[duxuser] Re: Other Odd Symbols
- From: "Kathy Riessen" <kathy.riessen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2008 12:18:42 +1030
Catherine, we print readers are a quirky lot.
If it "looks right" it must be right!! An apostrophe or a single quote can
look the same or even a prime symbol can look the same in print - but to get
correct braille you must start with the right symbol in the first place.
Same with a zero and a capital o, or a 1 and and I and an l. Print readers
will read the wrong symbol according to context but the translation will be
incorrect.
This is the very reason why all Word documents need to be carefully checked
if you want good quality braille from Duxbury and the 1st thing I ALWAYS
double check are quotes and apostrophes to ensure that correct symbols are
used in Word. If a document has been produced with "smart quotes" which
unfortuneately is the Word default, then these often need to be changed to
simple quotes.
It is amazing what things we find in documents produced by the general
public.
Another quirky thing I often find is spaces before punctuation such as
question marks - the document producer thinks it looks cute!!!! Doesn't
translate well though.
The greatest skill these days that a transcriber can have (in my opinion) is
a thorough understanding of how a Word document translates using Duxbury,
because if you get it right first time in Word, there are less changes
needed in Braille.
Kathy
-----Original Message-----
From: duxuser-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:duxuser-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Catherine Thomas
Sent: Friday, 7 November 2008 12:02 PM
To: duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [duxuser] Other Odd Symbols
I recently transcribed a simple conference agenda from what had been an
MS-Word document. Among the odd symbols which I came across were three
different types of apostrophes, a symbol meant to stand for "trademark"
and something separating times such as 9:00 to 9:30 that I had never seen
before. All of these symbols translated into unrecognizable braille things.
I can't replicate them here because I don't know what print characters they
actually were. Is it common practice in MS-Word for ordinary symbols such as
apostrophe to be replaced by something else?
Catherine
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-Catherine Thomas
braille@xxxxxxxxx /
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