[bksvol-discuss] Re: long dashes.
- From: "Shelley L. Rhodes" <juddysbuddy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 16:02:45 -0500
Indeed Sue, they don't, and most of the students no a days get sometimes not
perfectly proof read braille.
Today, I did four assignments for a student, had someone read them in, I
typed them out (Kurzweil is not installed at that school yet, ahem) and then
showed the aid how to translate and emboss.
The kids are used to it. For the most part once they are proficient braille
readers, they adapt really well. My students know if they find an mistake
and point it out to me I will fix it, and they get rewarded for it, and
believe me they love to find them, smile.
Shelley L. Rhodes M.A., VRT, CTVI
and Guinevere, Golden lady Guide
juddysbuddy@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Guide Dogs For the Blind Inc.
Graduate Alumni Association Board
www.guidedogs.com
More than Any other time, When i hold a beloved book in my hand, my
limitations fall from me, my spirit is free.
- Helen Keller
----- Original Message -----
From: "siss52" <siss52@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 1:11 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: long dashes.
Hi Tracy,
I have translated quite a few of the Publisher Quality books into Braille
files, and they are all interpreted as just a single dash, places where I
know there would be an em-dash in the print. NLS gets around it somehow,
but I do not know how they do it. You and I know the difference, but when I
think of all the students who will be reading these files, well. . ..
Still, I'm glad we have the files. I do wonder about textbooks though. The
Braille translation programs do not translate perfectly. <smiling>
Sue S.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracy Carcione" <carcione@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 10:59 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: long dashes.
Kevin,
I am somewhat ambivalent about it, too, but it patently doesn't work to
leave them as em dashes, so I've been converting them. I'm all for
leaving the print as it is, but, if it really doesn't work that way, and
the -- comes out almost exactly the same...well, for now, I'll keep
converting, I think. Then I'll stop whenever this mythical update
happens. Even when it does happen, I very much doubt that Bookshare will
go back and re-convert all the old books. I want books that are easy to
read, not ones that are messed by problems with the translator or the
stripper. And if I have to change them in very small ways to make them
work with what we've got, I think I will.
Tracy
> Tracy and Mayrie, I've been ambivalent about the em dash versus double
> hyphen issue for a long time. When I first started at Bookshare, I always
> converted the em dashes to double hyphens so they would appear as they
> should in braille. (There was a large discussion of this issue in June of
> 2006 in which I strongly advocated this viewpoint as opposed to mainly
> Pratik, among others, arguing for leaving the em dash alone.) Then, I
> gradually became more enamored of the notion of sticking with the printed
> book as much as possible, and hoping that this supposed future upgrade
> would
> result in a reprocessing of the existing books, so I began leaving the em
> dashes in place.
>
> However, I was very disappointed to hear Jim Fruchterman in his talk on
> Main
> Menu the other day admit that Bookshare has been neglecting the upgrading
> of
> the Duxbury braille translator and is even now not using the latest
> version.
> Although, he did also say that there would be another upgrade of the
> translator in the next couple of months, if I recall what he said
> correctly,
> in order to facilitate the conversion of those PQ books.
>
> So maybe that will take care of the em dash problem. We'll just have to
> wait
> and see. But the overall result is that I am still very ambivalent about
> the
> issue, and easily swayed by arguments on both sides, but for now at least,
> I
> continue to leave the em dashes as they are, but will not fault anyone for
> replacing them with double hyphens if they feel so moved.
>
> Evan
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tracy Carcione" <carcione@xxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 8:04 AM
> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: long dashes.
>
>
>> I've been hearing about this "future version" for years now. Who knows
>> how much longer it's going to take? And, in the meantime, the long
>> dashes
>> don't work well in BRF, or, I gather, in K1000. I'm not totally
>> convinced
>> it's not a good idea to convert them to --. At least that way things
>> will
>> read well with what we've got, and what we may have for quite some time
>> longer.
>> Tracy
>>
>>> Not long ago someone, I think maybee Jake, told us we should leave the
>>> m-dashes and ellipses intact. A future version of the BookShare
>>> conversion
>>> software is supposed to be able to properly convert them to braille.
>>>
>>> BTW: the code for an m-dash is alt plus 0151. Works in K1000 and in
>>> MSWord.
>>>
>>> Deborah
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Bob" <rwiley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 1:18 AM
>>> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: long dashes.
>>>
>>>
>>> I think there are two questions here, first, what to do about the long
>>> dashes, and two how to submit the book.
>>>
>>> Firstly, you can either change the long dashes to two hyphens, or just
>>> leave
>>> it alone and some validator can deal with it. If I were validating the
>>> book
>>> I would change the long dash to two hyphens.
>>>
>>> Secondly, the question about whether to submit the book in .rtf or .kes
>>> format is an easy one. When in doubt, change it to .rtf. That way you
>>> get
>>> the benefit of validators with Kurzweil, openbook, or msword. If you
>>> leave
>>> it as a .kes file then the book has to wait until a validator with
>>> Kurzweil
>>> can get to it.
>>>
>>> Just my opinion.
>>> Bob
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Curtis Delzer" <curtis@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>> To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 11:37 PM
>>> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: long dashes.
>>>
>>>
>>>> Thank you Rick, I'll do that with my copy after I've sent the *.rtf
>>>> file
>>>> to
>>>> be proofed, as it were. I wonder which ASCII character the "long dash"
>>>> is?
>>>>
>>>> Take care.
>>>>
>>>> Curtis Delzer
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: "RJ / KJ" <d28rik@xxxxxxx>
>>>> To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 11:25 PM
>>>> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: long dashes.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I'm glad someone brought up the business of the long dash. Especially
>>>> as
>>>> it
>>>> relates to Kurzweil.
>>>> I too have been bothered by this, mostly when I read using the speech
>>>> in
>>>> Kurzweil. It takes the two words that are connected by a long dash,
>>>> and
>>>> not
>>>> otherwise separated, and the speech is mostly unrecognizable.
>>>>
>>>> I have addressed this on a couple of occasions:
>>>>
>>>> 1. In Kurzeile, I find a long dash, and copy just the characther by
>>>> itself
>>>> to the clip board.
>>>> 2. Then I go to the the top of the file
>>>> 3. Then I open the Search dialog. I paste in the long dash character
>>>> in
>>>> the
>>>> Search For field.
>>>> 4. Then I hit ALT R to open the Replace With field.
>>>> 5. I then paste in the long dash there.
>>>> 6. I type in a space after the long dash.
>>>> 7. Then from there, you can either use the Replace All or go to the
>>>> Next
>>>> occurance and replace it or not.
>>>>
>>>> All it does is put a space after the long dash, so now there is a
>>>> separator,
>>>> and the speech reads it correctly.
>>>> I don't know if this would be considered a bad thing, as far as
>>>> editing
>>>> the
>>>> text.
>>>> But since it reads much, much better, I think it is justifiable.
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps someone may comment.
>>>>
>>>> Note, as someone else stated, Jaws just says em dash, and when reading
>>>> I
>>>> don't thinking it really verbalizes the long dash, at least not to the
>>>> irritating extent that the kurzweill does. Using my FM transmitter,
>>>> I've
>>>> recently started to read lots of my files, news etc with the K-1000.
>>>> I've
>>>> not heard the long dashes with anything except my scanned books. So I
>>>> don't
>>>> know why that might be.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks.
>>>> Rik
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Curtis
>>>> Delzer
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 10:08 PM
>>>> To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: long dashes.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It just makes reading them a little weird since synthesizers tend to
>>>> ignore
>>>> them, making the pronunciation, strange.
>>>>
>>>> Curtis Delzer
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: EVAN REESE <mailto:mentat3@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>> To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 10:47 PM
>>>> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: long dashes.
>>>>
>>>> You don't need to do anything about the long dashes. What Kurzweil
>>>> calls
>>>> the
>>>> "long dash" is just another name for the em dash, a common punctuation
>>>> mark.
>>>> Converting the file to rtf should not affect the em dashes in any way.
>>>> If
>>>> you convert the file to rtf and then open it up in word, I am
>>>> confident
>>>> that
>>>> you will see the em dashes intact. I have done it many times.
>>>>
>>>> Evan
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: Curtis Delzer <mailto:curtis@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>>> To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 11:11 PM
>>>> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] long dashes.
>>>>
>>>> Hi all. I need some advice. I just finished scanning a book entitled
>>>> "Jitterbug," by
>>>>
>>>> Loren D. Estleman
>>>>
>>>> and in it, Kurzweil 1000 V11 recognizes the long dashes. Should I do
>>>> something about that before I export to *.rtf, or should I submit it
>>>> in
>>>> *.kes format? The scan is quite good after I changed "die," to "the,"
>>>> where
>>>> fortunately there weren't too many "dies," in the book. :)
>>>>
>>>> Thanks! I submitted a book many years ago, "A Tiger Walks," by Ian
>>>> Niall," written in 1961, and actually scanned by, get a load of this,
>>>> a
>>>> Kurzweil Personal Reader, and it was practically perfect, in 1992.
>>>> How's
>>>> that for an ancient scan? :)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Curtis Delzer
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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