Cheetah - SmartCAT

SmartCAT is the CAT system of choice for leaders in the field of realtime transcription. SmartCAT has the most complete suite of realtime features available, including Intelligent Conflict Resolution, Intelligent Number Formatting, Smart Word Endings, and full realtime transcript editing from the steno keyboard. (RealEdit)

And, of course, SmartCAT outputs to Cheetah International’s Total Access for Windows®, or other litigation support programs.

RealEdit

Intelligent Realtime

SmartCAT has an amazing amount of intelligence built into it that assists you with your realtime, including Intelligent Conflict Resolution, Intelligent Punctuation, Intelligent Number Formatting, Intelligent Word Endings, and Intelligent Alphabet Handling.

Time Stamping

Realtime Litigation Support

Cheetah’s Total Access software allows attorneys and judges to tap into the power of Cheetah realtime. The sophisticated interface allows fresh copies of the transcript to be sent to the realtime litigation support systems over the network or serial port—no floppy diskettes required. Your work product can be password-protected as well, to prevent anybody from walking off with an unauthorized copy of the transcript. SmartCAT’s realtime output also supports CaseView (including 4.0 with timecodes), CaseView for Windows®, and LiveNote.

Editing

The core of any Computer-Aided Transcription software is the Editor. SmartCAT's editing capabilities are unmatched when it comes to important editing features that are easy to learn, understand and use.

Whether you are an independent reporter or connected with an office or reporting agency, SmartCAT has loads of new features you are sure to appreciate. SmartCAT supports an unlimited number of permanent and temporary dictionaries, and has the ability to select from multiple phonetics and/or real-edit dictionaries as well!

SmartCAT's WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) transcript editor is a feature-rich editing environment designed solely to create precisely-formatted, professional quality verbatim transcripts as efficiently and quickly as possible.

Globals

SmartCAT's powerful Steno Global and Text Global have case sensitivity, whole word option, spellcheck, confirm each replace, and much more. The globals are applied to the file in the background, so you don't have to wait, and you can reverse or edit any global if you make a mistake, even if you've left the file and come back! You can also save a set of globals from a job to a file, and load that file into any other job so you don't have to repeat recurring globals for each job!

Picklists

You can create lists of anything in SmartCAT, and call them up with a single keystroke within a file. For example, you might have a line at the top of your title page that says: IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF {&COUNTIES}. Press [Space] to call up a list of counties, pick the one you want, and it is filled in automatically.

This isn't just a wimpy little 20-line file, either! You can have hundreds of lists, each list can have hundreds of entries, and each entry can be pages long. Imagine the possibilities! A database of all your attorney clients; A single file containing all of your various certificate pages and witness letters; A list of all the court reporters in your firm with their CSR numbers... All just one keystroke away. All automatically alphabetized for you when you call them up. And all created right within SmartCAT.

Intelligent alphabet handling

Finger spelling alphabets have always been tough for court reporters. Now, SmartCAT offers you a way to define one alphabet, and make format strokes to determine how your fingerspelling comes out. Do you want it squished? Stitched? Acronymed? All of these, and more, can be done: ABC abc ABC ABC ABC ABC A*B*C A B C a,b,c ... The format strokes can be imbedded in other dictionary entries, so that the phrase "state your name" always puts you in "stitch" mode, for example. You can also, of course, define separate alphabets for each of these if you so desire.

Split Screen

Hotkeys

Imagine being able to turn your most common editing actions into the keystroke of your choice! Just turn on the Hotkey Recorder, perform the edits you want defined, and specify which key to use. From then on, press CONTOL and ALT (or SHIFT and ALT...52 customizable possibilities!) plus that key to perform your most commonly used commands. SmartCAT includes sample Hotkeys for changing paragraph types, handling interrupted questions, and much more!

Additional editing features include word swap, s-t-i-t-c-h-i-n-g, witness paragraph formatting, cut, copy & paste, get file (with or without steno), automatic question numbering, the ability to undo the last ten deletions in any order... and too many more to mention here!

Audio Synchronization for SmartCAT

Here's a technological advance that serves you and your clients. SmartCAT's built-in audio function digitally records audio right onto your computer's hard disk, fully synchronized with your realtime transcript.

Later on, when you (or your scopist) edit the job, you can select any point in the transcript and tell SmartCAT to play the corresponding audio. It makes verifying the transcript easy!

Not only that, but it provides a deliverable product that can make you money. SmartCAT audio files (.wav) are fully compatible with Total Access for Windows®, so you can provide the attorneys with a transcript on a CD-ROM or ZIP disk that includes the audio. If they want to hear the witness' tone of voice, or how long the witness paused before answering a question, it's right there in Total Access.

SmartCAT's audio can be used with virtually any Windows®-compatible sound card and microphone.

Number Handling

Intelligent Number Formatting is just one of the many intelligent editing features in SmartCAT.

SmartCAT automatically detects numbers during realtime, and formats them appropriately. For example, something that might translate as "four double oh six" in another system would translate as "4006" in SmartCAT. You can actually see the number formatting as you write. You can also specify that numbers under a certain value should appear as words and numbers over a certain value should have their unit names as words. For example, you might want one through ten to be words, and 11 or greater to be digits. The other option allows things like 14,000 and 14,000,000 to be formatted as digits, but 14 billion and 14 trillion to use unit words ("billion" and "trillion").

SmartCAT also provides formatting triggers and tokens. A trigger is a word that causes the next number to format a certain way. For example, you might specify that if the word "cost" comes up, any number in the next 2 paragraphs should be formatted as dollars, or if the word "phone" comes up, any 7, 10, or 11-digit number in the same sentence should be formatted as a telephone number. Some of the formats supported include:

The list goes on and on! It even works with mixed translations, like 45 thousand 24, which it will correctly format as 45,024.

Litigation Support

SmartCAT offers a wide variety of litigation support capabilities, including concordance (word index), keyword index, RTF/CRE, and ASCII output.

When writing in realtime, SmartCAT can output to a wide variety of realtime litigation support (CIC) systems, including

ASCII files can be created in "page image" and custom formats, as well as Amicus, and Summation. Concordances can be printed or produced in ASCII format, as well as exported to eTran format!

SmartCAT's integrated condensing software can print multiple pages per sheet in different fonts from within SmartCAT!

Spell Check

Concordance (Word Index)

The concordance feature built in to SmartCAT allows you to specify custom formats (margins, text size and number of columns). It produces an index of every word in the transcript except those in your exception list, like this example shows:

-------------------------------
              B
-------------------------------
beginners 9:2,16,20; 11:4
belief 12:4; 14:5,6; 190:12
biology 45:12,14; 92:11,14,19
bodies 43:20; 44:1,4,16; 47:2;
  49:4,6; 55:5
Brown 99:1; 145:23,29
-------------------------------
              C
-------------------------------
CAT 24:12,15,19; 29:3,6; 44:2;
  102:3,6; 185:12
Cheetah 24:12,15,19; 29:3,6;
  44:2; 102:3,6; 185:12

Concord Screen

Automatic Indexing

SmartCAT's indexing is a true one-pass automatic indexer that creates the indexes, adds page (or page and line) numbers to the entries, sorts indexes, and even creates multi-column indexes with no further editing required.

SmartCAT can create "folded" indexes, where entries on the same line are in different parts of the transcript. Take a look, for example, at this one (all of the examples shown on this page were generated automatically by SmartCAT):

                INDEX OF EXAMINATION

                     Direct   Cross   Redir Recross
Dr. Anderson ............ 4      21      46      48
Dr. Whitcomb ........... 61      86
Dr. Blake ............. 104     153     165

Dr. Anderson was examined on pages 4, 21, 46, and 48, and SmartCAT wrapped them all to one line. Folded indexes can be up to six columns wide.

A more traditional index would be the Index of Exhibits, which you can have SmartCAT number automatically for you. It handles exhibit numbering with both letters and numbers.

                 INDEX OF EXHIBITS

                                         Page  Line
10 Two-page document entitled  ........... 30     5
   "Calculations"

11 Multi-page document entitled  ......... 35    22
   "Billing Procedure"

12 Multi-page document entitled "How  ... 142     7
   to Barter"

13 Multi-page document titled  .......... 149     6
   "Response of ADL"

Remember, all of these are just examples. SmartCAT is extremely flexible, and can create virtually whatever you need. Here's one more:

 INDEX OF QUESTIONS INSTRUCTED NOT TO ANSWER

                                       Page    Line
What other business activities are  .... 14      16
you engaging in other than this
lawsuit?

Computerized Bookkeeping.  Where  ...... 25      17
are they located?

After sending Mr. Smith this  ......... 112       2
letter, the December 2, 1987
letter, did you hear back from him
on this subject at all?

Which of the contracts did you  ....... 151      15
have in mind there when you
referred to the agreement to
manufacture?

Other SmartCAT Features

Printing

Header and Footer Tokens

Translation

Translation speeds are well in excess of 20,000 pages/hour with a 50,000-word dictionary and a Pentium III (or higher) computer. Using a state-of-the-art Pentium IV system, your 200-page job will translate in well under ten seconds.

Scope Notes

Dictionary Maintenance

Steno Writer Compatibility

The following writers (steno keyboards) are supported by Cheetah's SmartCAT software as of February, 2007. If your writer is not on this list, please contact Cheetah.

CAT Software Compatibility

Cheetah International wrote the book on compatibility. Literally! Cheetah authored the RTF/CRE file interchange specification that allows CAT systems to transfer transcript files complete with steno, timecodes, globals, attributes, and much more.

SmartCAT

SmartCAT Editions:

SmartCAT Professional

SmartCAT Edit

SmartCAT Student Rental

SmartCAT School

SmartCAT Network

Features

Speed

Support