Braille translation software recommendations

By Louise, 18 May, 2024

Forum
Assistive Technology

I got the Juliette 120 braille printer at work. It's great, but without translation software, I'm not getting things like blank lines, centering, etc. Everything I print is just one long block of text with only paragraph indents.

I know about Duxbury, but haven't used it in years and years. Is it the best solution, or are their better?

And has anyone figured out how to get spreadsheets to make sense when printed in braille?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

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Comments

By PaulMartz on Thursday, May 23, 2024 - 11:23

Keep us informed on what you discover.

I've got a long-ish non-fiction manuscript I'd like transcribed into Braille. I expect I'll use some automated tool, then pay a transcriber to clean it up, with the final product being a BRF file that could be downloaded to a Braille display or printed. We'll see.

By TJT 2001 on Thursday, May 23, 2024 - 11:23

To Louise, Duxbury is still the best, but if you don't have the money for it, BrailleBlaster and Sao Mai Braille are free and roughly equal in functionality for transcribing standard literary material. There's also Braille 2000, which costs a little less than Duxbury, but I haven't tried it.

Duxbury allows you to import Excel files. I don't think either of the other two apps allows you to do that. Duxbury also offers several options for formatting the table. For example, you can choose to have the text arranged in columns; you can have each column going down the page with rows separated by a blank line; you can have each column going down the page indented by two cells; and so on. I haven't explored the table formatting options of the other apps.

To Paul, if that manuscript is what I think it is, I'd be happy to assist with transcription if I can. You can email me if you'd like to discuss it further.