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Re: cleaning braille files

for

From: Michael Bullis
Date: Apr 11, 2016 10:23AM

I should have clarified in my original request that what I do to braille files is for casual use only. I wouldn't use it for books with tables or poetry where line formatting is important.
All I use this for is novels or nonfiction that isn't technical. I wouldn't use it for math.
In other words, I call it junk braille reformatting so I can use the full braille line on my braille display. It's handy if I'm turning a document I have created on a word processor into something I might need to use with an audience where I need to read specific lengthy passages.
The things that I do are---more than three occurrences of dashes, * (stars), all tabs, paragraph symbols, linefeed symbols, carriage returns.
Removing heading indicators would also be useful.
An example would be that I sometimes get a rather lengthy document off the internet that I can quickly convert to Braille on my notetaker. When it converts all of the above things are there. When the braille display sees a linefeed or paragraph symbol, (often used at the ends of lines for formatting purposes although unnecessary), my braille display is left blank for the rest of the line, no matter where it is, causing me to have to advance the braille display to see the next block of text.

Again, all of this is just to make a document more easily readable on a braille display and would not be useful for documents in which formatting is important.

Thanks for any effort you make in this regard. I'm sure many of my colleagues would use it if it was simple.

Michael Bullis
Executive Director,
The IMAGE Center of Maryland
300 E. Joppa Road,
Suite 312
Towson MD
21286
Email: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Office: 443-275-9394
Cell: 443-286-9001
Website: www.imagemd.org


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Jim Allan
Sent: Monday, April 11, 2016 10:07 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] cleaning braille files

might be useful.
if you decide to do it perhaps using the Linear Braille code
http://www.brailleauthority.org/linear/linear1987.TXT

as replacements for formatting.

Jim

On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 8:44 PM, Thad C < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Greetings group.
>
> I am looking at developing some open source projects and repos. Would the
> creation of a macro that executed this functionality be useful for people?
> On Mar 28, 2016 3:25 PM, "Michael Bullis" < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> > This is an accessibility question but perhaps not quite on point for this
> > list.
> >
> > From time to time I need to read very lengthy documents in braille on my
> > electronic braille notetaker.
> >
> > In order to make the process much more enjoyable I clean the file by
> > removing paragraph symbols, end of line feeds, rows of dashes, spaces,
> > slashes or stars.
> >
> > When finished, I have a file that requires far fewer line advances as I
> > read
> > along and one that uses the full width of the braille display.
> >
> > My process for cleaning is rather cumbersome, requiring the creation of
> > several search and replace strings that I run manually. I'm wondering if
> > anyone on the list knows of a piece of software that might have been
> > created
> > that does what I'm doing by hand?
> >
> > Thanks in advance for your continued good works. I'm mostly a lurker but
> > do
> > learn much.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Michael Bullis
> >
> > Executive Director,
> >
> > The IMAGE Center of Maryland
> >
> > 300 E. Joppa Road,
> >
> > Suite 312
> >
> > Towson MD
> >
> > 21286
> >
> > Email: <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> > <EMAIL REMOVED>
> >
> > Office: 443-275-9394
> >
> > Cell: 443-286-9001
> >
> > Website: www.imagemd.org
> >
> >
> >
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > >



--
Jim Allan, Accessibility Coordinator
Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired
1100 W. 45th St., Austin, Texas 78756
voice 512.206.9315 fax: 512.206.9264 http://www.tsbvi.edu/
"We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us." McLuhan, 1964