[Athen] Is SimBraille in Word documents compatible with refreshable braille displays?

[Deborah Armstrong via athen-list]

In general when a student wants something like large print or Braille before you do a lot of work, make sure they can read a sample.
I often have students who “know” Braille because they took a class and can now keep track of phone numbers and read elevator signs. They quickly find out that reading Braille academically is not going to work with their limited skill set. If they really need to practice they can order fiction from their NLS regional library.
Same with large print. I give them a small sample first to find out if it’s going to work for them, because actually I want them using a video magnifier because everyone’s limited vision is so different and hardcopy large print is not that flexible. I can give them samples with different sizes using Lucida sans and if that’s hard for them to see, then they need to use a screen reader.
People trying to escape from large printor master Braille do well too if they have only a portion of the work in that format. For example, classroom handouts in large print hardcopy and read the textbook with a magnifier. Or Braille for handouts but use a screen reader for exams and reading the textbook.
Anyway, hopefully a sample will help  the student.



From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Michael Cantino via athen-list
Sent: Wednesday, June 4, 2025 1:29 PM
To: athen-list at u.washington.edu; athen-list-request at mailman22.u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Athen] Is SimBraille in Word documents compatible with refreshable braille displays?

I agree with Deborah. Give the student a file, and let them determine how well it will work.
That said, I don't see how it could work outside of a BRF file. I tested it with my braille display, and it did not provide me with the correct braille transcription. Here's a quick explanation of where this is breaking down.

  *   I typed the text "This is plain text with simbraille." into a Word document. If I change this font to simbraille, you won't be able to tell the difference on the braille display because only the font is changing. Visually, the braille will start to look incorrect (like dots 4-6 for a period instead of dots 2-5-6)
  *   This really starts to break down once you prepare the simbraille as a correct braille transcription. Using the same sample text as before, the sentence would look like this: ",? is pla9 text ) simbrl4"

     *   The screen reader is going to translate this text into either contracted or uncontracted braille because it still thinks it's looking at print. It doesn't know that it's already being provided with a braille translation.
     *   The capital indicator will be translated as a comma. The th- contraction (represented by the question mark) will be translated as a question mark. The -in contraction (represented by a 9) will be translated as a 9, and so on.

  *   Even if you write out the text as if it's uncontracted simbraille and you set your screen reader settings to translate into uncontracted braille, you're still going to have issues. Capitalization indicators, punctuation, and other symbols will not be interpreted correctly. Something like a number indicator, which is the # symbol in simbraille, will be translated as the 2-cell braille equivalent (_#) in uncontracted or contracted braille.
Basically, you can't trick the display into not translating the print text. The best you could do is give it nice, clean print text to translate, but you'll still run into issues with symbols that are unique to braille, like the transcriber note indicator.

Good luck! If someone else cracks this, I would be very interested to know.

Michael Cantino (he/him)
BVIS Technology Specialist
Northwest Regional Education Service District
(503)614-1339

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