John's ideas on the ideal Braille translator raise several very
important points about print-to-Braille equivalency. As a small step
towards this, the VISIONS Lab has developed a number of Braille and
print fonts that force the print and the Braille to occupy the exact
same amount of space. This is useful for sighted people to learn and
proofread Braille. We also have a raised print font that helps the
Braille reader learn and proof raised print. When using these fonts,
the Braille and print match up exactly; i. e. one-to-one. We also have
a Nemeth font that has this same Braille-to-print matchup.
One of our ideas in using these fonts is to take advantage of the
TransSend system, sold by Enabling Technolgoies, which allows the
printing of print and Braille on the same page, line-by-line. I think
that combined with one or the other of our fonts, this will go a long
way towards alleviating the problems that John must deal with. We are
working with Enabling to make this a reality.
As far as the fundamental problem, I can't see any obvious solutons
other than to use really big paper or always use an 8-dot code, which is
what one of our students does. A good person to talk to is John
Gardner, as several of his students use 8-dot code for their computer
programming, and often have hard copy.
Our fonts, by the way, are available from Duxbury Systems, Inc.
Regards,
Dave Schleppenbach
VISIONS LAb director
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