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. TracyNot 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 getthe benefit of validators with Kurzweil, openbook, or msword. If you leaveit 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 To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 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. To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 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: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.21.4/1312 - Release Date: 3/4/2008 9:46 PMTo unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 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. To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. 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