I hope some of you typing exclusively in English may find this useful. At least you don't need a dedicated steno keyboard nor have you to start learning classic stenography from scratch.
You need AutoHotKey to use this script. Just download AHK and then launch spellbook.ahk which is available in this Github repo:
https://github.com/skimrey/stenotypy
The code is based on Laszlo's method pupblished back in 2005:
The following script recognizes multiple keys (letters only) pressed in the same time (like s,d,f) and sends a special character or an arbitrary string to the active window – Laszlo.
If a key is pressed alone, it is sent unchanged, so the normal keyboard behavior is not altered. (As of my understanding, typing single characters is cumbersome on steno boards.)
This is a dictionary I built for myself to work faster and with less fatigue as a transcriptionist. […] I found stenography fascinating, but thought that the phonetic spelling concept and new keyboard were actually taking me longer to learn than generating my own spellings for a layout that was intuitive to me – Solomon Kimrey.
Published on Sun 12th Dec 2021. Featured in KBD #56 (source).
Related
Type-Writing Machine, 1879
The first(?) steno machine patented by Miles M. Bartholomew in 1879.
Velotype Pro
Not the usual monoblock split: the Velotype Pro is actually a chorded keyboard.
ObiWanStenobit
An open-source, low-profile, portable, pseudo-split steno keyboard: ObiWanStenobit by ivndbt.
PICO Chord keyboard
A well-documented chorded keyboard project based on the Raspberry Pi Pico: the PICO Chord.