Send To Braille is a tool to create quick and dirty braille
files. It adds a shortcut to your Send To folder, so you can select
one or more files, right click and pick Send To, then pick Braille.
It creates a braille version of the file with minimal formatting in
the same folder with .brl appended to the end of the original file's
name. It keeps the original extension to help you see the original
file's source, so if you translate test.doc, you end up with
test.doc.brl.
Send To Braille Shortcut produces "Quick and dirty"
braille. It is a translation only, much like you get from screen
reader output. It is not formatted in any way except to try to
preserve paragraphs. Headings and list items are generally on their
own lines, but exact results depend on the original file. Pandoc converts the
file into plain text before sending it to the Liblouis
translator.
Correct braille transcription depends on a human to
make several decisions and provide additional value to titles that are
not generally accessible in some way. Some documents, however, may
have enough information without the additional attention to justify a
quick and dirty translation. And, this is where the Send To Braille
shortcut comes in.
To install the shortcut, run the lt_setup.exe file. Once installed, you have three new items in the Send To folder.
Shortcut | Description |
---|---|
Braille | Converts selected file(s) to braille |
Back from braille | Converts selected file(s) to ascii text |
Uncontracted braille | Converts selected file(s) to uncontracted braille |
To translate a file, do the following:
If you want to reverse translate a document back from braille, select Back from Braille from the same context menu.
The Send To Braille Shortcut employs the services of two excellent libraries to do its job.
Pandoc is a file conversion tool.
Liblouis is an international braille code translator.
Send To Braille is a shortcut that combines these two tools and gives you an interface to use them conveniently.
Send To Braille comes set up with Unified English Braille (UEB) translation, but you may easily change it to translate any supported braille code in any supported language.
To change the table Send To Braille passes to Liblouis, the translator, do the following:
You can edit the lt.bat file to either open an editor after the translation or copy the file straight to an SD card or another device.
This shortcut runs on Windows. We encourage others to create similar shortcuts for OSX or Linux. With help from the community we will be willing to host other versions, test, and sign them for all to use.