Sample Files for Demonstrating
Duxbury DBT Braille Translator
at Exhibit Venues
The Purpose of this web page (samples.htm) is to enhance the
demonstration of the Duxbury DBT braille translator for different languages.
Imagine you were demonstrating Duxbury DBT at a convention exhibit.
Someone approaches and asks you to show Duxbury DBT stranslating Polish text into Polish braille.
With this web page you can do so in a few seconds.
Some exhibit halls or demonstration venues offer Internet access, some do not.
This material works with or without Internet access.
If you want to demonstrate these files without Internet access, you need to do preparation
to copy the necessary files onto media you carry to the exhibit area.
You also need to practice so the demonstration can happen smoothly.
Most of the samples have a portion of the Wikipedia entry about growing apples (the fruit, not the company).
This is a work in progress. Any Sample File URL containing zz.doc is not prepared yet.
Occasionally someone brand new to Duxbury DBT needs to quickly run a test. They need to answer the question Does Duxbury DBT produce proper Uzbec Braille? (substitute your favorite language). So they need to download DBT (a demo will do), download one of these sample files, set up an embosser, and quickly produce a sample to see if this technology is going to function properly. The purpose of this section is to try to explain some of the basic issues so you can accomplish this task.
Duxbury DBT can be downloaded from the Duxbury Systems website and used as a demo without a license. When you use DBT in its demo mode, the braille produced has deliberate flaws. You need to decide when you to purchase a license so you can produce proper braille. Please do not get caught up saying "I need to produce perfect braille before I can purchase a license". You can e-mail a Microsoft Word file to Duxbury Systems and we can e-mail back a Duxbury DBT dxb file, if that would help you decide if the quality of the braille translator meets your standards.
Duxbury DBT has been localized for about 10 languages. If you have 1-4 weeks to spare, you can help us localize Duxbury DBT into your language.
For some applications, you want DBT to keep track of different languages in a single file. Microsoft Word embeds language tags in your file to mark the places where the author switches to a different language. Since all of these files are in a single language, we do not want to have DBT see any of these language tags (they cannot improve things, and they might interfer). We recommend that you go to the Global Menu, then select Word Importer and check the bottom checkbox to ignore language tags. You can uncheck the box at a later time.
The Duxbury DBT Help Menu has an item called Translate Help. Translate Help uses Google Translate to give access to the DBT Help text.
Duxbury DBT primarily imports Microsoft Word files that use Unicode fonts. For those who do not like to purchase Microsoft software, there is an alternative from Open Office. If a user has material not encoded in a Unicode font, it may not work with Duxbury DBT.
Press Control-O to Open a file within DBT, for the demonstrations we have arranged with this web site, paste the Sample File URL into the Open File Selection, then Press Enter
Duxbury DBT keeps track of whether a file is Print or Braille. When you Open one of the sample files, make sure you select the Print radio button.
Duxbury Systems uses a construct called a Template to set the Braille Translation rules that are to be used. The Template is selected when you open a file. In the chart below, each language has a Sample File URL, and also lists the DBT Template that you are to select.
If you do not see the Template you want in the list provided for you, select Region from the center of the Screen. In the next screen, select All Regions. Now you should be able to find the DBT Template you are looking for.
For Arabic, Hebrew, and Urdu, the characters are shown left-to-right. Braille is always left to right. For these languages, you do not want to do any editing in DBT. Instead, do your editing in Microsoft Word.
For Urdu, you may need to install the special font that is referenced in the chart below.
For Korean, the characters are broken down to their individual sounds. Again do your editing in Microsoft Word.
When it is appropriate in your demonstration, press Control-T to Translate into Braille
If you need to, press Control-F6 to switch to a Braille font, or Control-F5 to switch to an ASCII font.
If you are new to Duxbury DBT, please work with DBT, and use the Control-F5 and Control-F6 commands so you know which font to use (ASCII or Braille) to show Duxbury DBT to your customer.
The last element in a rushed braille test is getting physical braille. Here we have to say there is no way to do this quickly. There are so many different variations of computers, operating systems, ports, connecting devices, embossers, firmware revisions that this is not easy. To get started in a hurry, go to the DBT Global Menu, Embosser Setup.
The single biggest problem in setting up embossers is not changing the prompt Output Options to Send to Printer instead of Write to Port. The setting Write to Port is useful on older computers. The link below on USB connections is especially valuable.
samples.htm
[drive letter]\dbt_samples\samp_[drive letter].htm on your portable media
This might be the biggest collection of electronic files on the internet showing samples of different languages (which does not rely on graphics to show difficult scripts). All of these files are encoded in Unicode.
| Flags | Language | Sample File URL | DBT Template Name |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Afrikaans | samples/afrikaans-af.docx | Afrikaans |
 | Amharic | samples/amharic-am.docx | Amharic |
  | Arabic | samples/arabic-ar.docx | Arabic |
| English | samples/english-en.docx | English (UEB) - UK formatting |
  | Éwé | samples/ewe.docx | Ewe |
  | Hausa | samples/hausa-ha.docx | Hausa |
| Igbo | samples/igbo-ig.docx | Igbo |
 | Ndebele | samples/ndebele-nr.docx | Ndebele |
| Nguni | samples/nguni.docx | Nguni (Xhosa/Zulu) |
 | Somali | samples/somali-so.docx | Somali |
| Sotho (Southern or Northern (Pedi)) | samples/sotho.docx | Sotho (Southern or Northern (Pedi)) |
  | Swahili | samples/swahili-sw.docx | Swahili |
 | Swati | samples/swati.docx | Swati |
| Tigrinya | samples/tigrinya.docx | Tigrinya |
 | Tsonga | samples/tsonga.docx | Tsonga |
| Tswana | samples/tswana.docx | Tswana |
| Venda | samples/venda.docx | Venda |
| Xhosa | samples/xhosa-xh.docx | Xhosa |
| Yoruba | samples/yoruba-yo.docx | Yoruba |
| Zulu | samples/zulu-zu.docx | Zulu |
| Flags | Language | Sample File URL | DBT Template Name | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | English | samples/styles.docx | English (American Textbook DE) - BANA | styles from BANA Word Template are properly imported into DBT |
