[duxuser] Re: Producing a Braille Calendar

  • From: "Terri Pannett" <pann1@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 15:17:42 -0800

Your comments are great, Catherine!

I admit I have made calendars using a brailler and I didn't make that clear in my posts that I hadn't done so in DBT but I have learned much!

So, I made some modifications for a monthly calendar using DBT that will be useful no matter what year the calendar is for.

I created 7 documents named sundays.dxb mondays.dxb tuesdays.dxb wednesdays.dxb thursdays.dxb fridays.dxb and saturdays.dxb. Each of the files will show 31 days and they are named according to the day of the week the first day of the month starts on. Each file has a heading containing dashes so I can replace the dashes with the appropriate month and year renaming the file so the original isn't erased.

I centered all of the days of the week. Each weekday contains a capital sign and the first letter of the day. The exceptions are Thursday and Saturday--the capital th sign and the capital st sign. So each day of the week takes 2 cell and a space after each day.

The dates are all in Nemeth and every date has 2 digits in it 01, 02, 10, 11, etc. I center each of the lines of dates.

If a month starts on a day other than Sunday, I write dots 36,36 under the days of the week which don't apply. For Example, if the first started on a Monday, I wrotee dots 36,36 under Sunday. All of the lines look centered and uniform.

The same thing is true for the end of the month. If the Month ends on a Tuesday, I wrote dots 36,36 under the dates for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

I hope this helps people to make monthly calendars. I use 8.5 by 11 paper, but the same steps could be used for an 11 by 11.5 inch paper. I created the files in braille and used 6-key entry.

Terri, Amateur Radio call sign KF6CA. Army MARS call sign AAT9PX, California
----- Original Message ----- From: "Catherine Thomas" <braille@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <duxuser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 5:17 AM
Subject: [duxuser] Producing a Braille Calendar



To produce a Braille calendar, I would begin with the following steps: First I would decide what size paper I planned to use to produce the finished product. Next I would decide by what method the calendar was to be held together. If I planned to use it as a wall-hanging, I would have to leave room at the top of each page for at least one hole to be punched. If I planned a desk-top calendar, I would have to leave room for binding on the side. If I planned a flip calendar, where the current page for the current month is faced up and other pages are folded under, I would leave room for binding across the top.
Next I would decide what information the calendar would include on each page. If a weekly planner is the purpose of the calendar, then 52 tiny pages including days and dates with room for information on the bottom might work best. If I needed something just to look up a given date, then a simple 12-page format would be best.
Next I would determine what other information is to be included. Example: "dates on which the office will be closed", "major holidays", etc. Depending on the frequency of this information, it might be best to isolate it in text on a separate page at the front or back to the calendar. If the information for a given month is brief, then perhaps it could appear on the same page as the days and dates.
After all that finally comes the preparation. It;'s best to use the form of duxbury with which you are most familiar. If you like working in Word, then use it and the various duxbury codes to produce the desired result. If you prefer to edit the actual Braille in DBT, then do it that way.
CAUTION: To prevent major formatting issues, the data fields you create for a given type of information should be the same size. Example: If you are using two letters to symbolize each day of the week, then use two letters for every day--not just Thursday. Remember to include the relevant year on every page.
To find the dates and days for a given year, probably that Calendar wizard in Word might do the trick. I think there is also a calendar program in Windows under Accessories. Once you have the data, you can save it any way you want and edit it as you please.
COUNTING SPACES: Don't forget that the number signs in Braille take up extra room. Capital signs also take up room and serve no useful purpose in a calendar. It is also advisable to count in advance how many spaces some of the data take up in Braille. Example: Line containing days of the week: If each day is represented by one letter followed by one space, then the seven days would take up thirteen spaces. However, The line underneath which would contain dates would require at least 27 spaces. To make the data line up properly, the first line also would need 27 spaces.
I hope that these thoughts inspire some folks to try producing calendars.
Catherine



------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -Catherine Thomas braille@xxxxxxxxx /

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