[duxuser] Re: Article on Braille transcription focuses on NBP transcriber and Duxbury Systems
- From: "George Bell" <george@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2006 13:59:20 +0100
Very good points, Catherine.
However whatever the software these days, be it Word for
Windows or Duxbury, it is a very sad fact of life that
training comes at the very bottom of the budget list. But
we do a fair number of trainings anyway.
And I do speak from first hand experience. When we do a
Duxbury training course, over 50% of the content is about
using Word properly. You (perhaps not) would be surprised
at the "Oos" and "Ahs" and "my goodnesses" we hear.
Indeed we put together some Word Guidelines which have
proved immensely popular. They are included in the 10.6
Help files in the "Working with Word" section, but they are
also on our web page at:
http://www.techno-vision.co.uk/10_Word_Guidelines.htm
I'm not suggesting this is the total solution, but in many
cases, once you begin to get people using Word properly,
there is a marked improvement in the quality of braille
produced from Word files.
Once people are more comfortable using Word, introducing
them to Susan Christensen's Word BANA Template is another
major step forward.
In an ideal world, all braille should be given at least a
quick once over by an experienced braillist, but I doubt
that will happen on my life time.
George.
-----Original Message-----
From: duxuser-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:duxuser-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Catherine
Thomas
Sent: 12 September 2006 13:43
To: duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [duxuser] Re: Article on Braille transcription
focuses on NBP transcriber and Duxbury Systems
It's ironic but true--products like Duxbury have actually
made it more difficult for Braille transcription to be taken
seriously. Duxbury and other translation programs are now
being used constantly by people who know nothing about
Braille. The resulting documents are often ghastly for the
Braille reader, the final user. On balance, an article like
that in the Boston Globe is a good thing because it makes
people aware of Braille transcription. There is also no
question that the number of non-professionals transcribing
Braille is going to increase. It will be up to us as
professional transcribers and up to Braille readers to
insist on quality Braille. I believe that we need more
written material explaining the differences between Braille
and print documents.The bottom line is to produce documents
in Braille that are user-friendly. It's impossible for
transcribers to do that if they don't understand what
portions of a document a Braille reader finds useful and
which portions only provide clutter, cunfusion, and
unnecessary pages. We may need to develop a common-sense
guide to Braille transcription which goes beyond the rules
and codes and gets to the heart of what people actually need
in order to make a document readable.
If anyone wants to write to me privately about this, I'd be
glad to hear from them.
Catherine
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-Catherine Thomas
braille@xxxxxxxxx /
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