[duxhelp] Re: Strange file containing brackets

  • From: "Peter Sullivan" <peter@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 9 May 2006 12:23:34 -0400

George,

I haven't gone back to visit David's file since receiving some extra
information from him this morning.

But what you propose does make some sense as a possible source of the
trouble.

The goal of DBT's importer is to indicate emphasis, not to show
typographical convention.

Consider the case of a level-two heading style in Word, where text set in
the style is automatically italicized.  The italics should not normally be
shown in braille (at least not per the rules with which I'm most familiar)
because the italics are a typographical convention, not an indication of
emphasis.  Instead, the braille should show un-emphasized text set as a
level-two heading.

But further consider that the user wants to italicize text within the line
-- to indicate a word or two that are particularly emphasized within the
heading.  The print convention for this is to revert the emphasized words to
the non-italicized form.  DBT attempts to indicate the emphasis then by
looking for places where the text is in a typographical form distinct from
what is defined for the paragraph style in which it is defined.

All of which is to say that the code is attempting to be be pretty "smart"
in cases that we considered during the design phase of the Word importer;
and it may simply be getting tripped up on itself when it encounters the
case that David brought to our attention.

- Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of George Bell
Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 12:15 PM
To: duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [duxhelp] Re: Strange file containing brackets

Hi David and Peter,
 
This appears to be one of those nasty, nasty Wordisms that has driven us
bonkers for ages.
 
If you look very closely at the Bold version of the file, you will see that
ONLY the letter is italicised.
 

 
Now highlight (A) and click on the Italic Icon.
 

 
Note how the A is no longer Italicised.
 
I could be wrong, but in removing the Italics and Bold (per David's non-bold
file), I suspect what Word is actually doing, is to put an "Invert Character
Attribute" code in (which perhaps DBT is not picking up), rather than
"removing" the attribute itself.
 
Then again, as the colloquialism goes, I could be "away with the fairies".
 
George.

________________________________

From: duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of David Spybey
Sent: 09 May 2006 16:06
To: duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [duxhelp] Strange file containing brackets




Peter

Most of the material that I prepare starts off as a print file for our
partially sighted pupils and it is usually in large print and bold. I
sometimes forget unbold the whole document before translating it hence the
bold version of the file I got the strange results with. As a rule I would
expect all the bold and other unnecessary emphasis marking to be removed as
it is not helpful to the Braille reader.

In the file I sent I can see that the capital A is in italics but I would
still not expect to get what is happening but rather

7.,a7

Whilst I might prefer it to have no italic sign at all I would not expect
DBT to understand my preference if I am perverse enough to ask it to
translate a file that I have provided with italics in it!

There is clearly something peculiar about the files I sent but I cannot see
what it is. 

David Spybey


-----Original Message-----
From: duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Peter Sullivan
Sent: 08 May 2006 19:36
To: duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [duxhelp] Re: handing of numbered lists in documents

David,

Thanks for sending the .tex files (off-list).  As you mentioned, these

aren't really necessary to my analysis, because the problem shows up also

(or perhaps exclusively) when importing from Word.

I'm now puzzled about what you want in the translation in this case.  You

mention that you would expect (A) to be: 7;,a7

Does that mean that you expect emphasis markings to be ignored in this case?

- Peter 

-----Original Message-----

From: duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On

Behalf Of David Spybey

Sent: Friday, May 05, 2006 4:34 AM

To: duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: [duxhelp] Re: handing of numbered lists in documents

Peter

The file that caused the problem is attached. However I need to amend what I

have said slightly.

I used Word2Tex, as I usually do, to change the file into a .tex file that

SN will read. I did not check the SN file before using DBT and got the

result I mentioned. Looking more closely at the WORD original the A was

italic not the closing bracket. In SN this came out as the opening bracket

in text the A and the closing bracket in Math and hence the result I got in

DBT. I should have spotted this fact so apologies for giving a false

impression of the problem.

I was going into SN because of all the mathematics that was in the WORD file

in MathType and the route I follow gets that into reasonable braille

mathematics. However, if you ignore the mathematics issues and just got

straight into DBT from the files I have attached the The results of going

straight into DBT 

The version with (A) in bold gives 

7..,a.'.17.'

And the version witgh (A) in non bold gives 

.7.,a.17.'

Whereas I would expect (A) to be

7;,a7

as happens in other files. So there must be something rather peculiar about

the two WORD files that I have attached. I have looked at them but cannot

see what would cause such peculiar results.

David





-----Original Message-----

From: duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On

Behalf Of Peter Sullivan

Sent: 04 May 2006 16:56

To: duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: [duxhelp] Re: handing of numbered lists in documents

David,

Do you have a sample file in the format from which you started (e.g. Word,

Scientific Notebook, text, or HTML)?

- Peter 

-----Original Message-----

From: duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On

Behalf Of David Spybey

Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2006 3:02 AM

To: duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: [duxhelp] Re: handing of numbered lists in documents

Peter

It is strange how mistakes show up errors!

I have just had

(A)

translated as

7,a>

rather than 7,a7

I could not understand why until I realised that the closing bracket was in

italics by mistake. However I am not sure why DBT translated this as it did.

David Spybey

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* * * <<Brackets file.doc>> <<Brackets file non bold.doc>> 



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