This Reference Manual tells you how to insert many special items in your MegaDots file. It does not tell you how to take them out. To remove a special attribute or format, see the entry for delete special item.
The abnormal paragraph break message means that the spell checker has found a paragraph break which might not be appropriate. For example, the spell checker gives this message if the character after the paragraph break is a lower case letter. Usually your choices are: press A to accept the paragraph break as it is or press <Enter> to change the paragraph break to a space.
The abnormal punctuation message means the spell checker has found punctuation it identifies as abnormal. This can include parenthesis or quotation marks which are not paired. A previous punctuation error may trigger this message for correct punctuation later in the same paragraph. Usually your choices are to press A to accept the text or V to visit and edit the text.
One reason for the use of accented letters is doing diacritics (the special pronunciation symbols used in dictionaries or glossaries). If so, see diacritics.
(The rest of this text assumes you are not doing diacritics).
To get lists of accented letters, type Control-Insert A. Each of the different kinds of accented letters (accent acute, accent grave, cedilla, etc.) also has its own shortcut command from the Editor. These shortcuts are displayed when you type Control-Insert A. If the Default Translation Mode is set to O for grade one, and the Braille Standard is set appropriately, then MegaDots can do French, German, Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish. These two prompts are in the Translation Setup screen of the Document Menu. See also foreign text.
It is not unusual for English text to contain some foreign words or phrases with accented letters. In braille, the accented letter appears as the ordinary letter preceded by a dot 4. There are two different contexts for these words or phrases. The braille world makes a distinction between an Anglicized word and a non-Anglicized word. An Anglicized word is one that has be adopted by the English language. In braille, a non-Anglicized word is produced in grade one, and Anglicized word is produced in grade two. MegaDots does not automatically make this distinction for you. As a rule of thumb, if the inkprint uses a special typefont to show a word with accented letters, use grade one for that word (it is considered non-Anglicized). If there is no special typefont, leave it alone (it is Anglicized). See also grade one braille.
When you select this option, the highlighted text remains the same, and the spell checker moves on to find the next suspicious item in your text.
MegaDots works with voice, refreshable braille, or large print access. See Chapter 13 for the basic information. A source of information on specific products is the Interface Guide (from the Editor, press F10 H I, and select the appropriate product).
MegaDots has a series of commands that configure MegaDots for different forms of access technology. From the Editor, press control-Z A for the list. Don't forget to save your preferences if you find a combination you prefer. See also starting MegaDots and save preferences.
An Acknowledgement is part of the preliminary pages in literary format and in British braille. An Acknowledgement is part of the main body pages in textbook format. See Preliminary pages. To start an Acknowledgement as a preliminary page, type Control-Insert B P and pick Acknowledgement from the list. This starts the material on a fresh braille page.
See Adobe Acrobat PDF file.
An acronym is usually produced in grade one braille. For example, the acronym SEATO is produced in braille without using the "ea" contraction. In British braille without caps, an acronym gets a letter sign.
If a word is in the spell checker vocabulary list as "upper case only", MegaDots knows that it is an acronym and handles it correctly. Thus you do not have to do anything with each and every instance of an acronym. See the documentation on the spell checker about adding words to the dictionary. Select UPPER CASE to show that you only want to the spell checker to recognize the word if it is in all upper case.
One reason for the use of accented letters is doing diacritics (the special pronunciation symbols used in dictionaries or glossaries). If so, see diacritics. (The rest of this text assumes you are not doing diacritics).
The accent acute slants up from left to right. Type Alt-/ (Alt-forward slash) followed by the appropriate letter. The forward slash is suggestive of the direction of the slant of the accent acute. See also foreign translation.
MegaDots can import Acrobat PDF files. It does a
better job when operating from a Windows DOS box (Windows 95/98/NT). If it
doesn't work, an alternative is to e-mail the PDF file as an attachment to
pdf2html@sun.trace.wisc.edu. This site returns your file as
HTML in the body of a message. You can then import this file into
MegaDots.
If you find strange characters in your file, use Alt-F9 acrobat <Enter> to clean up the high bit characters.
The advanced features are a screen in the preferences menu. These contain the auto save, the auto backup, expert user, and transcriber view.
See diphthong.
The alphabetize clipboard option from the Tools Menu alphabetizes the clipboard on a paragraph by paragraph basis. To alphabetize a list, type in the list with a carriage return after each entry. Block the entire list. Press <F10 T A> to alphabetize the list. Press <Control-E> to get back to the Editor.
See Open Book.
Angled bold is what the rest of the world calls bold italics. MegaDots likes to use a unique letter for each option. To set some text as angled bold, mark a block, and then type Control-F A. The Translation Setup Screen in the Document Menu controls how angled bold is represented in braille. If you have a braille document, and you want to change how angled bold material is shown in braille, first translate back to inkprint, then change the Translation Setup Screen, then translate back into braille.
When editing a document, you may wish to search for
material that has been set in Angle bold emphasis. You can do this with
Complex find; include [emph]=~a in the Complex find text. For
example, to search for a hyphen in Bold emphasis, use
[emph]=~a~- in the Find text. You can also use this in a
rules file.
See accented letter.
An apostrophe and a single quote are different characters in braille. In inkprint the same ASCII character is used for both of these symbols. Usually, the distinction is very clear from context. However, MegaDots allows you to force the distinction. To type a character in the Editor which is always an apostrophe, just press Control-A. To enter a character in the Editor which is always a single quote, just press Control-Q. In dialect, you want to use the apostrophe, not the single quote. Use Control-A in data entry instead of the ambiguous single quote character to make correct braille. This looks like an upside down green triangle if you go into show all markup mode (Control-Z M A). See Supplement 5 for more information. See also dialect.
The Append copy command adds text to the clipboard. You can then place the new contents of the clipboard somewhere else in any MegaDots document with the Paste command. To add text to the current contents of the clipboard, mark it as a block (see mark a block) and press Alt-C. Instead of marking a block, you can press Alt-C and choose the text to be the character, word, line, paragraph, page, or document containing your cursor. The Append copy command is like the Control-C Copy command, except that it does not clear out the previous contents of the clipboard before it copies in the new text. Use Append copy if you want to combine text from several places and place the combined text somewhere else in a MegaDots document. See also clipboard and append kut.
The Append kut command adds text to the clipboard and deletes it from your document at the same time. You can then place the new contents of the clipboard somewhere else in any MegaDots document with the Paste command. To use the Append kut command, mark the desired text as a block (see marked block) and press Alt-K. Instead of marking a block, you can press Alt-K and choose the text to be the character, word, line, paragraph, page, or document containing your cursor. The Append kut command is like the ordinary Kut command, except that it does not clear out the previous contents of the clipboard before it copies in the new text. Append kut is very useful for reorganizing your text. See also clipboard and append copy.
See Append copy and append kut.
We use the term Arabic numbers to refer to numbers written with standard digits, as opposed to Roman numerals. Most page numbering in braille is done with Arabic numbers. In MegaDots, different "style sheets" apply different format guidelines for different kinds of documents. The two main style sheets are called TEXTBK (for textbooks) and LITERARY (for literary books). Among other things, the style sheet determines the layout of different kinds of pages. In the style sheet editor, one of the General Questions for a style sheet is Arabic preliminary pages?
An article terminator is a series of 12 centered hyphens used to separate articles in a braille magazine. Call up an article separator by typing Control-Insert L A. See also magazine format.
There are five choices of how to view a braille document on the screen. One of these is ASCII braille on the screen. To switch modes, go to the Editor Preferences Screen of the Preferences Menu. Or you can type Control-Z D A from the Editor. This command does not change your data at all, it only changes the manner in which you view a braille document. The effect of this command is not apparent if your current document is inkprint. You can save the current view mode as the default by Save Preferences.
An ASCII file is a generic file without specialized formatting information. All formatting is done with spaces, carriage returns, and form feeds. MegaDots can read and write ASCII textfiles. See Chapter 7 for more information. MegaDots handles two kinds of ASCII files: ASCII document and ASCII line. Chapter 7 details many options you have to affect the importing of ASCII files.
See full keyboard.
An attribution states that someone wrote the previous material in the text. For example, an attribution may give the author's name of a poem in the text. Type Alt-N A <Enter> to specify the Attribution style.
Your Audio cues preference controls the degree of cuing with either tones or messages which appear on the bottom screen line for voicing and viewing. Choices are S for Sounds (tones), M for Messages (which remain on the bottom screen line until the next command), C for Combo (tones and messages which do not stay on the screen), and N for None. If you use voice output, you can choose S, C, or M; choose M if your co-workers are annoyed by beeps and boops. If you use refreshable braille, choose M. If you are sighted, choose M or N.
When you first load MegaDots, the default settings are set as described above. To set the Audio Cues preference, press F10 P E F9 A <Enter> F2, select your choice with <Enter>, and press F10.
AUSSIE is short for Australian. It does Australian braille. It is similar to BRITUP, but contains some customizations used in Australia. It also does North American CBC. See British braille and BRITUP for more information. Use the style sheet selection option from the Document Menu to select a style sheet for the current document. Use the New Document Preferences to specify the style sheet for future documents.
Australian braille is similar to standard British braille; except that the capital sign is used an North American CBC is used instead of British computer braille. Use the AUSSIE style sheet for Australian braille. See also Chapter 17.
MegaDots 2.3 can be localized in three different ways: North American, Australian and British. The Australian localization uses the AUSSIE style sheet as the default. All MegaDots documentation files are automatically converted into Australian format. See also North American localization of MegaDots.
If this feature is on, ever time you save a MegaDots
file, the previous copy is saved under the name *.BAK first.
This gives a degree of protection against damaging a file by saving
inappropriate "corrections". To reconstruct your data, you will have to
compare the meg file with the bak file. To turn on this feature, go to the
Advanced Features Screen in the Preferences Menu.
In the Editor Preferences Screen, one of the prompts is auto correct braille. The choices are B for Braille, I for Inkprint, and N for None. In Braille mode, any changes to words in a braille document are corrected by MegaDots on a character by character basis for errors in braille. For example, if you type "phone," MegaDots corrects you by using the "one" contraction. In Braille mode, it is assumed that your data entry is in braille.
In Inkprint mode, it is assumed that your entry is in inkprint. Use this as a way of directly typing inkprint into a braille file.
If you choose None (the supplied default), then MegaDots makes no effort to correct your data entry.
Microsoft Word uses autonumbered paragraphs. When these are imported into MegaDots, you often get the digit 1 at the start of each paragraph. While there are a number of free solutions, such as saving the Word file to RTF, or pasting the material on a "text only" basis, these have their limitations. The best solution is a program called list fixer, which costs $29.95. See the web site http://www.editorium.com/ listfixer.htm.
You can have MegaDots save your current work every so often (you specify how many minutes between saves). Your document is auto saved only if it has changed within the designated time interval. The file is saved with the SAV file extension. To turn on this feature, go to the Advanced Features Screen in the Preferences Menu.
AUTOEXEC.BAT fileThe AUTOEXEC.BAT file is a batch file
which is automatically run when you turn on your computer. The function of
the AUTOEXEC.BAT file is to load programs which are needed
each time you use your computer. It also sets up the standard path. See
path. The AUTOEXEC.BAT file on different
computers varies with the software and users on each computer. Because of
this variation, we cannot offer any rigid advice as to the contents of an
AUTOEXEC.BAT file.
If everything is working properly, the average
computer user does not need to know about, look at, or change their
AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If you need to change your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file for something related to MegaDots, run the
MegaDots install program a second time. You get a menu of choices, some of
which relate to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file (setting the path and
making use of the braille keyboard).
If you want to make changes to the
AUTOEXEC.BAT file yourself, feel free. Make sure you make a
backup (and have a bootable DOS floppy) in case your changes foul up the
normal use of your computer. You can use the DOS EDIT program to modify
your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Just type EDIT \AUTOEXEC.BAT
<Enter>. See also EDIT.
If you are running Windows ME, only some changes in
the AUTOEXEC.BAT file are accepted by the operating system.
Lines in AUTOEXEC.BAT which load drivers, such as the Perkins
braille keyboard driver (BKEYSDRV) are ignored and the lines are
eliminated in Windows ME.
When a file is imported or loaded into MegaDots, MegaDots examines the file carefully to figure out what kind of file it is. MegaDots automatically uses the appropriate conversion software, so you do not need to specify what kind of file you are loading.
MegaDots can decide for itself when you import a file whether to use LITERARY or TEXTBK style sheet. Press F10 P F <Enter>. One of the last prompts is "auto style sheet selection". Set this to "Auto". This feature only makes sense for North American users.
Baby Nemeth refers to the built in capability of doing simple Nemeth code (math braille) in MegaDots. Baby Nemeth contrasts with the MegaMath Nemeth translator. To use baby Nemeth in MegaDots, select the style sheet BABYNEM. See style sheet selection. For information on how to use this feature, select F10 H N after selecting this style sheet. Historical note: at one time, MegaMath was an option to MegaDots.
See auto backup.
BANA stands for Braille Authority of North America. They determine the braille translation and formatting rules. Publications from BANA are available from the American Printing House in Louisville, KY.
The Banner style is used to make is a pattern of
braille dots on a page that is discernible to a sighted non-braille
reader. Use for a very short paragraph at the top of your document. To
specify the Banner style, type Alt-N B <Enter>. The
braille banner is placed on a separate braille page.
A braille banner is a pattern of braille dots on a page that is discernible to a sighted non-braille reader. A braille banner is useful when your embossing staff cannot read braille. MegaDots has two ways of generating a braille banner. You can use the Banner style or use the MEGABANNER environment variable. See MEGABANNER.
See proofreading bar.
For tables with row headings, use the Basic table style. The distinction is important, because it determines how any runovers are handled in MegaDots.
Table entries are separated by a <Tab>. Each line of the table ends with a carriage return. Blank entries are created by another <Tab>. Use a dash (two hyphens) or an ellipsis if shown in the print table.
MegaDots assumes the top line of a table are column headings and automatically puts in the separation line. Place the cursor on this text line, and use <Shift-Alt-C> to toggle a line from column headings to a regular line (no separation line).
When tables have long lines (many columns) and do not fit in the table, even with some runovers, MegaDots solves the problem by letting you specify a Backup table method. The backup default method is Stairstep. To change this default in your Preferences, go to <F10 P N B, Table backup method> (and save your Preferences when you are done). To change it for the current document only, use <F10 D B, Table backup method>.
For detailed information on tables in MegaDots, see chapter 11 in the Manual. Also see the subdirectory EXAMPLES in your MegaDots directory.
You can set the indent, runover and blank lines above
just as in the Spacing same style. For every five spaces of inkprint
indent or runover, the braille uses two spaces. To specify the Basic
unstyled style, type Alt-U B <Enter>.
Files whose names end in .BAT are
batch files. A batch file is a file containing the
keystrokes that you could type in at the command line. Batch files allow
you to automate many basic computer functions. You can use the DOS EDIT
program to create batch files. See EDIT.
See BAT files.
Begin box is the marker to show the beginning of a box in a book (a box is a side area of text separated from the main stream of text). In braille it is shown by a line of dropped g's. To enter a begin box indicator, position the cursor on top of the beginning of the box and type Control-Insert L B. See also end box and double box.
The Beginner Braille feature lets you select which contractions or short form words you want used in your braille. You can make braille with any combination of contractions from grade one braille to grade two braille. Beginner Braille gives you the tools to teach your students proper braille. To use the Beginner Braille feature, press F10 T B to select Beginner Braille from the Tools Menu. See Chapter 15 for more information on Beginner Braille.
BEX is a word processing and braille
translation program from Raised Dot Computing for the Apple II computer.
You can convert BEX data files into MegaDots. See Supplement 3 for the
details. Once you have transferred the file to the PC, type mega
filename <Enter> to convert the file into MegaDots.
See braille ready file.
In order for bible verse references to be
done correctly in braille, substitute a number sign (#) for
the colon separating the chapter from the verse. For example, type 11#7
instead of 11:3. MegaDots uses the number sign for Literary braille, or
the colon for Textbook braille.
A bibliography is a list of sources for a
document. To create a bibliography, Type Control-Insert B S B
<Enter>. To specify the Bibliography style, type Alt-S B
<Enter>.
A bibliography is a list of sources for a
document. To specify the Bibliography style, type Alt-S B
<Enter>.
See braille dots on the screen.
See hyper text.
BKEYS is a program that makes allows the braille keyboard program to work. See Chapter 19 for more information about BKEYS. BKEYSDRV is the braille keyboard driver in MegaDots. See Perkins keyboard entry for more information.
A common item in inkprint is an entry line. This is a horizontal line on which you print your name or other information. If you are brailling an entry line, type a series of underbars in your inkprint data entry.
In MegaDots, a blank character is a space which cannot be used to divide a line. In your output (print or braille), you just get a space. Press a Control-B to get a blank character. In some word processors, this is called a hard space or a sticky space.
Blank lines are an aspect of output format, which is controlled by the MegaDots style system. For example, if a paragraph of Body Text is adjacent to a paragraph of List, then MegaDots puts a blank line between them. Getting the right pattern of blank lines is usually a matter of selecting the right styles.
As a general rule, avoid creating a blank paragraph (i.e. two carriage returns in a row, so there is no text between them). See Chapter 4 for more information.
See column blocking.
See mark a block.
Body text is the style to use for
standard text paragraphs. In braille, body text paragraphs are indented to
cell 3, and runover to cell 1. To specify the Body Text style, type
Alt-B B <Enter>.
To mark some text as bold, first define a block. Do this by pressing Control-X and then moving the cursor. To force the block bold, type Control-F B. The Translation Setup Screen in the Document Menu controls how bold is represented in braille.
If you have a braille document, and you want to change how bold material is shown in braille, first translate back to inkprint, then change the Translation Setup Screen, then translate back into braille.
When editing a document, you may wish to search for
material that has been set in Bold emphasis. You can do this with Complex
find; include [emph]=~b in the Complex find text. For
example, to search for a hyphen in Bold emphasis, use
[emph]=~b~- in the Find text. You can also use this in a
rules file.
See angled bold.
See dark underline.
The braille rules say that the full title of a book should be used on the title page and on line 1 of the first main body page, even if there is a running head. If a running head is set up, MegaDots does this automatically. Create a proper title page with the full title. Somewhere in the preliminary pages, create your running head, with an abbreviated title. Without your doing anything else, MegaDots uses the full title on the top of the first page but leaves the running head intact. MegaDots uses the style "Book title" to do this.
The BookMaker is an interpoint embosser made by Enabling Technologies. See the Interface Guide or press F10 H I from the Editor for directions on setting it up for use with MegaDots.
Bookmarks are named positions in your file so you can locate previous positions. MegaDots automatically creates a bookmark called "last save". Press Alt-J Ins to create a new bookmark. Press Alt-J and select from the list to move to an existing bookmark. See also Quick Mark.
Bookshare is a nonprofit service which provides accessible text for registered, eligible individuals.
When you download a book from Bookshare, you specify the format that you want, such as a .brf file or a NIMAS/Daisy/NISO file. See braille ready file and NIMAS/Daisy/NISO XML file format. But be aware that after the download you still need to use the Bookshare unpack utility to process the downloaded .bks file into the desired format.
If you have unpacked a .brf file, please note that it contains some inserted text with the user's registration information, including at least one line longer than the usual braille carriage width. This causes problems for braille embossing software, unless you modify the file first in a text editor such as Wordpad. Look for ,,, (three capital signs). Normal text begins again with ,2g9 ,text (Begin Text in ASCII braille).
Once you have eliminated problems caused by this inserted text, you have some choices about how to proceed. you can emboss it with the Embossit program, without using MegaDots at all (see Embossit 2.0). However, if you wish to do some reformatting before embossing, use MegaDots. See braille ready file.
The phrase "boot the computer" means to turn it on, or reset it. To reset the computer, press the "three finger salute" (Control-Alt-Delete). If that does not work, press the reset key on the computer (look near the on-off switch, not on the keyboard). If that does not work, turn your computer off and then on.
Setting a bottom margin decreases the number of lines printed on each page. To set the bottom margin in inkprint, type Control-Z I. To establish a bottom margin in braille, set the form length to the desired number of lines per braille page. To set form length permanently for a braille device, press F10 P B and select that brailler to get to the Set up a brailler screen. In addition, when you press F7 to emboss, you have an opportunity to change form length before pressing F10 to start embossing. See also form length.
A box (or sidebar) is an element of text separated from the main stream of the text. To show the beginning of a box, position the cursor at the beginning of the box and type Control-Insert L B (this puts in a row of dropped g's in braille). To show the end of a box, position the cursor at the end of the box and type Control-Insert L E (this puts in a row of g's in braille). If there are two adjacent boxes, use one double box line (Control-Insert L D) instead of a close box line followed by an open box line.
In MegaDots, a document is either inkprint or braille. To find out what kind of document you have opened, look at the bottom left of your MegaDots screen: I stands for inkprint, B stands for braille. To switch from one to the other, press the F5 key. A braille document can be viewed on the screen in a number of different ways. See also braille dots on the screen and ASCII braille.
The Braille 'n Speak is a small portable device which can be used as an access device. It can also exchange information with MegaDots. Look at the Interface Guide (F10 H I) for the details.
MegaDots can import and export files designed for the Braille 'n Speak/Braille Lite. These files use a double carriage return (and no line feeds) to show a new paragraph. If you export to the Braille 'n Speak with MegaDots markup, you get an easy to read markup that can be read on the Braille Lite.
A braille access program hides in memory to assist a blind person to use the computer. The blind access software drives a refreshable braille display to read the text that is presented on the computer screen. See braille preferences and Chapter 13 for detailed information.
The Braille Blazer is an embosser made by Blazie Engineering. See the Interface Guide or press F10 H I from the Editor for directions on setting it up for use with MegaDots.
See contraction.
By braille correspondence we mean a letter to be sent in the mail. If you set your carriage width to 30 and put in 2 fold lines in your output, you can easily fold your letter and place it in a number 10 envelope (you may have to trim the edges though). See also fold line and letter.
MegaDots classifies devices as either braille or inkprint. Use the Braille Device Screen in the Preferences Menu to describe your equipment. See Chapter 5 for more information about specifying equipment preferences. See the Interface Guide or press F10 H I from the Editor for information about interfacing your braille device with your computer.
Press F10 D B to get to the Braille Document Setup Screen. The Braille Document Setup Screen in the Document Menu allows you to specify certain details about the entire braille document:
If you need help with any of these questions, press F1 for help when you get into the menu.
MegaDots offers ten different ways to print out braille dot patterns on your inkprint printer. See Chapter 10 for the details.
MegaDots lets you choose among five different methods of viewing braille documents on the screen. Two of these methods, called Big Dots and Dots, show braille dots on the screen. The larger Big dots are easier for most sighted people to look at, and they allow for a choice of Braille shadow dots (showing the unused dots, see Braille shadow dots). Both Big dots and Dots require that your computer use EGA or VGA graphics.
There are two ways to change the Braille viewing method. One is to choose the Braille view mode preference in the Editor Preferences Menu. The other, using the Zippy Menu, is to press Control-Z D from the Editor and then B for Big dots or D for Dots, taking you back to the Editor.
Your document must be in braille, showing B in the lower left corner, for you to see the braille viewing method; if your document is in inkprint, translate to braille to see the effects. After you have found what you want, save your preferences by pressing F10 P S <Enter>. See also braille view mode.
A braille embosser is a device to punch braille onto paper. To select your braille embosser in MegaDots, use the Braille Devices Screen in the Preferences Menu. See Chapter 5 for more information about specifying equipment preferences. See the Interface Guide or press F10 H I from the Editor for information about interfacing your braille device to your computer.
The Braille Express is an interpoint embosser made by Enabling Technologies. See the Interface Guide or press F10 H I from the Editor for directions on setting it up for use with MegaDots.
There are very specific rules for how braille should be presented on the page. The MegaDots program uses a paragraph's style as a guide for laying out braille format. It is very important that each paragraph in a MegaDots document be marked with the appropriate style. See Chapter 4 for more information.
See braille ready file.
See contraction.
See Perkins keyboard entry.
See Braille ‘n Speak.
When you mark one or more characters as braille only, they appear only when the document is in braille, and not when it is in inkprint. One use of this feature is to adjust the translation by marking an inkprint word as inkprint only and following it with the desired translation marked as Exact translation and braille only. To mark something as braille only, mark it as a block and then press Control-T B. See also inkprint only and exact translation.
Please note: if you have Transcriber View mode on, then "braille only" text is visible in the inkprint and in printouts. If you have Transcriber View mode off, then "braille only" text is invisible in inkprint. See also Transcriber View.
You get to the Braille Page Menu by
pressing Control-Insert B. From this menu you can start a fresh page,
start a fresh right hand page for interpoint, change the braille page
numbering, or specify the start of a new category of braille page. For
example, you can specify the beginning of the table of contents, etc. See
Chapter 10 for more information. See also the file prelim.meg
in your MegaDots directory for examples of different kinds of preliminary
pages.
Usually, each braille page being embossed has a sequential braille page number. In MegaDots, the choice of style sheets determines how the braille page number is done. Literary format puts the braille page number in the upper right corner, Textbook and British format puts it in the lower right corner, using the upper right corner for the inkprint page indicator. To switch style sheets, Press S in the Document Menu. If you want to alter a style sheet and modify how the braille page number (BPN) is done, see Supplement 4.
The sequential braille page number should not be confused with the inkprint page indicators used in Textbook and British formats see inkprint page indicator).
To suppress braille page numbering in an entire document, choose the NONUMS style sheet. To suppress braille page numbering in only part of your document, do not use the NONUMS style sheet. At the point where you want braille page numbering to stop, press Control-Insert B N 0 <Enter> to set the braille page number to 0 (which suppresses it). At the point where you want to resume braille page numbering, give the same command but with the new starting braille page number instead of 0.
To change the braille page numbers at a certain point, type Control-Insert B N followed by the new page number and <Enter>. This sets the next braille page number to the number you specified. To reset the braille page numbering, type 1 as the new number. See also the next entry, braille page number prefix.
A braille page number can have a single letter prefix indicating the part of the book. For example, all preliminary pages in Textbook format have the prefix p. That happens automatically when you tell MegaDots that you are using TEXTBK style sheet and have preliminary pages. Any other prefix requires work on your part.
Lets say you want a glossary in textbook format to have the prefix letter of ‘g'. Press F10 T S to get into the style sheet editor. Select "Textbook" style sheet, "page layouts", and "glossary". The third prompt is "BPN prefix". Enter a single lowercase 'g'. Press F10 4 times and let MegaDots save the change. Press Control-E to get back into your document. Press Control-Ins B P G to indicate that you are starting a glossary. MegaDots puts in the 'g’ before the braille page numbers. Don't forget to give another braille page command at the end of the glossary to stop using the prefix. When you are finished, you may want to restore the style sheet so that you do not get the prefix letter on another document.
Most braille pages are 25 lines, with each line made up of up to 40 characters across. To change the default size of the braille page, Go into the Preferences Menu, and then select braille devices. To add a new device, type Insert, then F2 to get a list. After you make your selection, you have an opportunity to change the default size of the braille page.
The non-profit corporation that once produced
MegaDots. MegaDots is now produced, supported, and distributed by Duxbury
Systems. Braille Planet in turn, took over from Raised Dot Computing. So
MegaDots has been passed from Raised Dot Computing to Braille Planet
(1998) to Duxbury (1999). The best source for current information on
MegaDots is //www.duxburysystems.com.
Launch MegaDots with mega /ar /f
<Enter> to force MegaDots into braille preferences. From
within MegaDots, type Control-Z A R for braille preferences. For more
information about voice access, see Chapter 13.
The topic of Braille ready files is complex. This article covers what braille ready files are, how to create them in MegaDots, and two different ways to import them into MegaDots (for 2 very different applications).
What are braille ready files?
A braille ready file contains the exact characters which need to be sent to your embosser to make hardcopy braille. When you send a braille ready file to your embosser, you get well-formatted braille. The simplicity of braille ready files (just printable characters, spaces, carriage returns, and form feeds) make them attractive. The simplicity is also their limitation. A braille ready file has a fixed carriage width and form length. In contrast, a MegaDots file can be expressed in a huge variety of layouts, translation modes, and other options to meet specialized needs. A braille ready file is not a substitute for a MegaDots file. Never save your work as a braille ready file and then delete the associated MegaDots file.
For Duxbury DBT and for MegaDots, the preferred file
extension is .BRF (prior editions of MegaDots used the
.BFM file extension).
To generate a braille ready file from MegaDots, switch to braille with F5, if necessary. Now press F7. Make sure you have selected "generic" or "generic interpoint" as your embosser. Press PageDown to get to the "Name of Port/file" prompt. Just type in a drive letter followed by colon. Now press F10 to initiate the creation of the file.
This creates a file with the current name, with a file
extension of .BRF. If the drive letter is the same as the one
for the MegaDots file, then the .BRF file is placed in the
same folder as the MegaDots file. You are also free to type in a specific
path and filename of your choice at the Name of port/file prompt.
To examine braille ready files, use the VIEW utility
included with MegaDots. To use this program, type VIEW [filename]
<Enter> from the DOS command line. See Chapter 19 for more
information about VIEW.
There are two ways of importing braille ready files into MegaDots: with or without interpretation. Importing a file with interpretation means that MegaDots attempts to build a natural MegaDots file, which can then be processed further, back translated, edited, re-translated, and expressed in a variety of translation and format modes.
Importing a file without interpretation means that MegaDots creates a non-interpreted file, one that rigidly contains the layout of the source file. There is no opportunity to make more than microscopic changes to these files. The usual reason to import a file as a non-interpreted file is to drive an embosser with these exact characters.
To import a braille ready file with interpretation just import it. You will probably have to do a lot of editing to make the file meet your standards for a MegaDots file.
To import a braille ready file without interpretation,
set "Style selection" to "Spacing same" and "Source" to "Retain blank
lines." To do this, get to the "Open file" prompt, type the filename
followed by -? -spa <Enter>, and choose "Retain blank
lines" from the list.
Or you can set Source and style selection in the Interpret format screen. After opening the file, don't forget to switch the style sheet to NONUMS to keep MegaDots from adding page numbering (since the textt of the file already contains the page numbers).
When you have done this, you can emboss the file, but you cannot edit it without messing up the format. Any editing throws off all page numbers after that point.
Press Control-Z B to get to the Braille Section Layout Screen (also available in the Document Menu). It controls aspects of the braille pages (margins, linespacing, footnote status, or tab stops) which you may want to change in the course of a document.
The Braille shadow dots choice in the Editor Preferences Menu determines how unused dots appear on the screen when the braille view mode is Big Dots. The choices are N for None, L for Light (look close to see them), and H for Heavy.
The Braille Standard choice in the Document Menu's Translation Setup screen determines the kind of braille for the entire document. The choices are N for North American (and New Zealand), B for British, F for French, G for German, I for Italian, P for Portuguese, S for Spanish, and O for Other European. For the non-English language braille codes MegaDots does not do grade two braille. You must also set the Default translation mode to grade One in the Document Menu's Translation setup screen for the foreign language choices.
When you get MegaDots, the default Braille standard is North American. To change this default for all new documents, change it in the New Document Preferences' Translation screen. For example you can save your preferences in a special environment file for doing a special project. Do not select the Math setting, even if you are doing a Nemeth book. See Nemeth for more information about Nemeth Code.
Some style sheets force the choice for braille standard. For example, the NEMETH style sheet forces the Math translation mode, and the AUSSIE, BRITISH and BRITUP style sheets force the British translation mode. If you just change the value in the Braille Standard prompt, you only change the translation mode. If you choose the appropriate style sheet, you also change the format. See Chapter 17 of the User Manual for more information about British braille.
See transcriber and transcription.
Braille translation is the act of turning an inkprint document into a braille document. Or of turning a braille document into an inkprint document. In MegaDots, this is accomplished by pressing the F5 key from the Editor. Remember that F5 is a toggle, if you press it once to change an inkprint document into braille, you can press it again to turn the document back into inkprint.
The size of a braille volume depends on your own circumstances (weight of paper, use of interpoint, binding technique, and the age of the person reading the braille you are producing). A braille volume may range up to 100 pages of braille.
While MegaDots can deal with documents larger than one braille volume, we recommend limiting MegaDots files to a single braille volume. If you do have documents larger than one braille volume, MegaDots uses the transition from Main Body or Supplemental text pages to Preliminary pages to determine that a new braille volume has started again.
See braille embosser.
Many embossers can eliminate the extra space between braille cells to make an array of evenly spaced dots available for brailler graphics of diagrams, maps, etc. Programs like ET Graphics (see ET Graphics) and TGD Pro can produce brailler graphics on these embossers. After you have created brailler graphics material, you can import it into a MegaDots file, to integrate it in with the text.
To import a graphics file into MegaDots, use the
INS-GR macro. Type Shift-F10 INS-GR <Enter>. At the
prompt, give the name of the graphics file. The material is set to
graphics style, and the right margin is set appropriately.
Braillo is a brand of braille embossers made in Norway and sold in the United States by American Thermoform Corporation. Some are single-sided, and some are interpoint. See the Interface Guide or press F10 H I from the Editor for information on using them with MegaDots.
See diacritics.
See braille ready file.
The BRITISH style sheet produces British braille. See British braille and Chapter 17. Use the style sheet selection option from the Document Menu to select a style sheet for the current document. Use the New Document Preferences to specify the style sheet for future documents.
MegaDots supports British standards for braille translation and format. British braille customarily does not use the capitalization sign. Some words (such as "edition") are translated differently than in North America. There are also differences involving some punctuation and numbers. British braille has significant format differences from North American braille.
To effect these changes, select the BRITISH style sheet from the Style Sheet Selection Screen in the Document Menu. This changes the translation and format to British standards, changes the vocabulary list in the spell checker, and changes the Computer Braille Code.
The style sheet AUSSIE does Australian braille. Another style sheet BRITUP does British braille with capitalization (but with British Computer Code).
For more information about British braille, see Chapter 17 of the User Manual. See also British localization of MegaDots.
To enter a British pound sign in your document, press Alt-dollar sign and select British pound sign. You cannot use simple replace to search for this symbol. Use complex replace (Control-F9), search for and Alt-dollar sign L inside of quotes.
MegaDots 2.3 can be localized in three different ways: North American, Australian and British. The British localization uses the BRITUP style sheet as the default. All MegaDots documentation files are automatically converted into British format. It also contains a conversion (from ITS software) only found in Britain. See also North American localization of MegaDots.
The BRITUP style sheet produces British braille with capitalization (and with British Computer Code). See British braille and Chapter 17. Use the style sheet selection option from the Document Menu to select a style sheet for the current document. Use the New Document Preferences to specify the style sheet for future documents.
bugfixes.megThe file bugfixes.meg, which is installed
in your MegaDots directory, describes What is New with Version 2.3. Use
the menu of documentation from Start Menu, Programs, Duxbury, MegaDots
Documention. See also documentation.
This is a high-powered front end MS-DOS program for
GLOBAL.EXE to allow large scale text manipulation. Type
buildbat ? <Enter> for documentation.
To represent a bullet, type in Alt-plus sign B. A bullet becomes two hyphens and a space in braille. Usually bulleted items are in a list, so use the List style. You cannot use simple replace to search for this symbol. Use complex replace (Control-F9), search for and Alt-plus sign B inside of quotes.
Bus schedules often have very wide tables. Wide tables are tricky in braille, none of the standard ways are very satisfactory. We have invented a few new methods to make bus schedules more readable in braille. We recommend using the Labeled table style. Follow the instructions for entering data into tables. Mark the table paragraphs in the Labeled style.
Braille shows uppercase letters with the capitalization indicator, dot 6 (which appears as the comma character in the ASCII braille viewing mode). Braille shows the capitalization of one letter with a single dot 6 before the letter, and it shows the capitalization of a whole word (or several letters) with two dot 6 indicators before the first letter. If the capitalization of multiple letters ends in the middle of a word, the termination indicator, dot 6 followed by dot 3 (comma followed by apostrophe) marks the return to small letters.
The MegaDots translator makes appropriate use of the capitalization indicator. However, you may want to have manual control of the use of the capitalization indicator. To require a capitalization indicator, press Control-R D. To suppress a capitalization indicator, press Control-S D.
The British rarely use the capital sign. See British braille.
Outside of North America and the U.K., dots 4-6 is used as a capital sign. See foreign text for more information.
Sometimes you need to change the capitalization in an inkprint file. There are several supplied rules files that manipulate capitalization. See rules files.
Another issue with capitalization is dealing with excessive capital marks in Computer braille code. See Reverse CBC.
A caption is the text under a picture or
other graphic element. To select the Caption style, type Alt-N C
<Enter>.
In MegaDots, carriage width is measured in inches for inkprint, and in characters for braille. There are several places in MegaDots which allow you to set the carriage width. When you specify your default output device (in the Preferences Menu), you can specify the carriage width.
If you want to change the carriage width of a specific document, you have an opportunity to do so when you give the F7 Print command. If you want to change the effective carriage width inside of a document, you can do it by changing the right margin with an inkprint section layout or braille section layout form in the Document Menu.
Use this style for the text in a cartoon. To select
the Cartoon style, type Alt-N Car <Enter>.
In a case sensitive search, the text you find must match the text you specified, including the capitalization of any letters. In a case insensitive search, the capitalization of letters is not relevant. It is okay to find the same text but with different capitalization of the letters.
For a case insensitive search in MegaDots, you can use Simple find (F9 from the Editor) and simply type a find string with no uppercase letters. You can also use Complex find and enclose the text inside single quotes (apostrophes). For a case sensitive search, you can use Simple find if you include one or more capital letters in your find string. For a case sensitive search for text that is all lowercase, you must use Complex find and enclose the text inside double quotes (quotation marks).
When you mark one or more words as CBC, it uses the Computer Braille Code translator. Use this translation mode for file names or bits of computer notation mixed with ordinary literary text. To mark something as CBC, mark it as a block and then press Control-T C. See also CBC.
Computer Braille Code is the official braille code for material in computer notation. It was adopted by BANA (the Braille Authority of North America) in 1987. MegaDots automatically puts file names and Internet addresses in CBC. See also computer notation, computer program, and reverse CBC. For information about the British Computer Braille Code, see Chapter 17.
To change from on directory to another, use the DOS CD
command. CD stands for Change Directory. From MegaDots you can use the DOS
shell (Alt-F10) to quickly get to the DOS command line. At that point, you
can issue the DOS CD command and other DOS commands. To change to the WORK
directory, type CD \WORK <Enter>. When you are ready to
go back into MegaDots, just type EXIT <Enter>. See also Supplement
1.
The CD-ROM disk is usually designated by the drive
letter D (or another letter higher than D). For example, there may be a
file called D:\README.1ST on the new CD-ROM you just
purchased. See also directory, floppy disk, hard drive and drive
letter.
One reason for the use of accented letters is doing diacritics (the special pronunciation symbols used in dictionaries or glossaries). If so, see diacritics. (The rest of this text assumes you are not doing diacritics).
The cedilla is an accent mark that looks like a comma, usually placed under the letter c. Type Alt-, (Alt-Comma) followed by the appropriate letter. The comma is suggestive of the shape of the cedilla. See also foreign text.
To enter a cent sign in your document, press Alt-dollar sign and select Cent sign. You cannot use simple replace to search for this symbol. Use complex replace (Control-F9), search for and Alt-dollar sign C inside of quotes.
Center unstyled centers your paragraph without any blank lines before or after it. Never use this style for a heading. You may find it useful in a glossary.
If you want to center text, and do not want to declare
the item to be a major heading, type Alt-S C <Enter>.
To center text, use the appropriate style command. Usually, you want to set the paragraph to heading level 1 or 2. Press Alt-H 1 <Enter> or Alt-H 2 <Enter>. In a title page, use the Centered text style instead of a heading style. See Centered text.
See CD.
See headings.
To choose character attributes, mark a block of text and then press Control-F for a list. For example, to put a word in italics, put a word in a block and type Control-F I. To see the current character attributes on the bottom line of the screen, type Control-W C.
See carriage width.
CHARS.MDRThis rules file is supplied with MegaDots to count the
characters in your document or marked block. To invoke it, just type
Alt-F9 CHARS <Enter>. Your document is unchanged. The character
count is on the bottom line. See also WORDS.MDR and
rules file.
MegaDots supports some chemistry symbols (various bonds) as part of MegaMath (Nemeth translator).
Chording means using the 6 keys SDF-JKL as a Perkins-style braille keyboard. See Perkins keyboard entry.
To choose a circle accent, press Alt-Period. See also foreign text.
One reason for the use of accented letters is doing diacritics (the special pronunciation symbols used in dictionaries or glossaries). If so, see diacritics. (The rest of this text assumes you are not doing diacritics).
A circumflex looks like a upside down v (otherwise known as a caret) on top of a character. Press Alt-Caret to get a list. The caret character is the shift of the 6 key. See also foreign text.
The clipboard is a storage area that allows you to move text from one area of your document to another area or to another document. First mark a block, and then press Control-C to copy. Next move the cursor to a new location. Then press Control-P to paste the clipboard to a new location. To combine deleting the text from its current location with copying it into the clipboard in one command, use Control-K instead of copying into the clipboard and then deleting as two separate operations. Control-C and Control-K replace whatever was in the clipboard before with the marked text.
To view the contents of your clipboard, open a new file (press F2, give a name followed by <Enter>) and then issue the Control-P paste clipboard command. You can go back to the document you were working on by pressing Control-F8.
If you need to take an entire file and insert it into another document (in essence merge files), use the insert doc feature (Control-F3) from the Editor.
Press F6 to close your current document. Close means to purge a document from memory. You get a warning screen if you have not saved the most recent edition of the document before attempting to close the document. The purpose of closing a document is to free up memory space so you can open other documents for your current session with MegaDots or just getting it out of your way.
Sometimes textfiles are created with other code pages. Such a textfile has the correct letters, numbers, and punctuation, but accented letters are all crazy characters. Import the file into Notepad, and export to UTF-8 (this works on my Windows 2000 system). MegaDots can import UTF-8 textfiles. See UTF-8.
See markup.
Sometimes you need to mark the color of some text. Do this only if you have to. An example would be in the event the inkprint made reference to words printed in a particular color. Your first choice is to use another form of emphasis which is described in a transcriber's note. But if a number of colors are referred to, you need to use a color indicator.
To mark some words as being printed in color, first mark a block, then type Control-F C followed by your color selection. You can choose your color by pressing F2, and letting MegaDots present you with a list.
Use the Control-Z C color palette to change the colors used on the screen.
To block an entire column, press <Control-Alt-X> and move the cursor to highlight the entire column contents. This is useful in manipulating tables. You can do such things as cut and paste entire columns (works great when there are too many columns to fit and you need to split the table), swap columns, or mark one column in emphasis or translation.
If you are pasting the column(s) to another location, you MUST make sure you create the space for it by pressing <Enter> for each line of text to be inserted (this is not like regular pasting where MegaDots creates the necessary space).
See also Mark a block.
MegaDots assumes the top line of a table contains column headings and inserts the separation line after this line. To toggle this line from column headings to a table line (no separation line), press <Shift-Alt-C>.
The Column material style has been withdrawn from MegaDots. It is replaced by Related cols and Unrelated cols. Use Related cols for tabular material in which there are no row headings, but there is a relationship between material on a single row. Use Unrelated cols for columnar material that is not a table and for which there is no reason to read the material across as a row. One example is a vocabulary list. See also Basic table, Related cols and Unrelated cols.
See column material.
See serial port.
A combination tab is used when a column heading ("parent column") has subheadings ("child columns"). After the "parent column," use one <Control-Tab> for each additional column under the "parent". For example, a heading with three subheadings would be entered as: Parent heading <Control-Tab><Control-Tab><Enter>. On the next line, <Tab> between the subheadings. MegaDots places the appropriate separation lines under each of these parent and child headings.
The Combined contents is the table of contents in British braille for a single volume work. It shows the print page number and the braille page number of each item in the table of contents. The guide dots for combined contents is dots 3-6. MegaDots can create the Combined contents automatically using the table of contents generator. You can also create a Combined contents manually by typing Control-Ins B P C (as long as you are using British braille). See also British braille, table of contents generator, and Chapter 17 of the User Manual.
The command line is the DOS prompt. There are a variety of MegaDots commands you can use at the command line. See Chapter 19 for more information.
You can get into the command line by clicking on the Comamnd Line for MegaDots item in the Programs, Duxbury Group. If you do this, you will notice that the DOS window is full sized. This is appropriate for sighted persons. Blind persons using a speech program such as JAWS or Window-Eyes need to use the "window" sized screen. If the smaller screen is needed, right click on the icon, select properties, screen, and then click on the Window button (instead of full size).
Another way to get to the command line from MegaDots is to type Alt-F10. Some applications do not work in this DOS window. To pop back into MegaDots, just type EXIT <Enter> at the DOS command line.
The Command Summary is a basic list of MegaDots commands. It is provided in print and in braille with every copy sold. To get access to the Command Summary within MegaDots, press F10 H C. Use the menu of documentation from Start Menu, Programs, Duxbury, MegaDots Documention. See also documentation.
The prompt compact tables is located in the Braille Document Setup Screen of the Document Menu. This question affects offset and labeled tables (two table layouts invented by the MegaDots developers). In uncompacted tables, columns line up. Answer no, and there may be gaps in the second braille line for each inkprint line. Answer yes, to close these gaps (a compacted table uses less braille space but may be harder to read).
Complex find gives you more options than simple find. You can search for certain character patterns (3 numbers followed by 2 letters), use logical statements, and search for a variety of character patterns. Press Control-F9 from the Editor for complex find/replace. See Chapter 12 for more information.
See diacritics.
Use the computer style when an entire paragraph is in computer notation. Transcribers describe this as set off CBC. Type Alt-T COM <Enter> to specify the computer style.
See computer notation and CBC.
Computer notation refers to file names,
exact strings of characters which are part of computer dialogue, and in
general the odd strings of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks, found
in computer books, which are not straight text. For example the sequence
COPY A:*.* <Enter> is computer notation. MegaDots
automatically puts file names and Internet addresses in CBC.
The proper code for computer notation in braille is Computer Braille Code. MegaDots supports both North American and British computer braille codes.
When computer notation is embedded in a paragraph which also contains regular text, mark it as a block and press Control-T C (for CBC translation). If an entire paragraph is in computer notation, put it in the computer style by pressing Alt-T COM <Enter>. If you are doing data entry with the document in braille, you can write in CBC and mark it as CBC as just indicated, using the translation markup inside a text paragraph or the Computer style for an entire paragraph. If an entire document is in computer notation, see computer program below.
In the braille copy of the MegaDots documentation, the computer notation appears in CBC. For a short guide to reading CBC, see the beginning of the braille edition of the MegaDots Command Summary. Or press F10 H C from the Editor.
To make a braille copy of a file containing a computer
program, add <space> -com after the file name when you
bring it into MegaDots. In addition to using the Computer style for the
entire document, importing it with the -com option preserves
blank lines and turns tab characters at the start of a line into the line
indent used in CBC.
CONFIG.SYS fileOn older DOS systems, the CONFIG.SYS file
is a system file which sets up your computer's memory. It is run
right before the AUTOEXEC.BAT file.
see table of contents.
This style is used for a table of contents. See table of contents for full information. To apply the Contents style, type Alt-S CO <Enter>. To specify guide dots, type Control-Insert G. To create a table of contents automatically, use the Create Contents option from the Tools Menu.
Context sensitive help is the term used for supplying the help screen which is appropriate to where you are in the program. In MegaDots, what you get when you press F1 depends on your current screen or menu or your current item in a menu. If you want help on a particular subject, press F12 to get the Reference Manual. No matter how you get to a particular help screen, pressing F7 prints it out on your choice of inkprint or braille printer, and Control-C copies the text into the clipboard.
A braille contraction is a grade two abbreviation. To get a list of contractions, press F10 H B to pull down the Braille Intro screen from the Help Menu. This screen uses a different font depending on the braille view mode is. See braille view mode.
In a braille file, the lower right corner of the screen tells you what the character under the cursor means.
To translate an inkprint file into braille, press F5. See grade two braille.
MegaDots lets you force or suppress contractions. See require contraction or suppress contraction. You can select which contractions to use with the Beginner Braille feature. See Beginner Braille.
See import file and export file.
To copy some text into the clipboard, first highlight a block (use the mouse or Control-X), then press Control-C to copy the highlighted block into the clipboard. If you have not already marked a block, pressing Control-C brings up a menu of choices (word, sentence, paragraph, page, document) to help you specify what you want to copy: Character, Word, Line, Sentence, paraGraph, Page or Document. See also Cut to clipboard and Append copy.
To copy a file from one place to another (such as from
one directory to another or to or from a floppy disk), use the DOS COPY
command. From MegaDots you can use the DOS shell (Alt-F10) to quickly get
to the DOS command line. At that point, you can issue the DOS COPY command
and other DOS commands. To copy a file to a floppy disk, type COPY
filename A: <Enter>. To copy a file to the directory junk,
type COPY filename \JUNK <Enter>. When you are ready to
go back into MegaDots, just type EXIT <Enter>. See also Supplement
1.
To paste the clipboard into your text, first position the cursor to where you want the new text to go. Then press Control-P. See copy [Edit Menu].
See copy [Edit Menu].
Sometimes you need to include more copyright information in a document than can fit on a braille title page. Create a page after the title page by typing Control-Insert B P, and then select copyright from the menu.
By braille correspondence we mean a letter to be sent in the mail. If you set your carriage width to 30 and put 2 fold lines in your output, you can easily fold your letter and place it in a number 10 envelope (you may have to trim the edges though). See fold line and letter.
See CHARS.MDR or WORDS.MDR.
The Cranmer (Modified Perkins) Brailler is an embosser which was produced in the 1980's. See the Interface Guide or press F10 H I from the Editor for directions on setting it up for use with MegaDots.
The Create Contents option in the Tools Menu scans the main body of text, looks at the pattern of headings and prepares a table of contents for you. This can save a large amount of manual work for you. Wait until you have finished with everything else in your document, and then type F10 T C to select this utility from the Tools Menu. You can redo the table of contents by creating a new table of contents.
See MD.
To create a file in MegaDots, you can use the save option (F4) to create a file in the MegaDots file format. Or you can use the export file option (Control-F4) to create a file in a different format (such as a file readable by another word processing program). See copy file, save file and export file.
Unmarked cross references (such as "See page 45.") are brailled without a reference indicator, placed in a 7-7 paragraph, and a blank line precedes and follows the reference. Press <Alt-N Cr> to specify this style. This style is the same as Incidental note.
There is no automatic method for producing braille crossword puzzles in MegaDots. You need to know the braille rules and enter the braille directly. Use the Alt-U T command for the Translate Exact style. Do not mark a block and issue the Control-T X command. This gives you a control of the format as well as control of the translation.
To enter a currency symbol in your document, press Alt-dollar sign to access the Currency Menu. Then select the appropriate symbol.
In inkprint, the running header or footer frequently contains the current page number. To cause this to happen, type Control-Insert C into the text which is going to be the running header or footer.
The cursor is the flashing underbar or solid square which draws the user's attention to a single spot on the screen. The cursor shows where the next keystroke goes in the file. If you cannot see the cursor easily, use the big cursor choice in the Editor Preferences.
The Cursor go everywhere choice in the Editor Preferences Screen determines where MegaDots allows your cursor to go. The choices are N for NO and Y for Yes.
The primary method for creating blank lines between paragraphs in your MegaDots print or braille output is the use of styles which automatically generate them. Ordinarily, cursor movements in the MegaDots Editor skip over blank lines which are forced by the adjoining paragraph styles. Since blind users do not automatically notice these blank lines on the screen, they may not know about them if the cursor does not land on them. Setting Cursor go everywhere to Yes allows the cursor to land on these blank lines to make blind users more aware of them.
Pressing Control-E in the Editor toggles between Yes and No Cursor go everywhere. Be aware that issuing a Delete command with the cursor on such a blank line combines the paragraphs, rather than simply eliminating the blank line. If you want only to eliminate the blank line, change the style of an adjacent paragraph.
MegaDots has a very comprehensive list of cursor movement commands. You can move by character, by word, by sentence, by line, by paragraph, or by page. Press F10 H C CU <Enter> from the Editor for the details.
You can create a new page layout for your style sheet with the Style Sheet Editor in the Tools Menu. See Supplement 4 for more information about page layouts and the style sheet editor. See also Generic preliminary page.
Kut (in MegaDots spelled with a k instead of a c) means to remove a section of text and also copy the material into the clipboard. Use Kut when you want to move some text from one location to another. The sequence is: mark a block, press Control-K, move the cursor, and press Control-P to paste the clipboard to the new location. See also append kut.
To enter a dagger in a MegaDots footnote, start the footnote with the plus sign. Use 2 plus signs for a double dagger. See footnote.
MegaDots calls bold underline dark underline. To mark some text as dark underline, define a block, and then type Control-F D. The Translation Setup Screen in the Document Menu controls how dark underline is represented in braille. If you have a braille document, and you want to change how dark underline material is shown in braille, first translate back to inkprint, then change the Translation Setup Screen, then translate back into braille.
When editing a document, you may wish to search for
material that has been set in Dark underline emphasis. You can do this
with Complex find; include [emph]=~d in the Complex find
text. For example, to search for a hyphen in Bold emphasis, use
[emph]=~d~- in the Find text. You can also use this in a
rules file.
A braille dash is made up of two hyphens.
See unbreakable hyphen.
To find the version number and release date of your MegaDots software, press F10 H A (to get the About MegaDots screen from the Help Menu).
See Duxbury files.
See tab.
A book dedication is vertically centered on a page. Make sure that you specify that you are starting a dedication by typing Control-Insert B P D. Enter the dedication normally. The formatter takes care of the vertical centering.
Default is a word that shows up very frequently in a computer manual. A default value is the computer's best guess as to what you want. Depending on the application, you might press <Enter> or F10 to accept the default value.
Default directories is a choice from the Preferences Menu. This option is used if a file operation (load or save MegaDots file, import or export a file, etc.) usually happens in only one directory. By specifying a default directory, you can simplify file operations since you do not have to specify the directory name. This feature is designed to make file operations easier on a computer network. See network. You can use the environment variable MEGADIRS to set the default directories before you launch MegaDots. See MEGADIRS.
To enter a degree sign in your document, press Alt-plus sign and select degree. You cannot use simple replace to search for this symbol. Use complex replace (Control-F9), search for and Alt-plus sign D inside of quotes.
See delete file.
In MegaDots, footnotes and end notes are entered the same way. The delay foot note question is used to determine if you want footnotes (material showing up at the point of reference in braille) or end notes (material showing up at the end of the book or chapter). See footnotes for information about data entry. See end notes for information about using the delay footnotes command.
To delete some text, mark it as a block and press Control-D. If you have not already marked a block, pressing Control-D brings up a menu of choices (word, sentence, paragraph, page, document) to help you specify what you want to delete: Character, Word, Line, Sentence, paraGraph, Page or Document. See also delete special items.
See RD.
There are two ways to delete a file. You can do it from inside MegaDots. By pressing F3 F2, highlighting the filename, and then pressing delete.
Or you can issue the DOS DEL command yourself. From
MegaDots you can use the DOS shell (Alt-F10) to quickly get to the DOS
command line. At that point, you can issue the DOS DEL command and other
DOS commands. To delete the file fishy.txt, type del
fishy.txt <Enter>. When you are ready to go back into
MegaDots, just type EXIT <Enter>. See also Supplement 1.
MegaDots lets you insert many special items which are
not part of the text, such as emphasis, translation information, page
format information, inkprint page indicators, etc. To delete these items,
you must be in Format Markup mode; if you are in WYSIWYG mode, press
Alt-W. The special items appear as markup. Some markup
commands begin with a left pointing arrow, and some are paragraphs that
begin with <<Section Info>>. Once you are in
Format Markup mode, get your cursor on the unwanted item and press the Del
key. For example, Format Markup display shows italics beginning and ending
with markers of Ei and \Ei enclosed by arrows.
This option deletes the highlighted text located by the spell checker.
Diacritics are additional marks on a character to show stress or pronunciation. The word or words with diacritics should be in diacritic translation. Mark the word or words as a block and issue the command Control-T D. Diacritic translation is very similar to grade one, except that accented letters are handled differently than standard grade one/grade two.
To enter the diacritics, press Alt-* (also known as Alt-Shift-8). At the diacritic menu, press F1 for help. Follow the inkprint placement of primary and secondary stress markers, even though this is different from the proper placement in braille is different (i.e., before the affected syllable). When you follow the inkprint copy, MegaDots places the stress symbols properly in the braille copy. However, if you second guess MegaDots and enter the stress markers before the syllable in question, MegaDots places the stress markers in the wrong place in the braille copy.
For more information about diacritics, see the Textbook Format Codebook.
When editing a document, you may wish to search for
material that you know has been set in Diacritic translation. You can do
this with Complex find; include [trans]=~D in the Complex
find text. For example, to search for a hyphen in diacritic translation,
use [trans]=~D~- in the Find text. You can also use this in a
rules file.
See diacritics.
One reason for the use of accented letters is doing diacritics (the special pronunciation symbols used in dictionaries or glossaries). If so, see diacritics. (The rest of this text assumes you are not doing diacritics).
The diaeresis or umlaut is an accent mark that looks like two dots above a letter. To access the list of diaeresis or umlaut characters from the Editor, press Alt-" (Alt-Double Quote). The double quote is suggestive of the appearance of the double dots. See also foreign text.
The difficulty of doing dialect in braille is that of ambiguity: inkprint uses the same symbol to show both the single quote and the apostrophe, while braille uses different symbols. You want this symbol treated as an apostrophe in braille. In MegaDots, use a Control-A to force an apostrophe, and Control-Q for single quotes.
To show a pronunciation guide, see diacritics.
One reason for the use of diphthong is doing diacritics (the special pronunciation symbols used in dictionaries or glossaries). If so, see diacritics. (The rest of this text assumes you are not doing diacritics).
To enter the ae diphthong in MegaDots, press Alt-& (alt ampersand) followed by a letter a. To enter the oe diphthong, press Alt-& followed by a letter o. At present, only these two diphthongs are supported by MegaDots.
To list the contents of a directory, use the DOS DIR
command. From MegaDots you can use the DOS shell (Alt-F10) to quickly get
to the DOS command line. At that point, you can issue the DOS DIR command
and other DOS commands. To list all the batch files in the directory in
the order of creation, type DIR *.BAT /OD <Enter>. When
you are ready to go back into MegaDots, just type EXIT <Enter>. See
also Supplement 1.
Direct entry braille means using the 6 keys SDF-JKL as a Perkins-style braille keyboard. See Perkins keyboard entry.
Directions here means directions for exercises or tests. Use the Directions style for directions, use the Exercise style for exercises and for answer choices. Type Alt-B D to specify the Directions style. In braille the text is blocked in cell 5 and is preceded with a blank line. Be careful: in the Exercise and Directions styles any multiple spaces in inkprint become multiple spaces in braille. Since braille does not use two spaces between sentences, do not do this in the inkprint for these two styles.
A directory is a file structure created by the DOS that allows for a hierarchical system of storing files. Directories are like the folders found on the Macintosh file system. To learn more about file directories, you need to learn more about the MS-DOS operating system. See CD, MD, and RD. See also default directories and Supplement 1.
See hard disk or floppy disk.
For a braille document, there are five different display modes. These are ASCII, Big Dots, Dots, Expanded, and Special. To access these, type Control-Z D followed by a letter A, B, D, E or S. Of course, you need to be in braille to see any effect.
You can also change the markup view. The four choices are No markup (WYSIWYG), Format markup only, All (format markup and translation markup), and Style changes in text. When you use choices F or A, you get to see the internal codes of MegaDots on the screen, and you lose the ability to see exactly how the output appears. Type Control-Z M followed by a letter N, F, A or S. You can toggle between WYSIWYG and markup modes by pressing Alt-W.
Just press the double quote mark (") to make the ditto mark.
The document refers to an entire file loaded in memory. To get a list of documents currently opened, type Control-J D. This gives you the option to switch to other loaded documents. You can also use F8 and Control-F8 to switch to other documents.
The Document Menu gives you a range of choices having to do with how the document looks. Type F10 D to get to the Document Menu. If you want to make the same choices for many documents, you may want to build your choices into your current preferences. Use the New Document Screen of the Preferences Menu to set up your document defaults.
The Start Menu has a Group called Duxbury. Press Control-Esc P then enough D's until the highlight is on Duxbury. Click on MegaDots Documentation.
MegaDots documentation is also available through the installation CD-ROM.
You can also access most of the documentation from
within MegaDots. The documentation consists of the User Manual (F11),
Reference Manual (F12), Command Summary (F10 H C), Interface Guide (F10 H
I) and the Nemeth Guide (F10 H N). There are other files of documentation
that come with MegaDots. These include bugfixes.meg (recent
fixes and new features) and getstart.meg.
DOS means Disk Operating System. The disk operating system is the software that lets you type characters, load and save files, and generally use a computer. All computers have an operating system. You happen to be stuck with an operating system that is: (1) widespread, (2) hard to learn and (3) making Bill Gates rich. See also Supplement 1.
See command line.
DOS commands let you perform basic functions with files (copy, list, locate, etc.) MegaDots has a DOS shell that lets you to and from the DOS command line with ease. See DOS shell. In this Reference Manual, there are entries for COPY, DEL, DIR, REN, CD, MD, RD and FORMAT. There are also entries for directory, path, and locate file. See also Supplement 1.
For more information about DOS file names, press F10 H D from the Editor.
A DOS shell means having the ability to quickly drop into the DOS command line and then drop back into your applications program at the same point you were when you issued the DOS shell command. The DOS Shell command in MegaDots is Alt-F10. To get back into MegaDots, type the word EXIT followed by <Enter>. See also DOS commands. See also Supplement 1.
The two major types of inkprint printers are dot matrix printers and laser printers.
To put braille dots on the screen, type Control-Z D B (big dots) or Control-Z D D (small dots). These commands require EGA or VGA graphics on your computer. You can set the default mode for showing braille on the screen in the Editor Preferences Screen. You can also specify the kind of shadow dot you want for the Big Dots mode. You can have no shadow, light shadow, or heavy shadow. Big Dots can be slower. Dots can fit an entire braille page on the screen at once.
A double box line is used to separate two boxes. If the inkprint has two boxes in a row, use the double box line to show the end of the last box and the beginning of the next box. A double box in braille is a line of full cells. Type Control-Insert L D for a double box line.
You can create double spaced braille for your whole document in MegaDots by going to the top of your document, pressing Control-Z B, changing line spacing to 2 and pressing F10. To change inkprint line spacing, do the same thing except press Control-Z I for Inkprint Section Layout instead of Control-Z B for Braille Section Layout.
Braille double spacing is used for lower grade material. Remember to move to the top of the file before typing Control-Z B, if you want the entire document double spaced. See also physical underscoring and grade one braille.
In DOS, a letter is used to designate the different disk drives. The A and B drives are floppy drives. The C drive is the hard drive. The D drive is often a CD-ROM. If there are other drives, they depend on your system and computer network. See also Supplement 1.
Duxbury Systems developed the Duxbury Braille
Translator (DBT). Duxbury Systems now markets and sells the MegaDots
software. MegaDots can import Duxbury SGML/ICADD/HTML files. If you or
someone you know use Duxbury DBT and wants to pass a file to a MegaDots
user, they need to "Save As" a SGML/ICADD/HTML file. These usually have a
.sgm file extension. MegaDots can read these files as an HTML
file.
The best way to send a file to Duxbury DBT is to create HTML files which can be imported into Duxbury. See HTML. When these MegaDots-generated HTML files are imported into Duxbury DBT, specify that it is a SGML/ICADD/HTML file.
You may want to offer a braille file to someone using DBT. From MegaDots, create a Braille Ready File (see Braille Ready File). When you give the file to the DBT user, tell them to use Global Settings, Formatted Braille Importer, and to check the box Formatted Braille Without Interpretation.
If someone gives you a Braille Ready File from DBT, see Braille Ready File for instructions on how to import the file into MegaDots.
You can reach technical support for MegaDots at
megadots@duxsys.com. General inquiries can be addressed to
info@duxsys.com. Our web address is
//www.duxburysystems.com.
Note: Windows users may prefer Notepad or Wordpad.
DOS comes with an ASCII Editor called EDIT. To use EDIT, just type EDIT followed by the file name at the DOS command line. To exit the program and save your changes, type Alt by itself, followed by return, X, return. To exit the program without saving your changes, type Alt followed by return, X, N. See also Supplement 1.
The Edit Menu allows you to perform common manipulations on your document, such as setting emphasis or translation mode. Type F10 E to get to the Edit Menu. Since the commands on the Edit Menu are all common commands you may want to execute frequently, they all have short cuts. For example, to mark a block as italics, just type Control-F I.
The MegaDots Editor is the program that lets you enter, edit, and modify text or braille. MegaDots uses the term "Editor" to contrast with the MegaDots menus or to the DOS command line. If you can type text, you are in the Editor. The Control-E command always takes you from the menus back to the Editor, no matter how deep you are in the menu windows.
See braille embosser.
See braille ready file.
Embossit is a Windows program that MegaDots can use to produce braille output. To use Embossit, select MBOS as your connection port in MegaDots. See Chapter 5 and see Chapter 10 for the details. The Embossit help file. is loaded with information on configuring and troubleshooting Embossers.
Examples of emphasis are italics, bold and underlining. When MegaDots imports files it keeps track of the inkprint emphasis. Using the Translation Setup Screen in the Document Menu, you can control how emphasis is shown in braille. See also italics, bold and underlining. If you have a braille document, and you want to change how emphasized material is shown in braille, first translate to inkprint, then change the Translation Setup Screen, then translate back into braille.
MegaDots eliminates "excess emphasis" when importing a file into MegaDots. You can control this process from the F10 P F screen, from the Alt-I screen, or by command line options. The "excess enphasis" also controls what happens to unfamiliar HTML commands when importing an HTML file. See world wide web.
A box is material separated from the main stream of text. An end box is shown in braille by a line of g's. To enter an end box, position the cursor at the end of the box and type Control-Insert L E. See also begin box.
End notes are footnotes delayed to the end of a chapter or document. The data entry in MegaDots is the same for footnotes and end notes. See footnotes for information about the data entry of footnotes. See whole paragraph note for information about changing the format for the End Notes Pages.
The difference between footnotes and end notes in MegaDots is the use of the Delay Footnote command. Position the cursor where you want it (Usually at the top of a file). Type Control-Z B. One of the questions that comes up is "Delay Footnotes". This is a yes/no question. Answering "no" means you want immediate footnotes. Answering "yes" means that you want the notes collected for an End Notes page. MegaDots automatically places the End Notes pages at the end of the chapter or the end of the book.
For British braille, the default is for end notes (as if you answered "yes" to "delay footnotes" question). The End Notes are placed at the end of the document, or before an index if an index is in the document. For North American braille, the default is for regular footnotes (as if you answered "no" to the "delay footnotes" question).
To delay notes delayed for a shorter amount of space, like for a chapter, move the cursor to the beginning of this area, and answer yes to the Delay Footnotes? question. Now go the end of the chapter and repeat the same process, only answer the Delay Footnotes question with no. You can repeat this process for each chapter or poem in your document.
To show the end of a whole book, type Control-Insert L W. This puts in the appropriate mark in braille.
To show the end of a braille volume, type Control-Insert L V. This puts in the appropriate mark in braille. It automatically puts in what MegaDots thinks is the appropriate Roman numeral (End Of Volume III etc.) If this is wrong, put your own Roman numeral after the end of volume indicator.
Use the <Enter> key to separate paragraphs. Every paragraph has exactly one style associated with it. Do not use <Enter> for extra blank lines. See Chapter 4 for more information about formatting. If you want to force a new line within a paragraph, press Alt-Enter. If your Windows system does not allow you to use the Alt-Enter command, an alternative is Control-Ins L F.
This option allows you to replace the highlighted text located by the spell checker with new text typed in by you. If you need to modify text outside of the highlight, use the Visit text option instead.
An environment variable is a setting that many computer programs can read. In Windows, these are set from the control panel. Click on the Start Menu, Settings, Control Panel, Settings, Advanced, Environment variables. Here you can add, edit, or delete an environment variable.
On older systems without a control panel, you need to
add a line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, such as: SET
MEGAHTML=1
See fatal 286 error.
Enter as a Greek beta (Alt-G b). Outside of Nemeth, if you really want a beta, enter as "require special symbol" followed by a beta. When importing a Word file, the estset character becomes a beta in MegaDots, so these are handled automatically.
ETGRAPHIX is a computer program developed and sold by Enabling Technologies for creating brailler graphics on various embossers which support the cell spacing needed for graphics (see brailler graphics). The program lets you grab graphics off the screen into a form suitable for the specified embosser.
To enter a Euro sign in your document, press Alt-dollar sign and select Euro. You cannot use simple replace to search for this symbol. Use complex replace (Control-F9), search for and Alt-dollar sign E inside of quotes.
It is common in interpoint output to only use odd page numbers. Choose this option in the Braille Document Setup Screen of the Document Menu. MegaDots ignores this command (i.e. puts page numbers on all pages) when embossing to single-sided embossers. See also interpoint output.
The Everest is an interpoint brailler made by Index of Sweden. Driver software for Index embossers is included with MegaDots 2.3. See the Interface Guide or press F10 H I from the Editor for directions on setting it up for use with MegaDots.
In MegaDots, you can mark a block as being in exact translation mode. This means that these characters are being exactly copied into the braille copy (i.e. no changes happen during translation). To mark something in exact translation, highlight a block and type Control-T X. See also Translate exact [style].
The EXAM style sheet should be used for preparing tests or quizzes. It is a variation on the TEXTBK style sheet. Use the style sheet selection option from the Document Menu to select a style sheet for the current document. Use the New Document Preferences to specify the style sheet for future documents.
See fatal 286 error.
See emphasis.
To enter an upside down exclamation mark in your document, press Alt-plus sign and select exclamation. See also Spanish. You cannot use simple replace to search for this symbol. Use complex replace (Control-F9), search for and Alt-plus sign E inside of quotes.
An exercise is a question in a test or exam. Type Alt-B E to specify the Exercise style. Exercises are done as a hierarchy (i.e. there can be a main level, a sub-level, a sub-sub level, etc.) Use the Directions style for directions, use the Exercise style for exercises and for answer choices. Use the hierarchy commands (Alt-Right arrow and Alt-Left arrow) to set the appropriate hierarchy levels. Use one additional level for the answer choices. If you want to, you can use three spaces between answer choices and enter them as a single paragraph. Be careful: in the Exercise and Directions styles multiple spaces in inkprint become multiple spaces in braille. Since braille does not use two spaces between sentences, do not do this in the inkprint for these two styles.
To exit MegaDots, press Alt-X. You are asked if you want to exit now. Answer Y to exit without saving your work. Answer N to go back to the Editor. Answer S to save your work and exit.
There are five choices of how to view a braille document on the screen. One of these is expanded mode. In this mode, each line of braille is back translated into inkprint (the line containing the cursor is not back translated for editing purposes). This lets you see the exact format of your braille while still reading inkprint.
To switch modes, go to the Editor Preferences Screen of the Preferences Menu. Or you can type Control-Z D E from the Editor. This command does not change your data at all, it only changes the manner in which you view a braille document. The effect of this command is not apparent if your current document is inkprint. You can save the current view mode as the default by Save Preferences.
The Expert user setting does something only for voice output users. The choices are N for No and Y for Yes. When it is set to No, voice-only prompts identify each new screen and guide the user. When it is set to Yes, there are fewer voice-only prompts.
Exporting means creating a new file which can be read by other word processing programs. To export a file, press Control-F4. For example, if you export a file to WordPerfect, it means that WordPerfect can read the new file. For more information about exporting files, see Chapter 20.
Do not use the export option to create a file for a remote embosser. See braille ready file.
See small text size.
A file extension is the three characters
that come after the period in a file name. In DOS, there is a limit of 8
characters in the main part of the file name, and 3 characters in the
extension. Usually the file extension tells the nature of a file
(.txt for textfile, .doc for Word, etc.).
An extension can be entirely arbitrary. You can have a
textfile with the extension .qwp if you want. MegaDots does
not require any specific extension. We recommend using the extension
.meg for MegaDots files. Please note: batch files must have
an extension of .bat, style sheets must have an extension of
.ss, preferences files must have an extension of
.env, and MegaDots rules files must have an extension of
.mdr. See also Supplement 1.
Extra right zone is a phrase referring to setting up an area on the right hand side of the page reserved for page or line numbers. Tables of contents, poetry line numbers, and menu items now automatically set an extra right zone of the appropriate amount. You can use this feature in a style by setting this parameter to its minimum value in the braille specific style information. You can also override this information in the Braille Section Layout Screen in the Document Menu.
When you produce inkprint, you can add extra spaces between characters or between lines. This is usually needed when producing large print and you are getting output that is too cramped either horizontally or vertically. Note that there is nothing you can do to compress text beyond answering 0 to these prompts. The unit of measurement is the point. There are 72 points to the inch.
Extracts are what North Americans call Quotations. If the extract is just ordinary text paragraphs, you can use the Quotation style in British and North American braille. British braille format allows for more complex extracts. See Chapter 17 for the details.
There is a large class of program bugs which cause MegaDots to stop dead. Depending on your computer, you get a message "fatal 286 error", "exception 13", "general protection error", or "memory protection error". These are all the same thing.
MegaDots does its best to save your work before anything else. When you restart MegaDots, you are asked if you want to restore these files.
The most common cause is program bugs in MegaDots. We are doing our best to produce a bug-free program. In the meantime, you can assist us in our search for bugs. Mail in a copy of the disk file that causes the bug. Include a note explaining what steps you need to take to trigger the crash. Mention if you were in inkprint or braille, whether you were in WYSIWYG or not. If you are able to send us the exact file you were working on so we can exactly duplicate the bug, we can fix the problem fairly quickly. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.
The Duxbury Systems fax number is +1-978-692-7912.
The information that your computer uses is stored in files. Files can contain software programs or data. Each file has a name. Once you know a file's name, you can copy it, import it, delete it or execute it. Sometimes one does not know the exact name of a file or the location (i.e. in which directory). See WHERE.
MegaDots is well known for importing and exporting from a long list of file types. To get a list of file types, press F10 H C <End> <Up arrow> <Enter> from the Editor. See automatic file recognition.
You can use MegaDots to perform direct file
conversions. To do that, you need to know the internal 4 digit code for
the target file format which is provided with the list of file types. For
example, the 4 digit code for Ami Pro is 3301, so to convert the file
sample.wp5 into Ami Pro, type: mega sampel.wp5
/sSAMPLE.AMI#3301 <Enter>.
See export file.
A file folder is the Macintosh name for a file directory. See directory.
See braille ready file.
File Import is a choice from the Preferences Menu. This option is used to control the action of the file importation process. For example, you can specify that optical scanning cleanup occur during file importation. Or you can disallow the use of some styles. By making effective use of these options you can greatly speed up your work in bringing in a new document into MegaDots.
Sometimes you may want to modify the file before it is imported. See auto numbering for one example.
The File Menu gives you access to a number of options that manipulate entire documents in one stroke. Type F10 F to get to the File Menu. The File Menu lets you translate or print entire documents. Each of the items in the File Menu has a simple shortcut using the function keys. These are listed once you type F10 F.
MS-DOS limits your choice of file names.
File names are limited to 8 characters, with a three letter extension. We
recommend using .meg as a file extension for MegaDots files.
Press F10 H D from the Editor for more information.
When you press F3 from the Editor, MegaDots tells you how much memory is available. A rule of thumb is for your files to be up to half that size. To import larger files, you may need to add more RAM memory to your computer or to rearrange your memory management.
See file conversions.
Find and find/replace are in the Tools Menu. Press F9 from the Editor for simple find. Press F1 for help on simple find. Press Control-F9 for complex find. Press F1 for help on complex find. See Chapter 12 for more details on find and replace.
See locate file.
A finetune braille rules file is a global replace
rules file which is executed automatically every time a document is
translated into braille. As an example, lets say you never wanted to use
the "sh" sign in the word "fish". Create a MegaDots file called
FIX.MDR in the MegaDots directory consisting of
'fi'{}'sh'\\"!!" (the double exclamation mark stands for the
suppress contraction mark. Type Control-S C to get this mark. Now choose
Translation in the New Document Preferences and type FIX into finetune
braille rules file prompt. Once you save your preferences, you are never
be bothered by an "sh" in "fish" again. Please note that the use of the
"sh" sign is recommended in standard grade two, so do not try this at
home.
FIXCAPS.MDRThis rules file is supplied with MegaDots to repair capitalization. It corrects a file which is all lower case and guesses which letters should be upper case. To invoke it, just type Alt-F9 FIXCAPS <Enter>. See also rules file.
A floppy disk is usually designated by the drive
letters A or B. For example, to open a file from a floppy, type F3
A: F2 (the A: means search the A drive). See also directory,
hard disk and drive letter.
Fold lines are extra lines of dropped c's that are used to fold pages of braille paper into an envelope. Use 2 fold lines to put braille into a standard business envelope. Use 1 fold line for a large envelope. See the Braille Document Setup Screen of the Document Menu for this prompt.
A file folder is the Macintosh name for a file directory. See directory.
MegaDots lets you specify a typeface and a font size for inkprint. Fonts (inkprint letters) are measured in points. There are 72 points to an inch. The standard font on most laser printers is 10 points, with 6 lines printed per inch. The post office says that anything that is in 14 point type can be sent "free matter for the blind". Once we get up to 24 point, it is quite large print.
You can set up document defaults. You can specify that some portion of the text is printed in a different typeface or font size than the default. To set the default, press F10 D I. Press F1 for help on the different prompts.
You can also change the font size for headings in the Heading Setup screens of the Document Menu.
To mark a segment with a different typeface, mark a block and then press Control-F F. To mark a segment with a different font size, mark a block and then press Control-F P. See also typeface.
A footer is a paragraph which is placed on the bottom of each page. Footers are rarely used in braille, but often are used in print.
To specify a footer, create a paragraph containing the
text that you want in the footer. Put the cursor back on the paragraph and
type Alt-R F <Enter> (to select the Footer style). To
have the running page number printed as part of the footer on each page,
place your cursor where you want the page numbers to go, and press
Control-Insert C (for Current page number). See also numbering
pages.
To terminate a footer, create a blank paragraph and apply the Footer style.
An even footer only shows up on even pages. This format is never used in braille, it is common to have footers on odd pages only in interpoint output. We offer this style for completeness. This style only does alternating output on interpoint embossers. On single-sided embossers, MegaDots ignores the command.
An odd footer only shows up on odd pages. This format is often used in interpoint output. This style only does alternating output on interpoint embossers. On single-sided embossers, MegaDots puts the footers on all pages.
MegaDots formats footnotes automatically when the appropriate steps are followed. In other words, in textbooks the footnote indicator is placed at the reference point, the braille line is completed, and the footnote is placed in the appropriate position starting on the next line (usually 7-5, but may be different in such styles as Poetry). After the footnote is completed, the remaining text paragraph is completed, using the correct runover position. In literary braille, the footnote placement is determined by whether it is a short footnote of seven words or less, or a long footnote.
A footnote consists of two elements: the footnote reference indicator (the number, asterisk, dagger at the reference point), and the footnote text. In inkprint, the footnote text is located either at the bottom of the current page, or at the end of the current chapter or at the end of the book. See End note, Whole paragraph note and Delay footnote for information about collecting all the footnotes at the end of the current chapter or at the end of a book.
To create a footnote in MegaDots, type the reference indicator, a space, and then the footnote text right at the reference point (this is likely be in the middle of a paragraph). The reference indicator and the footnote text must be marked as a block and then formatted as a footnote with the <Control-F N> command. Note: do not put another reference indicator before the markup.
The asterisk (*) is the most common footnote indicator. When other punctuation symbols are used, enter the same symbol in MegaDots. If a dagger is used in print, enter a plus sign (+) in MegaDots. If a double dagger is used in print, enter a double plus sign (++). Literary format does not use punctuation reference indicators, so MegaDots generates an automatic number instead if you are using the LITERARY Style Sheet.
If you want your footnotes automatically numbered, just enter a number sign (ble) as the reference indicator. If you want to force a specific number, type in the number. All subsequent automatically numbered notes use this number as a starting point. Literary format does not use the general reference indicator, so MegaDots uses your number or generates an automatic number (if you are using the LITERARY Style Sheet).
The braille reference or marginal note indicator (two dropped g's) is created by using the at sign (@) as the indicator. Special indicators such as the gloss note can be marked with @g.
Marginal notes with no particular print location are placed at the most appropriate location in braille. Use the Manual note style, starting off the paragraph with () [open parenthesis, close parenthesis, space]. In braille this becomes two dropped g's followed by a space.
If you need to place several paragraphs together as a footnote or an end note, then you need to use the <Alt-Enter> command to separate the paragraphs. Do not have any regular <Enter> paragraph divisions within footnote markup. If your Windows system does not allow you to use the Alt-Enter command, an alternative is Control-Ins L F.
One bug we have found is that footnotes in paragraphs near section info paragraphs mess up the format. If you run the rules file notefix (Alt-F9 notefix <Enter>), a non-printing null paragraph is inserted to avoid this bug.
See require contraction.
In MegaDots, you can independently force a new inkprint page and/or a new braille page. To force a new braille page, type Control-Insert B F (use Control-Insert B R if you might use an interpoint embosser). To force a new inkprint page, type Control-Insert I F.
Books written in a foreign language in the United States should be produced in grade one braille. MegaDots handles accented letters appropriately as long as you properly specify the document. In the Translation Setup Screen in the Document Menu, you need to answer two prompts appropriately. Set the Default Translation Method to O and set the Braille Standard appropriately. If only a portion of your document is foreign text, then mark that part as grade one. See also accented letters.
In North America, the dot 6 is used for the capital sign. This is the default for MegaDots. If you are preparing materials for use outside of North America, then you need to use dots 4-6 for the capital sign. To do this, change the European caps sign dots 4-6 prompt in the Translation Setup screen in the Document Menu.
The rules of braille make a distinction between foreign words which are Anglicized and those which are not. Look at the original inkprint. Anglicized words are the same typeface as the rest of your text, while non-Anglicized words are in a different typeface. In MegaDots, put any non-Anglicized words in grade one. Mark the word or words as a block, then type Control-T O.
In English contexts, accented letters show up in braille as a dot 4 before the appropriate letter. For example, an accented e becomes dot 4 followed by e in braille.
A book foreword is part of the preliminary pages in literary format and in British braille. A foreword is part of the main body pages in textbook format. See Preliminary pages. To start a foreword as a preliminary page, type Control-Insert B P and pick forward from the list. This starts the material on a fresh braille page.
MegaDots uses several different systems for getting different kinds of information or selections from you, the user. We call these systems form, quick form, list, user list, and menu. When MegaDots needs several pieces of information from you on a particular topic, it puts you in a form. In a MegaDots form, you supply information for the different fields (prompts), like filling out the various blanks on a paper form. When you are in a MegaDots form, pressing F1 twice provides help on using forms.
See force new page.
The form length is the number of lines per page in a braille document, or the number of inches of printing per page in an inkprint document. To change the form length, go to the Braille Section Layout Screen or the Inkprint Section Layout Screen of the Document Menu. See also bottom margin and top margin.
Format is a confusing word in MegaDots. To format a disk means to wipe it out and prepare it for accepting data (see format a disk). To a braille transcriber, format refers to the code for laying out braille. In MegaDots, we use format to refer to a broad range of attributes which can be applied to your text.
To format means to modify something. In this context, formatting refers to changing some kind of attribute to the character or word (italics, underlining, boldface, etc.) To format some text, mark it as a block and press Control-F. You are presented with a list of 13 formatting attributes. If you have not already marked a block, pressing Control-F brings up a menu of choices (word, sentence, paragraph, page, document) to help you specify what you want to format: Character, Word, Line, Sentence, paraGraph, Page or Document.
Type FORMAT A: /U <Enter> to format
(wipe out and prepare for new data) the floppy disk in drive A. An
unformatted disk cannot carry any information or files. Never format a
floppy disk if you feel you cannot distinguish a floppy disk from a hard
disk. See also drive letter. See also Supplement 1.
To enter a one fourth sign in your document, press Alt-plus sign and select fourth. You cannot use simple replace to search for this symbol. Use complex replace (Control-F9), search for and Alt-plus sign F inside of quotes.
To enter a mixed number in Literary or Textbook braille, use a hyphen to separate the whole number from the fraction. For example, type 2-1/2 instead of 2 1/2. Nemeth braille is done differently. See Nemeth for more about Nemeth braille.
A fragment is the characters between the current cursor position and the next major piece of punctuation. These include comma, semi-colon, colon, closed paren, hyphen, exclamation and question mark. For example, if you place the cursor in the middle of a sentence, typing Control-D F deletes till the end of the sentence (unless there is other major punctuation before the end of the sentence).
When MegaDots is used in framed mode, there is a decorative frame around the text screen and a top menu bar. Framed windows are designed to be more visually attractive. Unframed mode strips off these decorative elements to make it easier to use MegaDots with access technology. You can change set framed mode in the Editor Preferences Screen of the Preferences Menu.
All French documents in the United States are produced
in grade one braille. French uses a different accented e than other
languages, so you need to tell MegaDots that the document is in French. Go
to the Translation setup screen in the Document Menu. Set the Braille
Standard prompt to F for French, and set the Default
Translation Method to O for One. A shortcut is
to load the document with a slash tof (for Translation grade One for
French). For example, you can type mega sec1.txt /tof
<Enter> to force French translation.
If you want to mix grade two English with grade one French, just set the Braille Standard prompt for French, leave the Default Translation Method at T for Two, and mark any text you want in French as grade one (mark a block any type Control-T O).
As an alternative, you can set the Braille Standard prompt for French, set the Default Translation Method at O for One, and mark any text you want in English as grade two (mark a block any type Control-T T). In either system, English is grade two and French is grade one. It is just a matter of deciding whether you want to be marking English or French segments.
You can enter all the accent marks within MegaDots. See accented letters and foreign text.
Be aware that the Spell Checker is MegaDots is only good for English. This makes spell checking material containing French a problem. You may find proofreading without the Spell Checker more efficient.
In North America, the dot 6 is used for the capital sign. This is the default for MegaDots. If you are preparing materials for use in France, then you need to use dots 4-6 for the capital sign. To do this, change the European caps sign dots 4-6 prompt in the Translation Setup screen in the Document Menu.
If you want to force a fresh line inside of a paragraph, press Alt-Enter. This keeps the same paragraph, but forces a new line. This shows a symbol on the screen like a "double less-than" sign. To remove the fresh line, you can delete this special character with the backspace or the delete key. If your Windows system does not allow you to use the Alt-Enter command, an alternative is Control-Ins L F.
Full keyboard means not using a 6 key braille keyboard. Press Alt-Scroll Lock to switch between full keyboard and braille keyboard. If you have a top menu bar, <6> symbol shows up on the upper right corner when 6-key braille keyboard is active. If Audio cues is set to Messages, pressing Alt-Scroll Lock gives the message "braille keyboard on" or "braille keyboard off." If Audio cues is set to Sounds, pressing Alt-Scroll Lock generates two beeps when you turn braille keyboard on or one beep when you turn braille keyboard off. See also Perkins keyboard entry.
A gap for graphics leaves a gap in the page numbering for a later insertion of graphics pages. Press Control-Insert B G and enter the number of pages needed for graphics followed by <Enter>. As an alternative, be aware that MegaDots can also import brailler graphics files, to integrate the brailler graphics material in with the text (see brailler graphics).
Sometimes when you import a file, you get a lot of garbled text. This could be a graphic, an encoded attached file, or the result of optically scanning a picture instead of text. The file importer can