[duxuser] Re: Dilemma, How to Train Sighted Staff to Do Braille using DBT

  • From: "George Bell" <george@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 2 May 2003 00:33:37 -0400

Hi Dale,

I hear you loud and clear, and it is indeed thanks to people
like yourself that products like DBT have got this far.

However we, that is the likes of Duxbury and myself, have to
push just that shade harder to obtain precise examples of
where things are going wrong.  Only then can we try to fix
them.  And the solution very often can be as simple as a
setting in a program like Word, which has become all too
clever at imposing its fancy correct as you type things on
us.  Very often, simply turning off such features, solves
the problem.

The computer world is quite frankly upside down at the
moment, and although costs of computers and peripherals have
come down a lot over the years, people are still reluctant
to keep up to date.  And so we have a mixture of old and
new, which are as compatible as fire and water.

I'll give you just one simple example and, as it's after
midnight, I'm off for some shut eye.

There are literally thousands of people transcribing books
and such like, using DOS based systems.  After all, you
don't need fancy equipment to bash in text.  In the U.K., I
see prisons, where they have been donated old equipment, and
the prisoners do valuable transcription work.

But all too often they are using ASCII.  So although they
type a British currency Pound sign, which appears as it is
intended, when ASCII files containing Pound signs are
brought into a Windows application, which uses the ANSI
character set, they become an accented letter u.

Now we have Unicode to contend with which, in essence, makes
things somewhat simpler - provided yet again we don't mix
old and new.

In the meantime, all we can ask is that specific examples of
problems, with examples and sample files, are brought to our
attention.  

You'd be surprised what we can do with chewing gum and a
length of string!! (Smile)

Goodnight for now.

George Bell


-----Original Message-----
From: duxuser-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:duxuser-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dale
Leavens
Sent: 01 May 2003 21:40
To: duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sorry, I did not wish to sound belligerent or be offensive.
Referring to my original thoughts on the subject it is
distinctly possible that I am looking for a product which is
not Duxbury.

What is coming through to me is that there is a need to
train sighted people to prepare Braille. We used to do that
long before Duxbury and they were called Braille
transcriptionists. They used something called the Perkins
Brailler. Now we must train them to be computer braille
transcriptionists.
Not sure I truly appreciate the difference.

Ok, for absolutely perfect braille it may not yet be
possible to create a fully automated process given current
technology. What about approximate technology which does not
require training sighted people to produce reasonably good
working brail.

Maybe a different product which will take a download of my
bank statement or an e-mailed agenda and turn it into usable
braille I can take to the table within minutes of receipt
and function along with the rest of the employees with whom
I must successfully compete and interact.

Maybe DBT Lite, something like that.

Make no mistake, I do understand the need for industrial
quality transcription. I am looking though for something
that does not require me to edit, test and reedit or
remember to search and replace out some arcane symbols
hardly used for common ones or to have to train someone else
to do so in an ongoing basis. There are some obvious things,
like spaces at the end of cells in a table, line brakes at
the end of a row in a table, maybe there are templates I
don't understand or have not yet fully appreciated which
take care of these things and I should RTFM more thoroughly
and I accept any other criticism, DBT is a very
sophisticated product and this list bears testament to the
fact that many people spend their entire working day on this
product alone. There must however be a number of us who are
looking for a tool to get us through our day, just one of a
number of tools.

JAWS and K1000 also come to mind, very sophisticated
software, wonderful for people who do nothing all day but
that and I would never want to take that away but I pay a
kings ransom to say read and in exchange for my money I get
an automated bookshare service as a Canadian I cannot use,
but no real innovation in OCR capability, braille I struggle
with and standard business applications I cannot access on
my computer.

Enough! Sorry, I did not wish to rant, just have rapid
access to readable braille.

Dale Leavens, Cochrane Ontario
dleavens@xxxxxxx
     Home of the Polar Bear Express!

----- Original Message -----
From: "George Bell" <george@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2003 12:26 AM
Subject: [duxuser] Re: Dilemma, How to Train Sighted Staff
to Do Braille using DBT


Wow Dale,

That's a strong statement.

Suffice to say that DBT at least has the goal of attempting
to go for the latter.  Real world aware.

George.

-----Original Message-----
From: duxuser-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:duxuser-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dale
Leavens
Sent: 29 April 2003 21:26
To: duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Well the problem remains that documents come the way sighted
people create them and that is usually the way software
authors arrange the defaults.

One might instruct the world to create their documents to be
Duxbury friendly or one might create Braille transcription
software to be real world aware.


Dale Leavens, Cochrane Ontario
dleavens@xxxxxxx
     Home of the Polar Bear Express!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Susan Stageberg" <stageberg.susan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 12:01 PM
Subject: [duxuser] Re: Dilemma, How to Train Sighted Staff
to Do Braille using DBT


There is indeed a "Smart Quotes" option in WordPerfect.  I
don't have it on this machine so can't seek out the exact
place to find it, but I know that we routinely uncheck all
automatic formatting in WordPerfect, which is still widely
used here.  Otherwise you have to go in and replace the
funky characters with the "real" apostrophes, etc.; these
characters are assigned numbers which you can find somewhere
in a list in WordPerfect; then you can do a "find and
replace" ("seek and destroy").  Sorry I don't remember more
specifics; my job has taken me away from those days where I
knew such things off the top of my head, but I know it can
be done.

Susie Stageberg
Project ASSIST with Windows
Iowa Department for the Blind


-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Dresser [mailto:s.dresser@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 9:10 AM
To: duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [duxuser] Re: Dilemma, How to Train Sighted Staff
to Do Braille using DBT


Dale,

I don't know if there is a "Smart quotes" option in Word
Perfect, but if

there is, it should be turned off.  As I said, DBT isn't the
problem here.  The problem is that people are using the
wrong character for an apostrophe.  Incidentally, I believe
the "Smart Quotes" checkbox is part of the Format menu in
Word.

Steve

On Monday 4/28/03 21:59 Dale Leavens wrote:
>So if I turn smart quotes off (assuming I can find it) then
that ~ 
>problem will go away when I import MS-Word and more
particularly 
>WordPerfect files into DBT? WordPerfect is still the
processor of 
>preference around here. If not then what? is this a
characteristic of 
>DBT that users prefer? If so, Why? if not then can it be
got rid of?
>
>If DBT can consistently turn the ', however misused into a
~ then 
>surely it could equally well turn it into an '.
>
>Do people really have the opposite problem?
>
>Thanks.
>
>Dale Leavens, Cochrane Ontario
>dleavens@xxxxxxx
>      Home of the Polar Bear Express!
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Steve Dresser" <s.dresser@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: <duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Monday, April 28, 2003 8:51 AM
>Subject: [duxuser] Re: Dilemma, How to Train Sighted Staff
to Do 
>Braille using DBT
>
>
>On Sunday 4/27/03 17:07 Dale Leavens wrote:
> >why must DBT regard the apostrophe as a tilde character?
>It doesn't.  However, many people use the apostrophe for a
single or 
>double quote, which they should not.  Also, many people
have smart 
>quotes turned on in Word, which causes a single quote to be
used in 
>place of the apostrophe.
>
>Steve
>
>
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