What is New in DBT

Duxbury Systems continually revises DBT to make fixes, respond to braille rules changes, and to add new features. The lists below cover only changes since the last major release. For the most recent information, possibly newer than that included here, please take advantage of Check for Updates from the DBT Help menu. Or, visit the Duxbury Website for both new information and historical information about DBT features and updates.

DBT 12.2 SR1

Template Improvements

• The BANA Template for Word, "BANA Braille 2017.dot" has new features since its initial release, for example, the Line Continuation Indicator for controlling line breaks on long text, and many new controls for Nemeth math in UEB (& EBAE). This template synchronizes with SWIFT 5.1, which is also now available.

• The "English (UEB) - UK Formatting (UKAAF)" template is updated with new styles, and streamlined, with rarely used styles hidden and unused styles deleted. For a more detailed explanation of this template, please see Styles in the English (UEB) - UK Formatting (UKAAF) Template.

• The Exercise style in the "English (UEB) - BANA with Nemeth" template is fixed, removing a hidden right margin.

• The Australian UEB Template is improved, with several issues fixed.

• New styles in all UEB templates enable ALL CAPS passages to continue across multiple paragraphs (CapTgr), fine control of capitalized passages (CapBreak), and control over line breaks on long URLs, email addresses, etc, (Continuation). (We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the Australian Braille Authority.)

• The DBT templates, "English (BANA Pre-UEB Textbook DE) - BANA" and "English (BANA Pre-UEB Textbook DE) - BANA with Nemeth", now remove unwanted blank lines in several circumstances, such as between second and third level headings.

DBT Editor Improvements

• Substantial additions and updates to DBT Help.

• The DBT Find function now accepts braille fonts in a search string. Likewise, a hard hyphen can once again be part of a search string (restoring 12.1 functionality).

• DBT's automatic table of contents function now closely aligns with UKAAF guidelines when working in the "UK basic" TOC style. The TOC user interface has new controls to set Fill Codes and End Codes to facilitate this.

• Text from DBT may be copied and pasted into "CorelDRAW".

• A DBT file may be inserted into another file (restoring functionality).

• DBT can now reload images saved in .dxp and .dxb files even if the images have no labels.

Math Improvements

• In the LaTeX importer, math elements with text above arrows and text below arrows are now handled.

• Math imports now have improved automatic placement of the End-Nemeth code.

Miscellaneous Changes

• Per the new formatting rules, linear tables no longer have a period at the end of a line.

• DBT now allows braille entry of dots 456 (underscore) via a braille device linked using JAWS.

• Most, possibly all, of the circumstances that caused generating braille fonts to fail have been eliminated. Should any remain, the provisions for diagnosing and fixing the problem are much improved. (This issue affected only a few customers.)

Language Improvements

Country	Improvements
	Biblical Original Languages: updates are now based on the recent English UEB table.
	Danish: a question mark as a word ending does not disrupt contractions in braille-to-print.
	French: updated to ensure use of dots 36 in a contraction is not confused with a hyphen.
	Hebrew (American): this table is now based on the latest UEB table. The translated line now respects the language context to display both English and Hebrew correctly.
	Hungarian: improved translation in the braille-to-print direction.
	IPA: fix one character on braille-to-print.
	Mongolian: improved braille-to-print translation to recognize emphasis, as well as other changes.
	Myanmar: translation has been totally rebuilt and demonstrates high accuracy.
	Norwegian: fix one serious contraction error in braille-to-print.
	Polish: improved grade one braille, plus improved punctuation both directions.
	Slovenian: improvements in print-to-braille translation.
	Spanish: fix more punctuation, add certain Guarani characters; support emphasis in braille-to-print.
	Taiwan-style Chinese Mandarin: improved print-to-braille and braille-to-print translators, uses Zhuyin characters intead of Pinyin. It is now possible to mix Chinese and English as long as English segments start with a capital letter. (Originally intended for DBT 12.2, and now available.)
	The Tigrinya language now has a functional back translator.

DBT 12.2

Primary Areas of Improvement

• JAWS script file improvements (see below)
• Translated Line is greatly improved and more responsive.
• Math improvements (see below)
• DBT Templates are now readable text files. This allows skilled users to assemble their own templates much more easily. (See Anatomy of a Template.)
• New Template for users in the United Kingdom: English (UEB) - UK Formatting (UKAAF)
• New Table of Contents Style - UK Basic - which follows UKAAF formatting recommendations.
• Improvements to the UEB translator (Unified English Braille) (see below)
• New embossers and embosser improvements (see below)
• TactileView integration repaired.
• Many internal efficiency improvements.
• Language improvements (see below)

English UEB

• Now supports document-specific Typeform Indicators as defined in the Rules of Unified English BrailleRUEB Section 9 for inkprint attributes that carry meanings the braille reader needs to know about . A range of such indicators can be defined such as the use of Script Font, Text Color or Highlight Color, as well as Drop Shadow and Outline Text. See the new user interface in the Global: Word-Importer dialogue. (See also a Word file example here DBT_Typeform_Indicators.docx)
• Certain currency expressions, when marked as "technical notation," no longer give rise to an unnecessary grade one word indicator.
• When a sequence of single capitalized letters is treated as a passage, the last such letter is included in the passage.
• If [ps]...[pe] (i.e. superscript) codes immediately surround a trademark symbol (U+2122), they are now discarded as redundant.
• Contractions of several uncommon medical terms have been improved.

New Embossers and Embosser Fixes

• Support for the Braillo 300 S2 has been added to DBT.
• TranSend SE is now supported on Romeo 60 and Juliet 120.

JAWS Improvements

• JAWS now has better support for the DBT Spell Checker.
• When reading a line as braille characters, for multiple spaces JAWS now says the number of spaces instead of speaking each space individually.
• The JAWS script files for DBT include several new keyboard commands:
  • Alt+Comma - once, speaks the current column position; twice, speaks the number of remaining characters on the line.
  • Alt+Period - once, speaks the number of characters on the line; twice, speaks the number of spaces on the left.
  • Alt+Slash: speaks the last word on the line.
  • Alt+Semicolon - new keystroke to toggle between the PC cursor and the JAWS cursor at the start of the translated line.
• No digits are missing when you press Alt+9 to hear location information.
• JAWS consistently speaks the new page number when you move from one page to another in a DBT document.
• For those using JAWS with refreshable braille using grade 2 translation, JAWS no longer says "computer braille" when DBT switches to a braille document window and the JAWS translation setting for refreshable braille changes to computer braille. Those announcements could be frequent, and users found them annoying.

Math Improvements

• For translating into Nemeth Code in UEB context, we have solved a problem that caused intermittent errors at the start of math sections, such as a missing numeric indicator for a number at the start of a Nemeth Code section.
• When importing a LaTeX file (from Scientific Notebook or another source) to create Nemeth Code in a UEB context, DBT now correctly suppresses the terminating and starting Nemeth indicators where there should be a "pass through in math" section; it also puts in the "one-word switch" where appropriate.
• When importing math for Nemeth Code in UEB context, embedded text in a math expression that occurs inside a pass through in math section no longer causes problems.
• The translated line no longer drops spaces in certain locations. Specifically, use of the math style now does not cause a space to be dropped on the translated line.
• When importing a LaTeX file that uses the command \includegraphics, the DBT document now gives the filename of the graphics file.

User Interface

• The Global, Word-Importer dialogue has a new option for mapping font characteristics to transcriber-defined Typeform Indicators for English UEB. (See Global: Word Importer)
• Selecting the correct language for Han character import now happens automatically with the choice of a DBT template. (Previously this selection always had to be done manually from the Global, Import Options dialogue, and that option is still allowed if the user wishes to continue to specify the choice directly.)
• DBT updates documents immediately when certain global options are changed.

Miscellaneous Changes

• We have improved the display of the translated line in formatted print documents for languages that introduce discretionary hyphens.
• We have added two spaces to the formatted-view translated line at each place where a tab code is present in the markup.
• We have eliminated the introduction of a bullet and space at the start of some "numbered" paragraphs in .docx files, where Word itself does not show them.
• Treatment of blank cells in columnar tables has been amended to come more completely into compliance with BANA Guidelines.
• The BANA Listed Table format now conforms to BANA Formats 2011 (11.16.1.e), so that for each row, the first element is formatted as a cell-5 heading. (That first element is normally labeled with the column heading.)
• A Byte Order Mark, if present, is now stripped from the start of Unicode text imports, particularly when imported through DBT's formatted text importer.
• DBT now adds codes to control spacing within the Exact Translation style when importing Word .doc and .docx files.

Language Improvements

Country	Improvements
	Biblical Languages: many improvements, including a practical braille-to-print translator.
	Bosnian: braille-to-print now uses the new Croatian braille-to-print translator.
	Cantonese (Yue): now uses space as a tone mark in restricted circumstances. Has an improved braille-to-print translator.
	Chinese Mandarin: improved file importer, improved print-to-braille and braille-to-print translation. It is now possible to mix Chinese and English. (English segments must start with a capital letter).
	Croatian: now with a functional braille-to-print translator.
	Danish: braille-to-print translation properly uses the exclamation mark (when the dropped 'f' is at the end of a word) and better handles a contraction before a period (full stop).
	Dzongkha: DBT supports the new braille rules.
	IPA: handles the UEB indicators for brackets and slash.
	Korean: the braille-to-print translation has many improvements.
	Portuguese: now handles four additional punctuation marks in braille-to-print translation.
	Slovenian: the braille-to-print direction now uses the new Croatian braille-to-print translator.
	Spanish: braille-to-print translation can produce a proper period in all contexts.
	Thai: fixed two formerly incorrect characters in print-to-braille.
	Venda: improvements in print-to-braille; now includes a functional braille-to-print translator.
	Welsh (Cymraeg): fixed some previously incorrect contractions.