Penfriend word prediction software suggests words, as you type text into your preferred word processor or text editor.

Penfriend XP can predict the next word you want to write in English and Penfriend XL can do so in many languages.

Penfriend is very good at guessing the word you are typing after you have entered one or two initial letters. One key press, or one mouse click on your chosen word in the prediction window, then completes the word for you.

Penfriend will then go on to predict the next complete word you want to type and it is almost always very successful in doing so. It is in fact possible to write an entire document simply by clicking on Penfriend’s suggested words in the prediction window, after typing in only the first few letters.

One user commented that “This software is spookily good at prediction”.

Penfriend’s word prediction uses a dictionary of known words, along with detailed knowledge of when they are likely to be used and words you have used before. Every time you type a letter, it comes up with a new list of the most likely words which fit your letters. Choosing one is a simple matter of pressing one more button, or clicking on the word with the mouse. If you’re not sure how to read it, you can hear it spoken before you choose a word. This is valuable for those who have physical disabilities or dyslexia. But it will also help those wanting to write in a language that they are learning.

Minimising the predictor window switches off prediction and all the assistive functions in Penfriend. Useful if you want to type an email address without spaces after the full stop, or type numbers whilst predicting using number keys.

Penfriend XP comes with speech feedback; the ability to read aloud the words on your screen, including words that you haven’t written yet! Penfriend XP uses Microsoft SAPI5 to produce clear words, and to allow the installation of other ‘third party’ voices.

It can be configured to speak each letter as it is typed, each word as it is completed, and each sentence. It can read words from the prediction list when you point at them, when you choose them, or automatically when they change. It can also read back whole paragraphs (or more) of text from other applications using the clipboard. This might be your document, a web page, an email, or almost anything else.

While speaking text from the clipboard, a window can be shown which follows the voice, highlighting each word as it goes. You can click on a word to hear it again, or to speak a fragment of the text.

Penfriend Portable XP includes SAPI voices from CereProc, one of the world’s leading vendors of quality accented text-to-speech engines. The three English voices Heather, Sarah and Katherine are installed using the standard SAPI protocol for trouble-free listening.

For people either with physical disabilities affecting their use of a keyboard, or for those who do not want to glance repeatedly between the screen and keyboard, Penfriend XP offers an onscreen keyboard. Its straightforward design mirrors key features of a conventional QWERTY keyboard, and it uses colours of the user’s choice.

For people with a more specialised onscreen keyboard, Penfriend XP can work with Clicker 5 or Clicker 4 to predict with custom-designed onscreen keyboards which support switch access.

Lexicon Editing

Penfriend doesn’t claim to know all the words you want to write in advance, but it is very good at learning them. Every word you type is analysed, and Penfriend can learn those it doesn’t recognise. Depending on your spelling, you might ask for new words to be predicted immediately (as appropriate), or perhaps just to be remembered and then checked by a teacher.

Another feature is the ability to ban words. Thus risqué words, or words that a child should be able to spell can be banned, so that they are never predicted.

Penfriend holds new words in a specially marked list, so that you can easily review the ones it has learnt recently. There are various tools for manipulating these, such as approving only those used several times. This is also a useful tool for a teacher to see the spelling errors that a child is making.

As well as learning new words, Penfriend keeps track of the ones you’ve used, and your style of writing. This all helps to predict the right words next time!

Topic Lexicons

Often you want specific vocabulary for a particular topic. One of the major advantages of Penfriend is that it is very easy to teach it new words either from the clipboard or a text file. Thus if you have a document with the words you want to use in it, it takes seconds to teach the program these words. They can then either be kept for the future or used for that one session. It is your choice.

As well as predicting words directly into your word processor, Penfriend can work with Clicker, including Clicker 5.2, from Crick Software and other applications to provide its prediction engine without the user needing to interact with Penfriend directly. It also provides an excellent way of making Penfriend switch accessible. It integrates fully with Clicker 4 and Clicker 5.2. To use with Clicker 5.2 you will need Penfriend XP version 3.1 or later. If you already have version 3 download the latest patch by accessing Penfriend downloads via the ‘Web Site’ link in the program.

View screenshots of Penfriend working with Clicker 5 to provide word prediction
Click here for a Help Sheet on How to Use Penfriend Word Prediction in Clicker 5.

An abbreviation expansion system which reconstructs full words or sentences from abbreviated typed text can be a very important benefit to people who suffer from motor difficulties or dyslexia. Reliable abbreviation expansion reduces the number of keystrokes that users need to input in order to communicate in full and rich language

As well as predicting words using the letters you type, Penfriend can store phrases or other words, assigned to special codes. For example, ‘pfl’ might be an abbreviation for ‘Penfriend Ltd’. When you type the short code and press Space, Penfriend can automatically replace it. This can speed up writing of commonly used phrases or even sentences.

Penfriend’s abbreviation expansion function is under user control. So, naturally, you can control the abbreviations and their associated phrases yourself, adding and removing them at will.

Below is an example of how Abbreviations can now be used. Here a disabled person is using abbreviations to communicate with a carer. By typing one abbreviation tv up to 12 related expansions can be shown and either entered into a document or spoken. Here by typing tv they have 12 requests to a carer for help with the TV. Below is abbreviation window when the 12 abbreviations have been created.

When they then type ‘tv’ in their document, the 12 instructions all appear in the predictor window. Note that tv does not appear as it has been banned in the lexicon.

If they have set Penfriend to speak on a right click then the phrase they want will be spoken when they click on it.
The same system can be used for common phrases, email addresses, URLs, postal addresses, to be read, entered or both. In English one could use qa, qb, qc as abbreviations as there are no words beginning with these combinations. So you could use qa as the abbreviation for 12 addresses. If qa is banned then it will not appear.

In French there are virtually no words starting with ‘k’ so ka, kb etc. can be used for sets of 12 abbreviations.

When you finish a sentence, or use almost any punctuation mark, Penfriend can help you to get it right. Although it normally puts a space after predicted words, it moves that to after the punctuation, and capitalises your next letter. Little things like this give writers the confidence to put their thoughts on paper.

Smart punctuation is a nuisance if you want to type an email address without spaces after a full stop. It can be simply switched off by minimising the predictor window.

Penfriend makes its options easy to understand. There are enough to give you the choices you need for the people you work with, but each makes sense, giving you flexibility and comprehension.

The colours of text, in the prediction window and the on-screen keyboard, can be adjusted. The colour of highlighted words, both text and background, can be controlled separately from the normal words. Whether Penfriend learns new words, predicts them immediately, applies ‘smart punctuation’, or speaks as you type, can all be decided by you. A document included when you buy the system explains which options would help most.

Further, the options are stored per user rather than for the whole computer. This means you can have several people with different needs using the same system, but each one gets it configured especially for them.

For a detailed explanation of the options, download the free demonstration and read the on-line help.

Penfriend XP is also available as a hand-held Portable version for carrying between computers, and easy use without installation. This hand-held Penfriend software loaded on a USB stick requires no installation, and can be used on machines with stricter administrative policies than for other software. Simply double click on the icon, and it works! No installers, no networks, no delays.

Read more about Penfriend Portable.

• Windows
  • Operating System: Windows 7, Vista, XP
  • Sound card and speakers

View/Download

• Getting started with Penfriend XP ( 194 KB)
  
• Tutorial for using Clicker 5 with Penfriend (1.4 MB, MS Word File)