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From: danj1@ihlpz.att.com (Daniel Jacobson)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: TeX and Braille
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Date: 7 Mar 91 05:08:02 GMT
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[This is from the comp.text.tex newsgroup]
from: raman@elli.cs.cornell.edu (T. V. Raman)
date: 25 Feb 91 20:24:02 GMT
organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY

In article <1991Feb25.170722.4504@irisa.fr> delaunay@irisa.fr
(Christophe Delaunay) writes:
|Hi!
|
|In article <1991Feb22.201926.9560@ioe.lon.ac.uk> teexdwu@ioe.lon.ac.uk (DOMINIK WUJASTYK) writes:
|>In article <1991Feb21.163517.6563@maths.tcd.ie> tim@maths.tcd.ie (Timothy Murphy) writes:
|>>
|>>A friend asked me:
|>>Does anybody use TeX to transcribe mathematics into braille math ?
|>>
|>>But I'd be interested to learn on any use  of TeX with Braille,
|>>particularly in conjunction with mathematics.
|>
|>There does exist a Braille font for TeX.  I think it is just PK files
|>at 300 dpi, which may mean that it is derived from some other
|>font format, not done in Metafont.  The bad news is that I can't 
|>remember where I saw it.  It was a listserv in Germany, perhaps
|>dhdurz1, but perhaps not.  Could anyone be more specific?
|>
|>As I recall, the font was not a math font, but text.
|>
|>Dominik
|
|Sure.  I obtained this package from our local TeX specialist but I don't
|know where he got it from.  The package he gave me is compounded of
|three files: two font definition files and a ".sty" file for printing
|the text in a correct Braille format.  Problem: The version I have
|doesn't seem to translate LaTeX math symbols into Braille ones.  I'm
|interested by this package to print LaTeX documents into Braille for me,
|(I'm blind), and a small group of blind and non-blind people.
|Personnally, I like LaTeX for making my document because, in "normal
|cases", I don't have to worry a lot about my document presentation.  By
|normal cases, I mean text documents and no slides, graphics or some
|letters that need a special presentation.  It's much easier for me to
|make nice looking documents with LaTeX than with other text processors
|like troff, Word5 or Wordstar.  The Braille font will allow us to print
|a same document either in Braille or in an ordinary format.  The
|package I have seems just fine for us because we don't often need math
|fonts.  The problem is that I couldn't experiment it yet because we
|have a Braille printer but we are looking for a PC!  I was told that we
|may have one soon.
|
|Christophe.  e-mail: delaunay@irisa.irisa.fr

Could you  send me more information about the files you speak of?
What exactly can these files generate given a complicated tex
document?  Does it generate  simple grade 1 Braille, or does it know
about grade 2 contractions etc?

I would be interested in any information  people could  give me about
this or any related subject.

I use a talking terminal to interact with my computer, and also
Braille for class notes,  but personally use Braille very little.

--Raman
|			      T.V.Raman                                       |
|       311 Sage Hall Ex:5-7626        ||      4155 Upson Hall Ex:5-5565     |
|  Email: raman@macomb.tn.cornell.edu  ||         raman@cs.cornell.edu       |
|    Centre for Applied Mathematics   ||    Department of Computer Science    |