DBT 11.1 and Braille Math

Equation Editor and MathType

Both Equation Editor and MathType are formula editors developed by Design Science that allows users to construct math and science equations in a WYSIWYG environment. It is an add-in or included in Microsoft Word, presentation programs (e.g. Microsoft PowerPoint), and many other products. Equation Editor is a simplified version of Design Science MathType.

Mathtype information is available at http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/default.htm

If MathType is loaded on the same computer as DBT, then DBT can read math Microsoft Word files containing Equation Editor or MathType material. If MathType is not loaded on the same computer as DBT, then as DBT imports a file containing Equation Editor or MathType material, an errror message shows up in the DBT file at the location of each piece of mathematical notation in the file.

Scientific Notebook

Scientific Notebook is an excellent program that works as a "word processor" for mathematical notation, and generates the Latex files that DBT can import. Create and print your print or large print mathematics from Scientific Notebook. Save the file from Scientific Notebook. Then launch DBT, and open your Scientific Notebook file inside of DBT. You can translate, and out comes literary and mathematical braille.

Scientific Notebook information is available at http://www.mackichan.com/index.html?products/snb.html A simplified manual for Scientific Notebook can be obtained at http://www.sciword.demon.co.uk/SNB.pdf

You can purchase Scientific Notebook from MacKichan Software, or from Duxbury Systems.

Infty Reader

InftyReader is OCR (optical character recognition) software to recognize printed document and PDF in scientific fields including mathematical notation and tables, and to output the results in various formats including Latex, which DBT can import. The use of InftyReader requires a high-end scanner (400 or 600 dpi). Windows Vista and Windows 7 users should check compatibility before purchase.

Infty Reader information is available at http://www.sciaccess.net/en/InftyReader/index.html

Choosing Your Technical Braille Code

Discussion

In Duxbury DBT 11.1, there are 4 translators that handle a range of technical (mathematics and science) symbols.

These are:

These instructions tell you how to do a single step, so that for all future file importations into DBT 11.1, your choice of math translators is used. Regardless of what braille translator you choose for literary (Africaans through Zulu), your choice of technical translator will be used for technical material.

Thus you can have Finnish literary braille with French braille math, or Hindi literary braille with Nemeth Code math, etc.

Duxbury Systems is aware that there are many other math braille systems. There are systems for German, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew, Russian, and Chinese (and more), but these are not available for mathematical equations (at least not yet).

Also note that this method changes the braille mathematics system in use at the moment of file importation. If you import 12 files into DBT, and then perform this procedure, your 12 files will remain unchanged until you re-import them from the source files into DBT again.

Please remember that this change will stay in place until you change it again.

By the way, to accomplish this task, we are using a scrub table (global replace) and are using a feature of DBT 11.1 called "table switching", which allows for switching between braille translation tables in the middle of a document. This is a new and powerful feature of DBT 11.1

Objective

What is the objective of this proceedure? To pick one file in the DBT 11.1 directory and to rename it to altmath.sbt. This is easy to do on Windows XP, but harder on Windows Vista or Windows 7 since they are armoured to try to avoid unauthorized changes to software.

The four files we supply are:

Your job is to pick one of these, and just change its name to altmath.sbt.

Step by Step Instructions

  1. DBT 11.1 needs to be installed on your machine
  2. Go to the Start Menu or your Desktop to pick Computer or Your Computer
  3. Select (open) the C Drive or the drive where you have installed Duxbury DBT 11.1.
  4. If both Program Files and Program Files x86 exist, select (open) the Directory Program Files x86
  5. If only Program Files exists, Select (open) the Directory Program Files
  6. Open the Directory Duxbury
  7. Open the Directory DBT 11.1
  8. You should see the four altmath files
  9. Highlight the one you want to be your permenent selection for technical (mathematical) braille
  10. Right click (or shift-F10) to select options for your highlighted file name.
  11. Select rename. This opens a thin black box around the name and highlights the text up to the period.
  12. For Vista (and possibly Windows 7), you may need to supply credentials to prove you have the right to alter the software. This is appropriate, we are doing something similar to installing software. Depending on your status (administrator or unprivileged user), you may have to prove to the computer that you have the right to be making a change.
  13. Either type the 7 letters altmath; or click to get the cursor just left of the period and back space over 3 or 4 characters.
  14. Whatever method you choose, the file name should now be altmath.sbt
  15. Press Enter to leave the "rename" box.
  16. Close the My Computer Window. You are done.
  17. To test, launch DBT 11.1, import a technical file, and translate into braille. Your non-technical material should be unchanged. Your technical material should be using the new system.
  18. These instructions are designed to be easy to follow. If you are more sophisticated, you may prefer to make use of "copy" instead of "rename". This may make it easier to keep track if you anticipate switching between different technical translators.
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