[duxuser] Re: Reading and Preparing .brf files

  • From: "Bill Scherer" <bspro@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 11 May 2012 13:00:13 -0500



Maybe this is a dumb question? If .BRF files are essentially text files what purporse do they serve?
Bill

----- Original Message ----- From: "Catherine Thomas" <braille@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2012 11:37 AM
Subject: [duxuser] Reading and Preparing .brf files




A simple solution to many of the proble,s with .brf files is to open the file first in a word processor such as WordPerfect or MSWord. You can look at the file to determine: 1. How many characters per line? 2. How many lines per page? 3. Are there form-feeds to help separate the pages? 4. Are there hard returns at the end of each line? 5. Are there excess spaces at the beginnings of lines which might cause a person to try to emboss the file without enough characters per line? When you have looked at the file, close it. If you find that you will need to make changes, you can make them in the word processor provided that you save the file as a plain text file which is what .brf files are to begin with--just simple text files. Don't save the file in Word or WordPerfect. Saving it this way adds coding which the embosser cannot interpret. Also, always remember that a .brf file should never be translated by Duxbury--only embossed.

After you have determined all these features, you can properly set your embosser. Try embossing a sample page, preferably not page one. If page 7 for example comes out correctly, you know that you can proceed.

Those who read .brf files on a 40-cell braille display should not encounter many problems. As to the 18-, 20-, and 32-cell notetakers, I've been told that all of these units have a way of allowing a person to read across the two halves of a line without changing the vertical layout of the page but this setting is not the default. Each user will have to learn how the particular notetaker accomplishes this. Notetakers are also often set to ignore hard returns, blank spaces etc. which gives a .brf file its planned layout. If lines and spaces are suppressed or compressed, this is often the problem. All of the screen-readers have ways of decompressing and unsuppressing. Again, users have to learn how each product and device actually works.

I know I'll live to regret this, but if anyone has questions about a particular .brf file they can write to me off-list and I'll do my best to straighten out whatever mess they happen to be in.

If any sighted reader of .brf files needs to know whcich keyboard key stands for which braille dot combination, I'll be glad to send them the list. Duxbury used to distribute this as a .txt file they called asciibraille. Maybe it's time to start doing that again.

To those preparing .brf files, I cannot over-emphasize that .brf files contain ONLY ordinary computer characters, spaces, line-feeds and form-feeds. No escape codes or other codes should be present.

I hope this is helpful to somebody. I know it's heresy to some but I love .brf files. I work with them all the time in preparing books for web-braille via Optical Braille Recognition.
Catherine

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Catherine Thomas
braille@xxxxxxxxx                     /

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