Did you know that you can use your voice to control Search Commands? Neither did I until I chatted with Rob Chambers, a manager in the Speech Components team at Microsoft. 

Rob gave me a cool demo – he was using Word said “Search Commands Background” and magically Search Commands found all background related commands and then he said "2" to launch the add shading option. Nifty! How did he do it? Rob has created a speech macro (aka speech magic) to enable voice with Search Commands. 

Want to control Search Commands with your voice?

Step 1: Make sure you have Vista and Search Commands installed
Step 2 : Download and Install Speech Recognition Macros Technical Preview
                Click the Continue Button
                Click the Download Button for WSRMacros.msi
                Run it
Step 3: Launch Windows Speech Recognition Macros
                Run through as much or as little of the tutorial as you want
                Hint: the longer you use it – the more you  learn about speech recognition and the more your computer learns about your voice
Step 4: Create SearchCommands.WSRmac by copying the full xml here and pasting it into Notepad and saving it in  your Documents\Speech Macros folder
                Right click on SearchCommands.WSRmac and select Sign Speech Macros
Step 5: Launch Word, PowerPoint or Excel
Step 6: Say “Search Commands backgrounds” or “Search Commands [any command you want]”

notes:
• Speech Macros Technical Preview is Vista only but may work with XP
• If you have other add-ins besides Search Commands installed the hotkeys are different and therefore SearchCommands.MSRmac will not work  (you can update the xml if you like or create your own macros if you wish),
• Speech Macros Technical Preview is English only
• The better the microphone the better the speech recognition (we suggest USB)

To learn more about Speech Macros check out the Speech @ Microsoft Blog

Please let us know what you think – we are listening :)