I’ve been training reporters all over the country and even internationally for almost a decade, and I hear it all the time. “I know Eclipse can do so much more, but I just haven’t taken the time to learn how to use it properly.”
Well, here it is. This is your chance. I’ve come up with what I believe are some of the best features that Eclipse has to offer that everyone should know! These are the bells and whistles that can make your job of cranking out those transcripts a little bit more fun. Almost every day I ask myself how in the world I ever got those jobs out for 14 years without the benefit of the technology we have now. It’s just amazing how far Eclipse has come!
This class will be offered live in Houston, Dallas, Austin and on a Galveston cruise this fall. Just check under the Seminars tab for dates and details!
The DVD is not complete yet, but I hope to finish it soon. Once it’s done, I will submit the course to NCRA for CEU approval. If you pre-order now, the DVD is just $99. It’s a lot more work than I thought it was going to be get everything just right, so I’m not sure what the price will be once all the blood, sweat and tears have gone into it.
I’m very excited to present this course to you to do in the comfort of your home. It’s designed so that you can sit in your living room in front of a TV, with Eclipse open on your computer, and it will feel just like one-on-one training. You won’t have to get on an airplane or stay in a hotel. You won’t have to dial up a number at any certain time of the day and be afraid that you will miss the class because you have a job and you’re not sure what time 6:00 pm mountain or central or pacific time is! You don’t have to have an internet connection that you have to worry about. Just you, me, Eclipse and your TV at any hour of the day or night that you’re ready.
Here’s what I have in store for you:
Auto Brief
- How to tell Eclipse EXACTLY how you want your Auto Briefs, like:
- no asterisks, please
- for the first brief, use “1-RBGS,” for the second brief, “2-RBGS,” etc.
- never give me a brief for phrases containing “it, or, and, exhibit”
- How to delete the last Auto Brief suggestion
- How to tell Eclipse you don’t like the last suggestion… please try again
- How to have your Auto Brief suggestions display “LIKE THIS” instead of “HRAOEUBG THEUS”
Translation Magic
- How to tweak your phonetic table so Eclipse knows how you write steno
- How to tell if your Translation Magic number is all wrong
- Three places to click for even better Translation Magic results
Dictionaries
- Some really tricky dictionary entries, like:
- how to define “street” so that if it’s used as part of an address, the word before it is automatically capitalized and the number before that word is turned into digits, as in “9 Pencil Street”
- how to define “exhibit number” so that it seamlessly translates as either “Exhibit No. 2″ or “the next exhibit number.”
- how to define “TOD” if sometimes that is your “today” or “Todd,” but many times it’s the suffix “-ed” and then the word “to” (and you will never, ever see “it was mention today me” AGAIN!)
- A simple keyboard command to instantly add a dictionary entry
- How to turn any list of words and phrases from the internet or a list of spellings for a job from another reporter into an Eclipse dictionary
- How to set up one job dictionary that will be used continuously if you’ll be working on the same case for two weeks
Realtime
- How to write notes to yourself in realtime that you don’t have to worry about an attorney ever seeing
- Two ways to S-T-I-T-C-H in realtime
- including spelling out S-T-R-A-T-F-O-R-D with just two steno strokes
- and how to use that same method to fingerspell at lightning speed
- How to use the built-in macros
- like the one that comes in handy when the attorney repeats everything the witness says, and you only have to write it out the first time.
- How to blank the screen in realtime in two quick strokes
- How to write a realtime stroke to have your computer ask the attorneys to slow down
- How to write a realtime stroke to have your computer ask the witness to spell something
- How to use Eclipse to write realtime directly into your email or any Windows program
- How to have your realtime jobs automatically named by date and time in any format you like, as in “November 9, 2009 – 10:00 a.m.”
- How to end one realtime file and start a new one with two strokes
Editing
- How to use autoreplacements to type in long words and phrases
- A great trick for automatically formatting the witness speaking in colloquy
- Automatically have Eclipse put in “BY MR. JONES” after colloquy
- How to tell at a glance which dictionary to blame for a weird word translation
- How to have your dictionary open at the top of your screen and follow along with the word your cursor is on while editing
- How to tell Eclipse to put any capitalized globals into your job dictionary instead of your main dictionary by default
- How you, your scopist or your proofreader can write notes in the transcript while editing that you don’t have to worry about an attorney ever seeing
- How to get Eclipse to quickly scan through the transcript, only stopping on places where you need to global an untranslate, choose a conflict or fill in a blank.
Audio Synchronization
- Two simple steps to set up audio synchronization
- How to check the audio on your computer
- How to automatically skip over the pauses when you’re listening back to the audio
- How to tell Eclipse to pause the recording for you if you’re not writing anything
- How to make the audio stop playing back when you’re globalling, and automatically start back when you’re done with the entry
Good To Know
- How to have Eclipse take those pesky final “L” shadows out of your otherwise perfect strokes
- How to use the speaker table
- How to download updates
- How to use the seating chart
- Back up files directly to an external drive
- How to use the PDF manual on your computer
- How to create your ASCII with a special hyperlinked word index
- One button to click for an instant in-depth explanation of any user tab or window
- How to have Eclipse automatically create a backup every 10 minutes, and how to use that backup in case of emergency
- And last but not least, how to have your appearance page automatically fill in with those same wonderful clients you work with all the time.
If you’d like to pre-order the DVD, just click the Add to Cart button below, and you’ll be among the first to get your hands on this unique training experience. If you have questions, please call Julie Samford at 800-320-6223, ext. 1, fill in the message box below or email julie@realtimeready.com.
“Top 50 Secrets to Happiness … with Total Eclipse”
Home Study Course on DVD
