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Using Macros of the Day: A Step by Step Guide

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I've been posting macros for a few weeks now, and one question that comes up from time to time is, "Hey Rob, How do I use the macros that you've created? They look really cool, but I'm not sure how to save them onto my PC. Please help!"

It's a good question, and right now it's not as obvious as it should be. Ideally we'll extend the WSR Macro tool to make this incredibly easy, but for now, it's a bit of a manual process to copy a macro from text on a web site and save it on your local PC.

Here's how you do it using Notepad in 4 steps:

  1. Copy the macro source:
    1. For example, you can use my Search Commands macro from a couple weeks ago).
    2. Select all of the macro source from the web page, including both the starting element (<speechMacros>) and the ending element (</speechMacros).
    3. Copy it by saying "Copy that", or pressing <ctrl-c>.
  2. Paste the macro source into a text editor:
    1. Open a text editor of your choice that can save plain text files. I typically use Notepad or Visual Studio for this step. I'll use Notepad in this example.
    2. Paste the contents of the macro into Notepad by saying "Paste that", or pressing <ctrl-v>.
  3. Save the macro source:
    1. Select File / Save As by clicking thru the menu, or by saying "File", "Save As".
    2. Change the directory to your Speech Macros directory. Your Speech Macros directory is located underneath your Documents directory under your user account.
    3. Change the Save as Type to All files (this will allow you to use a file extension other than .TXT).
    4. Give the file whatever name you'd like, such as "Search Commands.wsrMac"
    5. Click OK.
  4. Sign the macro:
    1. If your WSR Macro Security level is set to high, you'll get a cryptic error message telling you that No Signature was present in the subject. That means that the macro hasn't been signed yet to be used on your PC.
    2. Right click on the WSR Macros icon in the system tray.
    3. Click "Security"
    4. Click "Sign Speech Macros..."
    5. Select your macro you just saved (e.g. "Search Commands.wsrMac")
    6. Click OK, and then click OK again.

That's it. Copy, Paste, Save, Sign.

If you don't want to mess with step #4 (signing), you can instead disable the security features of WSR Macros by setting the Security Level to Low. I wouldn't recommend this for most people, but if you must, you certainly can.