Tell me more If you
click on these buttons, you will be (hopefully) taken to a more simplified
explanation,"The DBT Help files must be accessible to all users." This may sound simple, but when that includes adaptive technology users with speech synthesizers and/or Braille displays, it becomes a real challenge.
We have tried to make these files as user friendly and accessible as possible, but if we've failed in some areas, please do drop us a line and let us know. We will do our best to try and improve matters. (See the Getting Help section for contact details.)
In the meantime, please spend a few minutes acquainting yourself with some of the conventions used throughout these files, which we hope will help to make reading and understanding a little easier.
Thank you.
To avoid possible confusion with other Duxbury Products, we will refer to the Duxbury Braille Translation program described in this system as, "DBT" (Duxbury Braille Translator). Any references to "Duxbury" refer to the company, Duxbury Systems Inc., as a whole.
You will notice a new button at the top of the help screens called "Emboss". All being well, this will allow you to output the Topic you are focused on to your braille embosser. You may notice some extraneous text which is caused by non-standard HTML codes. If you notice any problems like this, we would be most grateful if you could advise us at the e-mail address at the end of this page.
Unfortunately it is impractical to produce a version of these Help files where the many screen shots used look exactly as they do on your own system. For the purpose of this exercise, we have used DBT Version 10.6 with Windows XP Professional and Office 2003. It is therefore possible that you may notice slight differences in the appearance of these screen shots when compared to your own system. This will not affect the DBT application or how it works.
In many instances throughout DBT, use is made of, "standard Windows" dialogs, which you will find in many applications on your system, such as WordPad and Microsoft Office. Therefore, if you are already familiar with tasks such as opening, closing and saving files, you will find these processes are the same in DBT - albeit there may be some slight differences which we will explain where appropriate.
You will be alerted to this when we refer to "standard Windows" in the Topic being explained.
Throughout these Help files you will come across terms that may be unfamiliar to you, such as "Radio Button", "Combo Box", "List Box", etc.. You will find the Glossary section useful because it includes many official Microsoft definitions.
Important Note:
Differences may also occur as a result of user customization. For example, you may have altered your Open File dialog to show File Details such as size and date, instead of icons.
Sighted users should also refer to the Setting Up Your Screen Topic, which follows this one.
Although many DBT users may be new to Windows, it is unfortunately not our purpose here to explain the use of the Windows Operating System or other non-DBT application software which usually contain their own Help system(s).
(Screen reader users may wish to alter some of their speech and/or braille settings accordingly)
Normal text which you type into DBT, is displayed using the Courier New Font, which is black in color. This sentence is what such text looks like. (This incidentally is the default screen font used in DBT which you can change if you wish in View: Print Font.)
DBT Codes are also displayed using the Courier Font, but are shown in red. Codes are normally surrounded by square brackets. For example, the code, [hds] is used at the start of a centered heading.
You may also see some codes such as [hds] above, which are hyperlinks and appear blue and underlined like - [hds] - these are mainly used in the DBT Codes Quick Reference section where Codes may make reference to other codes elsewhere in the document.
Where braille is displayed, we have used DBT's, own Simbraille Font. This Font displays Braille dots which would appear when embossed, and also displays "shadow dots" which will help less experienced, sighted readers identify which dots are being embossed. For example:
,? is a translat$
l9e ( brl4
(Which says, "This is a translated line of braille.")
Keystrokes will be displayed using an emboldened Arial font. E.g. a b c 1 2 3 F8 Alt Ctrl
Standard abbreviations are used where applicable. E.g. Ctrl for Control.
Where two keys are shown, such as Alt + F3, normally the first key should be held down, whilst tapping the second key.
Links to other topics, web sites or e-mail addresses are conventionally shown in a blue underlined font. (Screen reader users would normally hear something like "Link", or "Link to:" spoken".) for example:
In some places, particularly the Codes Quick Reference Topic, you may
see buttons labelled "Tell me more" -
Tell me more If you
click on these buttons, you will be (hopefully) taken to a more simplified
explanation,
As you progress through DBT's menus, you may notice that some items are "grayed out", and therefore cannot be used. There is logic behind this. For example, unless you have a file open in DBT, the Edit menu is not available. This is a common feature in many Windows applications.
Although the term "braille printer" is commonly used, within these Help files we refer to the word "embosser". When mention is made of the word "printer", it refers to an ink printer. (You will note that the File menu in DBT refers to "Print" and "Emboss" as two separate functions)
Note: Within the Help system, Search follows much the same rules as searching in Internet Explorer. If you type in a single word, it will normally find all topics containing that word. For example if you typed in the word font, it would find many, many Topics containing that word. However, if you typed in braille font, do not be surprised to find many more additional topics, since this would final all occurrences in topics of the word braille OR the word font. To narrow the search down, type the expression inside double quotes, i.e. "braille font". This will then only find Topics where the words, "braille font" appear as you have typed them.
As you become more experienced in using DBT, you will find there is a logic behind what we have done here in preparing these Help files. For example, you will learn that you can use the Braille or Simbraille Font in a Word for Windows document. When you then import the Word file into DBT, the braille text will be preserved exactly as shown in Word. (See Global: Word Importer)
This nag may seem out of place here, but it never hurts to remind everyone that a virus can destroy hours of hard work.
More and more DBT users are receiving files for conversion into Braille from outside sources. This opens up the potential for receiving viruses which are transmitted with the file or media. In addition to having a virus checker, we would strongly recommend you ensure that you keep up to date with the latest virus definition files from your supplier.
If we've not got it right, please tell us. Click here for our contact details.
Thank you again.