[bookshare-discuss] Format editing during validation
- From: "Captain357" <Captain357@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Bookshare-Discuss" <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 11:24:15 -0500
Hi all,
Bookshare's information on page format editing is pretty clear in the
validation instructions sent to new volunteers: do what you can and details
some specifics. I was looking for additional information on this however.
Now, anyone who has done scanning knows that typically the finished scan can
have spaces between letters on the title page, blank lines between lines of
text, etc, and is most likely not a mirror image of the book. That has been
my experience anyway. From my days when I could see, I remember how the
average book is structured and formatted, and that is not how many of my
scans turn out. Even when viewing in "exact view," (with "keep exact view"
set in scanning preferences and all options set to retain as much data as
possible) this still tends to be the case. Okay, and let's assume that you
do get a perfect duplicate scan of the book, the publishers in making things
look their best (larger fonts and erratic spacing in titles and headers) are
problems for screen readers and I would think, problematic in the transition
from RTF to daisy. That said, does anyone know what the ideal balance
between efficiency, speed of validating and quality, performance of the
daisy file would be? In other words, how much can the automated RTF to
daisy program Bookshare uses to process daisy files, compile and compensate
formatting errors mentioned above into a great finished Book? Should we be
striving in validation to keep spaces between sentences and letters to a
minimal? Should paragraphs be indented? Should we rework fancy visual
formats to a simpler, uniform style? Then of course, those of us who are
blind can't look at the book to see how formatting appears so there is
guessing and assumption involved. I've mentioned just a few specific
questions here to get my point across and hopefully I've done that. Any
information that will give me a better idea of what is best and suggestions
for doing so is greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
David
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