Dear James,
dear all
Thank you so muc, dear James, for your indications.
I send this back to the list since I suppose this list's people may have
something to say.
On Aug 16, 2021, at 12:26, James Bowden <James.Bowden@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello,
Many thanks for your email.
OK, I understand a little more what you need.
Basically, you need a decent embosser that takes cut sheet paper, with an
automatic paper feed.
You are interested primarily in ancient languages, converting research
articles into braille.
I hope this is right?
So while I may not recommend a particular model, I can tell you the setup I
have:
I have an Index Basic embosser. It takes continuous paper, but the Index
Everest embossers take cut sheets. I have had no problems with my embosser,
it works well for several years.
My Index embosser is capable of double-sided embossing.
It can also do graphics.
I have the Duxbury Braille Translator software. It is the industry leader in
braille translation and can translate many languages, including classical
Greek and there is a setting for "Semitic languages" (which I think is mainly
for Biblical studies, including Coptic, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac and so on). I
have never personally used these particular profiles.
Duxbury of course supports many modern languages, including English, French,
German and Italian ... and over a hundred more.
You mentioned producing tables: this is always a job that normally requires
human intervention: rarely can you put a print table through any automatic
braille translation software and get good results straight away.
The same will be true for PDF documents, you will always have to convert
these to something better, such as a well structured Word document before
sending to Duxbury.
Also, if you are dealing with documents which contain a mixture of languages
(mixed language text) then you will always have to mark the language so that
the braille translator knows how to emboss correctly. Unless the languages
use different written scripts, there is no automatic language switching.
I don't know what the situation is with Macs, but I know that Duxbury has a
Mac version and I imagine the Index embossers should work with Macs.
Perhaps it might be worth contacting the manufacturer if you are interested.
I am fairly sure you can get a demo version of Duxbury to try it out. I think
it runs for 45 days.
--
If you wanted to go the Liblouis route instead, I have not used the
Liblouis_UTDML system, but you may not have a ready-made program without some
work to get it to run.
I have not studied to see what ancient languages are supported by Liblouis.
I also don't know how you might drive your embosser: probably some software
that comes with the embosser itself.
I trust this helps.
With best regards,
James.
From: Monsieur Chopra <monsieur.chopra@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: 14 August 2021 16:51
To: James Bowden <James.Bowden@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Embossers
Dear james,
thank you for all the informations you already supplied to me.
I try to explain my situation so that you can understand better what I need.
- first, what I want to do with an enbosser.
about the transcription softwear :I mainly need it to read as much as
possible - i. e. not enough, of course…. - research artticles.
I know French short writing, I manege with English, I’ve expermimented German
and I think, i will not be too troubled by the Italian system.
I imagine, people on the list can help me with this.
so, first, I need these for possibilities but this isn’t the main issue.
I need to have someone creating or finding what has already been breated to
render maby tables but first and formost the translitteration oof ancient
writing for three fields, Greek, Egyptian and assyriology.
I supose, I will nedd to bye this service. form whom can I bye it ?
- I need to have somone to comunicate with, if I have a probleme oand not to
be alone with my mashine.
- for the enbosser, itself, it needs to take cut sheet paper continously, to
work for relatively high quatities - articles - but the sped doesn’t really
matter. I want a solid mashine. it would be better if it an draw.
- the view+ driver didn’t work well with macs but I don’t necessarily it.
nevertheless, I would prefer to also have this option.
Hopping to have been clear.
I would like to send a propostion to the university til next sthursday so,
dont’ hesitate to tel me precisely form whom to bye.
hoping to have been clear.
No probleme to be off list.
11 Aug 2021, at 17:48, James Bowden <James.Bowden@xxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:James.Bowden@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Hello,
I hope you don't mind me taking this conversation off list. I'll try and
answer your questions:
MC: - If I understand well, an important question is the softwer taht takes
let’s say a pdf file and makes it something enbossable.
JB: PDF is one of the worst starting points! Try EPUB, Microsoft Word, HTML,
plain text, Markdown etc. for better results.
The reason I say this is because PDF files are notoriously badly constructed.
At best case, you will be able to extract all the meaningful information
about the document, but at worst you just have a scanned picture of the
document. Some of them will run all the words together, others run columns of
text together, others do not have properly marked headings etc, etc.
Be careful with PDF.
MC: But, I suppose it’s not such an easy thing to programm this software.
JB: you're right: not only do you have to decode the input file, but you also
have to transcribe the text into braille according to the braille rules and
layout conventions of the country and languages needed.
In several languages, braille uses a system of "contractions" (special signs)
which represent common words in the language or common groups of letters.
For example, in English, there is a sign for the word "the"; in French there
is a sign for the word "est", or in German, there is a sign for "ein".
MC: Where could I get a service to concieve the transcription from signs to
system of points that I need ?
JB: There are many options.
* Free software includes Liblouis, BrailleBlaster or SendToBraille.
* Commercial software includes the Duxbury Braille Translator, BrailleMaker
or EasyConverter.
* There are many others, including web solutions.
* There are also organisations and agencies which can do the translation and
send you back a file or emboss it for you. Of course, there is a cost for
this service.
MC: - where to find embossers that can do different kinds of graphics ?
JB: There are several makes and models, including Index, Enabling
Technologies, Tiger, Braillo , ...
MC: - apparently, embossers don’t work well with macs. is there a special
recommandation for this. I don’t specially need to operate through the Apple
computer but would like to know whether it is possible
JB: Yes, you should be able to use an embosser on a Mac, just make sure it
has a driver and that the translation software you plan to use runs on a Mac.
Again, I suggest check with the manufacturer website or embosser manual.
I understand Apple lock down the Mac and iOS platform so it is not so easy
for hardware manufacturers.
MC: - what does distinguish the embossers ? why are they more or less
expensive ?
JB: This is a complex question, but basically you can get an embosser
designed for small production needs, or an embosser that is designed for
large production houses ... and everything in-between.
I have a small one here which is not much bigger than an ordinary ink
printer. It takes continuous feed paper.
Other more expensive models take cut sheet paper.
The large embossers are huge and not only emboss, but can also fold paper,
staple it together and so on. They also run much faster and take huge rolls
of paper (like sections of a tree!).
So there are many factors:
* paper: cut sheet or continuous, and minimum and maximum size
* speed (slower generally = cheaper, faster = more expensive)
* durability (the heavier duty machines designed for massive production are
more expensive
This is before I talk about capabilities.
Some embossers can produce only text, at a fixed braille size and spacing.
Other machines may have various different graphic capabilities as well.
As I mentioned, there are various ways for encoding the graphics, and various
different dot spacings.
The main difference between braille text and braille graphics is that in
text, the dots are grouped into sixes with small gaps between each group
(cell).
In graphics, you ideally need a uniform grid of dots, and there are different
"resolutions" of this.
--
I trust this helps.
With best regards,
James.
From: liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Monsieur
Chopra
Sent: 11 August 2021 15:08
To: liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [liblouis-liblouisxml] Re: [EXTERNAL] do you recieve my messages ? /
I don't manege to fulfill the official rull acceptation.
Hello.
thanks for your answer
First, my questions don’t concern the enbosser that couldn’t do what I need
but
a potenttially new one, that would not have the same defalts.
- I f I understand well, an important question is the softwer taht takes
let’s say a pdf file and makes it something enbossable.
But, I suppose it’s not such n easy thing to programm this software.
Where could I get a service to concieve the transcription from signs to
system of points that I need ?
- where to find enbossers that can do differerent kinds of graphics ?
- apparently, enbossers don’t work weell with macs. is there a special
recommandation for this. I don’t specially need to operate through the Apple
computer but would like to know whether it is possible
- what does distinguish the enbossers ? why are they more or less expensive ?
Best
.
On 11 Aug 2021, at 16:41, James Bowden <James.Bowden@xxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:James.Bowden@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Hello,
I hope the following is helpful:
Nearly all braille codes are based on a matrix of 6 dots (there are some
which use 8, but for most languages on paper it's 6).
The various arrangements of the dots are then usually encoded as 63 different
ASCII characters. In the English-speaking world, it's called the North
American Braille Computer Code (NABCC) or USA Computer Code, or even "grade
0".
Thus, if I send my embosser an ASCII 33 (!), I expect it to produce dots
2346. (Note that dots 2346 is not the usual braille sign for an exclamation
mark).
The mapping between ASCII characters and braille dots is selected in the
embosser options. Make sure that your braille translation software and
embosser expect the same code.
If your embosser only knows that particular ASCII characters represent
particular braille dot combinations, then you can mix braille languages
easily in your document - all the embosser sess is a series of dot patterns
you want. In fact, you can equally well produce music braille and different
languages - it's all just based on six dots.
All the "intelligence" to establish the correct dot patterns is then usually
in braille translation software.
Layout is achieved by spaces and carriage return/line feed.
--
Several makes of embosser can also produce tactile graphics, mostly by
removing the small gaps which normally occur between ordinary braille
characters.
If you have an embosser capable of this, you typically send escape codes
(commands) to the embosser to put it in the graphics mode then send the
picture, then send further commands to return to text mode.
Some embossers have several different graphics settings, for example, to set
the distance between dots, or to state how the data is encoded etc.
All this, again, can usually be controlled by software.
--
To find out the capabilities of your particular embosser, may I suggest
consulting the manufacturer website, supplier or manual.
I trust this helps.
With best regards,
James.
From: liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> On Behalf Of Monsieur
Chopra
Sent: 11 August 2021 14:28
To: liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [liblouis-liblouisxml] Re: [EXTERNAL] do you recieve my messages ? /
I don't manege to fulfill the official rull acceptation.
CAUTION: External. Do not click links or open attachments unless you know the
content is safe.
Dear members,
Hello.
‘m Murtaza. I’m a phd candidate.
in fact, I nneed to know more about braille enbosers.
I mainly need to print generaly complicated texts with different languages
and sometimes strange notations.
my department in the university bought a braille printer but it could only
print page by page.
I think some enbosers can also reproduce picture, that could be quite
helpfull for me.
Best.
On 11 Aug 2021, at 16:20, James Bowden <James.Bowden@xxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:James.Bowden@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Hello,
Yes, we're receiving your messages.
Can you be a bit more specific about what you mean by a "printer", there are
thousands of ink printers on the market and dozens of braille embossers. They
vary in capability and price, depending on what you need to do.
With best regards,
James.
From: liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>>On Behalf Of Monsieur
Chopra
Sent: 11 August 2021 12:55
To: liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [liblouis-liblouisxml] do you recieve my messages ? / I
don't manege to fulfill the official rull acceptation.
CAUTION: External. Do not click links or open attachments unless you know the
content is safe.
For a description of the software, to download it and links to
project pages go to http://liblouis.org ;<http://liblouis.org/>
Donate: http://liblouis.org/sponsoring ;<http://liblouis.org/sponsoring>
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