Web page convert common text to pen shorthand
paulo paniago
I wasn’t sure about posting this here, since it’s about pen shorthand and not stenomachine systems, but decided to do it after advice from a friend who told me it was a “twin art”.
These pages convert a text, that you can type or paste, into English Gregg, Pitman or German Dek shorthand systems. For machine steno users it’s only a curiosity – to see how the outlines look – but I guess it is really valuable for someone interested in training pen shorthand.
For Gregg:
http://steno.tu-clausthal.de/Gregg.php
For Pitman:
http://steno.tu-clausthal.de/Pitman.php
for German Dek
http://steno.tu-clausthal.de/DEK.php
I guess most of you know that, before stenomachines took over the market, court reporting was made by pen using these among many other shorthand systems.
Gregg was the most common in North America while Pitman dominated in UK. Their main difference, as popularly said, is that Pitman uses contrasting thick and thin strokes whereas Gregg’s strokes are all of the same thickness.
Dek, on the other hand, is not only the most popular in Germany, but it is the nations official system. This means that, although you can learn another one by your own will, schools and curses in there generally must the thought with Dek.
I guess Dek is even more popular in Germany than stenomachines.
There is also another system in that page, I think, but don’t know anything about it.
I got curious to look for conversion software like those, after a programmer showed me some really cool application of this kind that he developed himself.
While in machine steno, It might not be a good idea do become dependent on looking at the raw steno notes display when typing, I believe reading steno is an important part of training, since it gives more “intuitive” notion of the theoretical logics behind your system.
