Hi. This is probably mostly for the webmaster, but I would like to get
input from others on this list. Also, if you think this is off topic, I
can move this discussion to the gutvol-p list instead.
Has any progress been made with regards to making PG books available in
Braille formatted files? There is at least one free Braille translator for
*nix that I know of. I haven't seen this on the recode or bibrec pages. I
would be willing to test the Braille output. I know of others who would
probably also be interested. Probably a link on the recode page would be
best, but it would be nice to see a link as part of the standard download
links on the bibrec pages. That link could probably be a cgi program which
would call the translator, NFBTrans, which would convert the file. I
believe that it can be set to write to stdout, but it might be more
convenient to have it create a separate file with the .brf extension for
downloading.
Here are a couple of issues to keep in mind. First, Braille only works
with 7-bit, upper case files. NFBTrans will convert from mixed case just
fine, but it is important that they are not 8-bit files. Braille does not
support international accented characters. There are different Braille
codes for other languages such as Spanish or German, but I don't know how
well NFBTrans supports them. Besides it would be difficult to have an
automated way of passing this information on the command line at the time
of translation. Second, it will work only on plain text. It does not
convert from html at all. Third, it might be best to have two links, one
for a single file and one for multiple volumes. The reason why is that one
printed page is about 3-6 Braille pages, depending on the size of the print
and any illustrations. Many blind people now use special PDAs which can
handle big files, but large files are bad for embossers. If someone
downloads and tries to emboss a 300 page print book, it could easily be
900-1,000 pages in Braille. So, it is best to also make smaller files
available. This is known as volumes. that same book could be downloaded
in three Braille Volumes of 100-250 Braille pages each. That is much
better for binding etc. I think the best way to do this is with the
standard split utility. You can set it for X lines and that would be
perfect. It would not indicate at the top of each new file that it is a
subsequent volume in a set, but that can be added by the person doing the
embossing if desired. I don't know exactly what the correct number of
lines per file is, but I can check into that.
Finally, after the translation to Braille options are set up and working,
it would be nice if PG could have an official press release announcing this
service. I know of several groups for the blind and many blind individuals
who would be very interested. This is not as good of a solution as making
books available in the new DAISY format, but I am not aware of a free html
to DAISY converter, and I don't think that DAISY works on plain text at
all. Once a master xml format is in place, conversion to DAISY would be
even simpler, but I don't think there are any free tools.
Really all that needs to be done is to integrate a script into the PG site
that calls nfbtrans and generates the .brf file. The .brf can be sent to
the browser for downloading. Windows users would probably have to
right-click on the Braille links and save the files manually. It would not
be much harder for the multiple volumes, just use a split utility on the
.brf file and create a temporary page with each piece of the file linked so
they can also be downloaded and saved.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I don't mind testing or finding
others to test, but I admit that my knowledge of cgi scripting is almost
zero. I can compile nfbtrans easily enough, but I don't know how to
integrate it into the recode facility or the PG site in general.
