braille translating/editing software for Lion?

By Philippa, 9 February, 2012

Forum
Braille on Apple Products
hi everyone. really sorry if this post has already been bought up, but do you any of you use any braille translation/editing software on your Mac with voice over? i have tried Lewy and looked at iBraille but they are both old! any working alternatives you'd recommend? many thanks!

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By frank perry on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 11:55

Hi. Even though I do not use braille, I have 2 websites to suggest. Again, note, I don't know if the programs they have actually work with lion or not but here goes. www.humanware.com www.freedomscientific.com Again, I would still like to hear what you get as a program to do the braille translations and editing so please feel free to post any positive or negative experiences. Note, these types of software won't come cheaply.

By fos on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 11:55

I use Perky Duck to generate the braille code. It only works in windows so I use it in a virtual windows on my MacBook Pro. I use VMWare Fusion for my virtualization software. You can find Perky Duck at: http://www.duxburysystems.com/product2.asp?product=Perky%20Duck&level=free It is free. Duxburry has more capable software but it VERY expensive. There are several open source low vision projects such as Orca that work in Linux. There may Mac ports available. Vinux is a linux distro based on Ubuntu that works well. http://vinuxproject.org/about If you can elaborate on your needs, I may be able to come up with something else. fos

By Philippa on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 11:55

thank you both! i haven't found any successful programs yet. I just need a simple braille translator where I can import a file and braille it. i have a version of duxbury but it looks like it only works on windows. how reliable are the virtual windows environments? i don't want to upset my lovely Mac!!! many thanks.
I have used both Parallels and VMWare on my Macs. Macs also include boot camp free with the operating system. I personally prefer VMWare Fusion. I can open other operating systems as a window on my OS X home screen and still have access to all of the OS X applications at the same time. I currently have FreeBSD, Win XP with ZoomText and Jaws, Vinux, and CentOS as virtual operating systems on my MacBook Pro. I have found VMWare Fusion to be very reliable and stable. In my setup, VMWare uses about 35 GB of my 500 GB disk. I'm knocking on wood, now that I have bragged about my setup it might start giving me the spinning rainbow!!! :) fos

By Philippa on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 11:55

I guess I should look into this then. my brother uses VM fusion too, but he is not using voice over. i guess i was hoping there would have been something out there for Macs because i just need this one program and it seems a lot of trouble for 1 program. but if that's what i have to do then that's what i'll do. so i guess if i installed windows on VM fusion i'd need jaws? many thanks.

By Chuck Winstead on Wednesday, February 22, 2017 - 11:55

Hello,
I have've not seen any braille software for the Mac as far as this goes. I have Tiger on my Windows machine. I just use that and Microsoft Word. There really needs to be software like this for the mac. As far as I know. Ducks Barry is not VoiceOver accessible, and not mac compatible. Nighter is Tiger.
My embosser i have is a ViewPlus Embosser that can do braille and images.