[Athen] [EXTERNAL] - Re: Is SimBraille in Word documents compatible with refreshable braille displays?

[Hayman, Douglass via athen-list]

I could do slightly earlier than this.  Have to drop my car off that morning for an oil change and they close at 5.  Could we do 3:30 to 4:30 or 3 to 4?

Doug Hayman
IT Accessibility Coordinator
Information Technology
Olympic College
dhayman at olympic.edu<mailto:dhayman at olympic.edu>
(360) 475-7632



From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Sara Larkin via athen-list
Sent: Wednesday, June 4, 2025 1:46 PM
To: Michael Cantino <mcantino at nwresd.k12.or.us>; Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>; athen-list-request at mailman22.u.washington.edu
Subject: [EXTERNAL] - Re: [Athen] Is SimBraille in Word documents compatible with refreshable braille displays?

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Definitely try it and check with the student. The only way that I can think of that it might work is if it has already been translated to braille using some form of translation software, copied into the document, and converted to SimBraille or some other braille font and the student is using computer braille. Then it is just showing the braille cell that corresponds to the character. Computer braille is the only setting that will keep the corresponding characters without translation, but it would still require the translation software before copying it into the document, otherwise, like others have said, the translation used by the screen reader would change it for everything except computer braille. If you did that though, it may work for the braille display, but the screen reader would not voice it correctly. That is just my suspicion anyway. Our students have never asked for SimBraille or any form of braille in a Word document, since they would generally use the screenreader and let its capabilities and setting do the work for translation.
Sara

[IESBVI Logo]
Sara Larkin
Statewide Math Consultant
(319) 310-6070
3501 Harry Langdon Boulevard, Council Bluffs, IA 51503
https://www.iesbvi.org/


From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu>> On Behalf Of Michael Cantino via athen-list
Sent: Wednesday, June 4, 2025 3:29 PM
To: athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>; athen-list-request at mailman22.u.washington.edu<mailto: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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