Feature

STs

LMU

Example

Can insert a Contact’s address OR fax info into a Doc

T

P

ST Case: currently, STs can only insert a Contact’s address info

LMU Case: LMU will insert address info in almost exactly the same way as STs, except that it can also insert the Company Name field if present, which can be set to appear above or below the Contact’s name in the resulting address. Both Company name and Job Title can be optionally included or excluded.

LMU however can also recognize that a document is a fax and will automatically insert fax-type information into the correct places in the fax – for example, fax number, telephone number (for reference), full name, company name and job title as required.

The way it does this is that it is designed to work ‘out of the box’ in particular with Microsoft Word built-in templates, so no setting up of any special ‘fields’ is required – however, LMU can be configured to recognize user-defined words to insert each relevant piece of data before, over or after if the default settings do not match a particular user’s needs

Can search for a Contact without typing the exact full name

T

P

ST Case: With STs, you have to type the full name in order for it to be recognized as a name, and you have to spell it exactly right. Even then the recognition engine provides very variable results, some names get recognized as names, others don’t particularly if part of the name is the same as a proper noun; ‘Rose Vines’ for example is not recognized. And - if a name is not ‘recognized’ and smart tagged then there is no way for you to look up the address, for example.

LMU Case: LMU handles searching on any part of either name, or on any whole part of the name:

·          you have a friend called ‘ Simon Borvatschi ’: it is likely that you can’t remember how to spell his last name, and his first name is too common to do a search on. With LMU, simply type ‘Borv’ to call up his details

·          you have a business contact called ‘ Jane Skeeter ’-  simply type ‘Skeeter’ and LMU will find her

Contacts can be people OR companies

T

P

ST Case: STs only look for names of people to recognize and do not work with companies. For example, STs do not recognize ‘Microsoft’ or ‘Microsoft Corporation’ in a Doc.

LMU Case: LMU treats people names and company names the same – searching on ‘Banham’ could produce a result for, say, ‘ Mark Banham ’ and/or ‘Banham Patent Locks Inc.’

Can search for a Contact’s details without using the mouse

T

P

ST Case: You have only one option to activate it: take your hands from the keyboard, move the mouse to hover over the ‘recognized’ ST for a second, left click the mouse and left click again to insert the address.

LMU Case: With LMU, you have a variety of ways to look up a Contact’s details:

·          Use the mouse to hit the Find Me! toolbar button or pull down the LMU menu

·          Use a keyboard shortcut, ‘Alt M’, to activate the ‘Find Me!’ function

·          Use the DocScan facility to have LMU automatically detect  that you want to look up a name’s Contact info by enclosing the name in double colons (‘::’)

Doesn’t interfere visually with a Doc onscreen

T

P

ST Case: When STs for recognising names in Word are set to be functional at all, the underlining which distinguishes these STs is visible wherever the ST ‘Recognizer’ engine thinks there might be a valid name. In the example of a letter, whilst an ST might well be validly used to insert the address of the addressee, if however the writer refers to other people’s names in the body of the letter, they would all be ‘recognized’ for ST purposes as well, and would therefore most likely clutter up the screen unnecessarily.

This is of particular significance since STs do not check whether a person is a Contact in Outlook before marking them with the ST underlining.

LMU Case: As LMU does not attempt to recognize a name until you ask it to, it has no need to interfere pre-emptively with the onscreen Doc.

Checks beforehand that a name matches a Contact in Outlook

T

T

ST Case: This matters with STs because the STs, as recognized, effectively solicit you to use them, so it becomes irritating when you attempt to, and then you receive the response that ‘Microsoft Outlook could not find the requested contact”.

LMU Case: LMU works on the principle that you are only likely to use it when you have a fairly good idea that the person you are searching on is likely to be in Outlook, and again, LMU is not pre-emptive nor solicitous in the way that STs are, ie it doesn’t try to second guess whether you might want to look someone up.

Can open a Contact to amend details before inserting info in Doc

T

P

ST Case: STs currently allow you to either ‘Insert Address’ for the Contact, or ‘Add to Contacts’ or ‘Open Contact’ in Outlook. None of these ST actions allow you to open the Contact, amend a detail or two, then add the address into your Doc when you close the Contact.

LMU Case: LMU allows you to open a Contact before their address or fax info is inserted into your Doc. This is very helpful in a situation where you realise as you are preparing to start the Doc, that some of the details for the Contact have changed, e.g. they gave you their new business card a couple of days ago and it’s sitting on your desk. With LMU, this feature allows you, within Word, to open their Contact, amend it with the new details, save and close it and have the new address or fax details inserted into your Doc, all in a single operation.

Can locate Contacts in folders other than the default ‘Contacts’ folder

T

P

ST Case: STs can only locate Contacts in the default local ‘Contacts’ folder

LMU Case: LMU can locate Contacts in any folder which contains Contact-type items, including subfolders up to 5 layers deep.

LMU can also locate Contacts in any such folders which are located in other open Outlook .PST files – it includes all Contacts-type folders as seen in the Folder List as data sources by default

User settings for flexible, powerful usage

T

P

ST Case: STs functionality and operations cannot be configured by the end user (without programming), except that they may either be turned globally on or off

LMU Case: LMU provides user settings designed to provide enough flexibility for the way in which people work, without being overwhelming. Some of the key user configurable items are:

·          data sources: select which Outlook folders to search in

·          select which Contact info to insert ie home/work or other; by default, will insert first entry found, but can also be set to insert as per the Mailing Address, or to show all matches every time, amongst other choices

·          a key idea of LMU is that no special templates should be required – there are a variety of settings which allow you to teach LMU where data should go in the existing types of documents you use (this is particularly important with regard to faxes)

Widen the search if looking for similar Contact matches

T

P

ST Case: Not relevant to STs since you have to type the exact full name; either there is a match or there isn’t

LMU Case: LMU’s search engine is by default optimised to insert the most likely result on the first pass, although this is one of LMU’s configurable features. On the few occasion when this does not yield the correct result, LMU’s ‘Show All Matches’ feature conveniently brings up all possible matches for the name you typed, including all sets of Contact info (Address or fax info for Home + Work + Other etc); this will also include partial matches eg. Microsoft for ‘Micros’ (if LMU can find a whole match, it considers it a more likely correct result than a partial match)

Flexible options for handling home/work/other choice

T

P

ST Case: With STs if there is more than one piece of info entered for a Contact (e.g. a home and a work address) you will be obliged to have a dialog box come up every time so you can select which you are interested in, with two separate mouse clicks required to insert the info into your Doc

LMU Case: With LMU, you can select how you want LMU to work in situations where it finds more than one piece of Contact info entered (e.g. a home and a work address). By default, LMU will insert first piece of info found, but can also be set to insert as per the Mailing Address selection, or to show all matches every time (like STs above) if there is more than one piece of info entered for a Contact, amongst other choices.

NB: Every time LMU inserts a Contact’s info into your Doc, it unobtrusively informs you in the grey status bar at the bottom of the window exactly what it inserted for whom – e.g. “LookMeUp! inserted the WORK details for JOE PIZZA”

Can search for a Contact without worrying about capitalisation

T

P

ST Case: The ST ‘Recognizer’ engine only works on names where both the first and last names are capitalised

LMU Case: LMU is not case sensitive

Can create a new Contact from within Word

P

P

Yes - both

Can create a new Contact from within Word using name and address as found in document

P

T

ST Case: This feature is very good but does not work at all reliably in current version of XP a) because of the unreliability of getting the ‘recognizer’ to recognize a name in the first place and b) with non-US addresses (and non-standard US addresses)

LMU Case: LMU does not have this, in principle, excellent capability

Works with apostrophes – e.g. O'Neills ,

O'Sheas and O'Reillys

T

TP

ST Case: This is a bug with STs that means the ST ‘Recognizer’ will not recognize a name if there is an apostrophe in it, e.g. John O’Reilly

LMU Case: This is also a bug in LMU (because the default apostrophe character ‘ is different in Word than in Outlook). However, the reason for highlighting this issue is that the more flexible approach of LMU allows for a workaround, in this case by typing just ‘Reilly’ instead, which is not possible with STs.