Cindy, don't worry about skipped lines before a chapter title slowing down Braille readers. The Braille translator eliminates every blank line in the file. Believe me, I can prove it from my own submissions and validations. So I don't think you should change anything, since they probably make things look better for those who can see the text.
Evan----- Original Message ----- From: "Grandma Cindy" <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2007 12:13 AMSubject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: feedback on how to protect headings such as chapter titles and short story titles
Dear Lissi, Thanks for your informative post. From your checking I gather that it's not necessary to write an extra word to save the chapter as long as the page number is at the top. Useful info. And I had no idea that the skipped lines before a chapter title would slow down braille readers. I'll stop doing that. And I suppose I might as well stop centering chapter titles and leave them flush left. As a sighted person, I never notice page numbers when I read, whether they are at the top or the bottom, unless I don't have a decent bookmark and want to remember where I left off reading. Of course if I were writing a paper on a book I'd need to cite the pages, possibly. Cindy --- Estelnalissi <airadil@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:Dear Kellie, Lori, E. and Booksharian Friends, Kellie, you are so right. As long as we are lucky enough to get new volunteers, and until the thing is dismantled, the question about what is a stripper and how can we outsmart it will be asked. But, E, with all of your success and vast experience as a validator, I can't figure out why this issue upsets you. Protecting chapter numbers and names is easy. Jamie, Gerald, and others have explained it and we'll keep explaining it whenever it's a new volunteer's turn to learn it. Lori, you'll be relieved at how easy it is to make sure your chapter names stay put and its so easy it's no trouble at all and takes mere seconds per chapter. here is the formula page break blank line page number blank line chapter name blank line Text. When I started out, volunteers taught me this simple sequence, and I've enjoyed becoming expert enough to pass it on now and then as new volunteers subscribe to our list. When I read E was going to stop validating rather than risk her chapter names disappearing, I decided I must be misunderstanding her or she was having a bad day, as we all have bad days now and then including me. I haven't worried about the stripper for a year and a half except to think what a funny name it has when I feel like letting my thoughts stray on the raunchy side. I've been wanting to come clean about something for several months. and now is a good time to do it. Since it protects chapter names to put page numbers at the tops of the pages where they are, I decided about 50 books ago to move all of the page numbers in the books I validate to the top of the pages so the numbers will be in a consistent location. I don't play fast and loose with the book format. I'm doing this for good reasons. Having all of the page numbers at the top of the pages is so helpful to people reading with braille displays and it doesn't confuse listeners or print readers either. When a sighted person glances at a page, they can see the page number before they begin reading no matter where it is located because their eye takes in all of the page in the fraction of a second. I think a braille reader shouldn't have to wait until the end of a page to know what page they are reading. When we search a page, like page 87, we shouldn't land at the end of the page we want but at its start. Page numbers at the bottoms of pages are especially confusing to more than half of the young children reading braille books. If the teacher says to start on page 45, if the number is at the bottom, the child finds page 45, then has to tediously check backwards, up, to find where the page starts. Telling kids that when they want page 45 they should look for page 44 is terribly confusing and more confusing when the teacher says, "but sometimes you should look for 45 when you want 45. It depends on the book. I feel proud that all of the books I've validated in the past several months are standardized with all page numbers at the tops of the pages and I don't mind the extra time it has taken for me to move them there. Anyway, I did something that to me is extremely boring to make sure my advice about protecting chapter names is sound. I downloaded 7 of my own validations to my flash card and checked them on my braille note. When I validate, I read every word of the book making corrections as I go. Then I do a spell check, because by then I know which words may be spelled oddly because of dialect and ignore them when the computer says they are wrong when I know they are right. Last I go through and check that all page numbers are present. I should stop being astonished that on occasion I've found that I actually skipped a page number or repeated it. Shoo. Then I'm glad I took time to double check. Honestly, I never give chapter names or the stripper a single thought. I systematically do the blank, number, blank, chapter name, blank, text, thing or on regular pages blank, page number, blank, text, and leave a blank line at the bottom of every single page between the last line of text and the page break. I trust that all will be fine and it is! Anyway, after all of that care, by the time I upload a book after validating it I'm tired of it and don't want to read it again and I don't want to see where I may have overlooked a boo boo so I rarely download my own work. As I said, tonight was the exception. I downloaded the following books which I've validated. Barry Trotter and the Unauthorized Sequel Green Lake The Black Cauldron Marvin Redpost Why Pick On Me The Prince in the Heather Terror On Tuesday Why Cats Do That All of the chapter heads were there! I thought they would be, but to be sure, I've been heating up my braille note checking and checking and checking. In one book the chapters were just indicated by roman numerals. All of them were where they belonged. In a couple other they were Arabic numerals. In one or two others they were numbers spelled out. In one they were words, like, "Why Do Cats Scratch The Furniture?" Not a single chapter number or name was missing. Don't sweat the stripper. Don't sweat the small stuff. Oh, and don't worry about putting in tons of extra consecutive blank lines like 7 in a row because a chapter starts in the middle of a page. Having that blank space doesn't change the meaning of the content of the text. It slows down braille readers and bookshare tools eliminate big white spaces. A single blank line above and below the page number makes everything clear and readable. Get back to work, E. That stripper can't get the best of us. including you. In fact, the poor stripper is just a flop, a white elephant which we've outsmarted almost from the day it tried and failed to do its job. The engineers are so busy making improvements to the site, the silly white elephant stripping is in some dusty electronic corner being ignored. 'We have bigger, more important fish for the staff to fry, don't we? Oh, and, Lucy and Charlie, I validated Why do Cats Do That from an Excellent scan from Jamie Yates just for you. Would you please write me off list and let me know if the cat loving author knows what she's talking about? I loved the book. It has 40 short, light hearted, but factual chapters about the ways of cats, but since I've only had one cat in my lifetime, I would love to have your expert opinions. Did you laugh, scoff, agree or file a suit against the author for misrepresenting cats? Always with love, Lissi----- Original Message ----- From: Kellie HartmannTo: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Friday, August 17, 2007 10:42 AM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: feedback on how to protect headings such as chapter titles and short story titles Hi Lori, Please don't feel bad about asking--it's not new volunteers who are causing my frustration. The easiest way to protect chapter headers is to put the page number above them. The stripper will recognize and incorporate the number and leave the chapter header in peace. Hope this helps, Kellie____________________________________________________________________________________Be a better Heartthrob. Get better relationship answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - Check it out.http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545433 To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxput the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. 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