[duxuser] Re: from PDF to Braille
- From: "Rasmussen, Lloyd" <lras@xxxxxxx>
- To: "duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:43:03 -0400
I have used Omnipage to create Word documents from PDF. Considerable cleanup
would be necessary.
I have also found another method to extract some of the information from a PDF,
which does not require special software beyond MS Office. I use Window-Eyes,
but you could probably use JAWS or NVDA to help with this, as well. I set up
the reading options for Adobe Reader so that only one page at a time is shown
in the virtual buffer. I go to the page I want to start on. I start up Word
with an empty document. Switch back to Adobe Reader. Turn Autoload off. For
Window-Eyes, the keystroke is Insert-A, while the virtual (browse) buffer is
displaying a page. Turn off Browse mode and leave it off (ctrl-shift-A for
Window-Eyes; Insert-Z for JAWS or NVDA). Pressing Ctrl-A selects the contents
of that page. Ctrl-C puts this on the Windows Clipboard. Alt-Tab to your Word
document and paste into it with Ctrl-V. Sometimes it will say "paste options",
but I use the default behavior. Switch back to Adobe Reader. Press Spacebar
for the next page, ctrl-A, ctrl-C, back to Word, Paste, etc. for as many pages
as you will need.
I don't know how well this works when you have tables or even headings. Each
line in the PDF will be a paragraph in Word. Bold and italic attributes of the
fonts will appear in the Word file. The reading order is not the same as any
of the orders you will see in Adobe Reader. This is a lot of work, and I'm not
sure how applicable it is to various PDF files. If you can get the original
source material, you will probably still be better off. I am only saying that
this is an alternative, in addition to the "save as accessible text" option, or
using cut and paste from the browse buffer. In any case, you will have to do a
lot of cleanup before you have a presentable braille document.
Lloyd Rasmussen, Senior Project Engineer
National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
Library of Congress 202-707-0535
http://www.loc.gov/nls
The preceding opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the
Library of Congress, NLS.
-----Original Message-----
From: duxuser-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:duxuser-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of scott blanks
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 3:53 PM
To: duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [duxuser] from PDF to Braille
Hey everyone,
I often receive documents in PDF format, which, though readable with a screen
reader such as Jaws, present quite a challenge when importing into DBT. I'm
using DBT 11.1. I have tried various methods to get the information into DBT in
as similar a format as what is presented in the PDF. However, the results vary,
to say the least. I generally use Adobe Reader's Save As option to save an
"accessible" text version of the document, and I suspect this is where the
problems start, since text retains little if any formatting. When I open these
text docs in DBT, various styles seem to pop up randomly. Sometimes the poem
style will be present throughout the entirety of a file, even if its 40 pages
long, and there is no reason the poem style should have been instituted, as
best I can determine. On other occasions, lines in the DBT document vary from
very short to regular length.
I guess what I'm looking for is as consistent a path as possible to follow when
importing documents from PDF format into DBT. Any input or advice will be much
appreciated.
Thanks,
Scott
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