The Hebrew/Israeli Uncontracted tables support print-to-braille translation of Hebrew-language literary text in uncontracted Hebrew braille according to the code documented for the Central Library for the Blind in Netanya, Israel by Rivka Rosenzweig. These translation tables also follow the code's rules for material in other languages within a Hebrew document. See the section below on secondary languages for more details.
The American Computer Braille Code (CBC) is also supported.
The system for bringing Hebrew text into DBT requires the use of DBT's importer for Microsoft Word documents. Therefore, translating a Hebrew document into braille in DBT requires bringing the Hebrew document from Word into DBT. In addition, when creating the Word document containing Hebrew, Word must use the Unicode encoding for Hebrew. Other encodings for Hebrew simply assign a Hebrew font to ordinary ASCII characters. If DBT imports Hebrew characters of that kind, it recognizes them as the ordinary ASCII characters, not as the characters shown in the Hebrew font.
You must use Word 2000 or higher to meet the requirement of Unicode encoding for Hebrew characters.
If you have a different source (not a Word document) of Hebrew text encoded in Unicode, such as a web page, an e-mail message, a file written in DavkaWriter, etc., save that material in Microsoft Word 2000 or higher in order to create a file that you can bring into DBT for translation into braille.
Braille-to-print translation is supported for this language. However Braille-to-print translation may not be perfect, therefore errors could occur. If you find any errors or have suggestions, please send both the *.dxb and *.dxp files along with an explanation to: languages@duxsys.com (Please be sure to include sample files).
If you are new to working with Hebrew on your computer, you may wish to acquire a special Hebrew keyboard to facilitate doing Hebrew data entry. Alternatively, for help with using the Hebrew keyboard layout with your usual keyboard in applications within Microsoft Office 2000 or higher, you can use Microsoft's Visual Keyboard software available for free download at:
http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2002/VkeyInst.aspx.
Once you have installed Visual Keyboard, it is part of Microsoft Office Tools.
When Visual Keyboard is running and you switch your keyboard to Hebrew, the screen shows a diagram of the Hebrew keyboard layout. You can enter Hebrew characters either by clicking on the appropriate "key" in the diagram, or by using the diagram to find the proper key on your keyboard. When you hold down a modifier key, such as the shift key, or turn caps lock on or off, the diagram changes accordingly. Keys highlighted in white are typically "hot keys" for adding accents.
DBT shows the Hebrew characters in print. However, the Hebrew characters appear from left to right, as they do in braille.
True braille-to-print translation is supported only within any embedded English text, not in the Hebrew text. This means that it is not generally useful
to translate the Hebrew braille file to print. It also means that when you view a braille document containing Hebrew, the "translated line" for the Hebrew text contains gibberish. So you may prefer to turn off the "translated line" under the View menu, or under Global/Default if you wish it to be off by default.
The Hebrew/Israeli Uncontracted translation tables support a number of variations to determine which signs are shown in braille.
To issue a command for one of these variations, go to the Codes list (hot key F5), select vrn from the list, and type the appropriate parameters in the Code Parameters field. In coded view, the command appears as [vrn~xxx], where xxx shows what you entered in the Code Parameters field. You may switch from one of these variations to another within the same document. These variations determine whether vowels, dagesh marks, and sheva marks in the print are to be shown in Braille. These three settings are independent of each other for the most part, with the exception that if you are suppressing vowels, then the print-to-braille translator will also suppress the sheva, even if you tell the translator to use it.
[vrn~shv] - suppress Hebrew vowels; even if the print original includes vowel signs, the braille does not show them. This is the default setting with use of the Hebrew/Israeli translation tables.
[vrn~uhv] - use Hebrew vowels.
[vrn~phv] - partial Hebrew vowels.
[vrn~shd] - suppress Hebrew dagesh; this is the default setting with use of the Hebrew/Israeli translation tables.
[vrn~uhd] - use Hebrew dagesh.
[vrn~shs] - suppress Hebrew sheva; this is the default setting with use of the Hebrew/Israeli tables.
[vrn~uhs] - use Hebrew sheva.
A document being translated with the Hebrew/Israeli translation tables may include a number of secondary languages. When English is used as a secondary language, the braille follows American rather than British rules. In accordance with the rules developed by the Central Library for the Blind in Israel, all material marked as a language other than Hebrew is automatically translated in uncontracted (grade one) braille. In addition, wherever you mark a segment as a language other than Hebrew, the braille uses dots 46 foreign language indicators for that segment. The placement of these indicators is similar to the placement of italics indicators in English braille. In addition, when a foreign language segment contains three words or fewer, then for any lowercase word, the dots 46 is followed by dots 56. To issue a language-switching command, select lng from the Codes list (hot key F5), and enter the appropriate parameters in the Code Parameters field. In coded view, the command appears as [lng~xxx], where xxx shows what you entered in the Code Parameters field.
[lng~he] or [lng~] - Hebrew; this is the default setting with the Hebrew/American) translation tables.
[lng~en] or [lng~eng] - English. This follows American conventions.
[lng~de] or [lng~deu] - German.
[lng~es] or [lng~esp] - Spanish.
[lng~fr] or [lng~fra] - French.
[lng~it] or [lng~ita] - Italian.
[lng~la] or [lng~lat] - Latin.
[lng~mao] or [lng~mi] - Maori.
The Computer Braille Code, as in the English/American tables, is supported.
[atxN]
[tx] resumes normal translation, ending "direct braille."
Other translation codes will generally be ignored, or may cause unpredictable translation results.
These tables were developed in July 2002 by Duxbury Systems, Inc., based on a document written by Rivka Rosenzweig for the Central Library for the Blind in Netanya, Israel. These tables replace the older Hebrew translation tables developed for DBT as used with the Hebrew version of WordPerfect 5.1.
(Documentation reviewed: May 2006.)