I disagree. While it may be true that some of the more esoteric formatting she does may be lost on most - if not all - Bookshare readers, I think it is important to try to preserve at least such basics such as bold, italics, centering of titles, blank lines where they appear in the book and so on. Certainly those who can see will get something that doesn't look as though it was sent through a mangler, and who knows, perhaps someday, Braille readers will get the benefit of a real Braille translator that can show such things. But I don't see why formatting and font characteristics should be ignored just because certain - or nearly all of them in the case of Braille - don't currently get reflected in the Bookshare collection.
I have no sight myself, but I am learning - from my own experience and from talking to other scanners and validators - just how much still doesn't get preserved, or misrecognized in the scanning process. I myself have on more than one occasion gotten ridiculous font sizes, such as 2, for titles and 6 for page numbers. I am quite sure that these are incorrect. It is time consuming, and I don't check the font size and formatting of everything, but I do think it is important to try and get the book looking at least moderately like it was intended. If she is willing to do these things, then I think she should be commended for her dedication - especially since, as I said, much of it does not currently get to the final recipients. It is to be hoped that one day, when a good Braille translator is doing the job, people will actually see centered chapter headings, italics and bold text, even blank lines where they appear in the book. Until then, such information is still at least in the rtf files that careful dedicated people are sending up to Bookshare, and those who can see will at least for now get the benefit of it.
Evan----- Original Message ----- From: "E." <thoth93@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 1:07 PM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Cindy you may be wasting your time
Cindy I too think you may be wasting your time on paragraphs. I have said this to you for several years now. Please speak with staff about thw rok you do with fonts, italics, bold, and other layouts such as paragraphs. I think many may be wastes of your timeand what you do with that time is valuable to all of us.E. At 02:24 PM 7/31/2007, you wrote:Cindy, I may be wrong but I think you're wasting your time on indenting paragraphs. I'm sure it doesn't matter to the DAISY readers and I know it doesn't make any difference on my BrailleNote. It may on the Freedom Scientific notetaker because it has a 40 cell line butt I have never read on one. And as for people who can see that use Bookshare, print books use a blank line to denote paragraphs so why would they want it indented? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Grandma Cindy" <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 8:02 PM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Paragraphs in Blue Like JazzAll I can tell you, Ann, is that I create the paragraphs as I read. Since I'm usually, but not always, enjoying what I'm reading, I don't find it an onerous task. People here seem to prefer indented paragraphs to skipped lines paragraphs, so I set my first line to be indented by .2 and then when I reach the end of a paragraph according to the print book I hit return. I sometimes have to change the first line at the top of a page to None in the first line space under Format, but I don't think people would care much if you didn't. I'm just a perfectionist when it comes to my validating. Usually, from all the reading I've done and the teaching, I can tell where a paragraph should be, but I glance at the print book to be sure, because not all authors break where I might. The book I've just uploaded, and one other I did recently, had page-long paragraphs, so I'm glad I checked and didn't indent where I might have. Whether a lack of paragraphs is a reason for rejecting a book, I don't know. I've never asked, and I personally wouldn't do it. smile Cindy --- Ann McCay <annmccay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:I have no idea if this is because of line breaks being removed, but I think I'm finding that there are no paragraphs in the book. I'd not have known except that I have a friend who has been wanting me to read this book. So, when it came up to be validated, I downloaded it. My friend has the book, so I asked about some text last night, and she commented that there was also a paragraph marker that should have been inserted. Now, as I'm scanning text, I don't see any paragraphs. We do have the text, my friend does, but it would be a huge amount of work to add all the paragraphs in, I'd think, since it's about 243 pages. There are page breaks where there should be, and there are chapter headings. Any ideas on how to proceed? I believe that I will be able to get a quality read since I know that I can look up anything that I'm not sure about, and the quality of the text so far is excellent as far as words, since there are only a couple new places that I need to ask my friend about. Any ideas??? Ann McCay AnnMcCay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx____________________________________________________________________________________Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get online.http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxput the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.-- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG.Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.10.25/926 - Release Date: 7/29/2007 11:14 PMTo unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxput the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.-- No virus found in this incoming message.Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.11.0/929 - Release Date: 7/31/2007 5:26 PMTo unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxput the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.
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