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<html><head><title>
LaTeX2e package for typesetting Braille
</title></head><body bgcolor="whitesmoke">
<center>
<p><big><big>LaTeX2e package for typesetting Braille</big></big></p>
<p><big>William Park <a href="mailto:opengeometry@yahoo.ca"><opengeometry@yahoo.ca></a></big></p>
<p><big>April 1999</big></p>
</center>
<h2><a name="Sec1">1 Introduction</a></h2>
<p>This package allows user to produce Braille documents on
paper for the blind without knowing Braille which can take years to
learn. Essentially, Python scripts <b>grade1.py</b> and
<b>grade2.py</b> convert ordinary text to grade 1 and 2 braille tags;
then, LaTeX2e package <b>braille.sty</b> takes the tags and prints out
corresponding braille symbols.
<h2><a name="Sec2">2 braille.sty</a></h2>
LaTeX2e package <b>braille.sty</b> defines macros, commands,
and fonts to typeset 6-dot braille symbols. Both Grade 1 and 2
Braille are supported. All 189 grade 2 contractions are defined;
however, some puctuation symbols are missing simply because I couldn't
find them. List of TeX macros and braille symbols can be found in
<b>summary.tex</b> and <b>summary.pdf</b>.
The full usage is
<xmp>\usepackage[puttinydots,useemptybox]{braille}</xmp>
where <tt>puttinydots</tt> puts <tt>{\tiny.}</tt> at all dot positions
for visual check, and <tt>useemptybox</tt> uses empty braille box
instead of <tt>\hskip</tt>. In addition, 4 macros are available to
the user:
<ul>
<li><tt>\braillebox{}</tt> -- LaTeX picture box used as braille font
<li><tt>\brailleunit</tt> -- <tt>\unitlength</tt> for <tt>\braillebox{}</tt>
<li><tt>\brailledot{}</tt> -- actual dot printed in <tt>\braillebox{}</tt>
<li><tt>\braille{}</tt> -- main user command
</ul>
The command <tt>\braille{}</tt> is used to print braille
"text" or tags which are made up of
<ul>
<li> single characters, such as <tt>a</tt>, <tt>b</tt>, <tt>1</tt>,
<tt>?</tt>, <tt>!</tt>
<li> string enclosed in {}, such as <tt>{this}</tt>, <tt>{every}</tt>,
<tt>{his}</tt>, <tt>{''}</tt>
</ul>
For example, given input text of <tt>I {like} {com}put{er}</tt>, it
will print braille symbols for <i>I</i>, <i>like</i>, <i>com</i>,
<i>p</i>, <i>u</i>, <i>t</i>, <i>er</i>, along with the 2 spaces.
Therefore, you can type braille paragraph just as you would
type normal text paragraph. To print single character, type that
character. To print multi-character contraction, type that string
enclosed in {}. Because of the way TeX processes macro arguments, if
the argument is more than one line, then put at least one space after
newline (<tt>\n</tt>). Spaces at the end of line, and tabs and
newlines everywhere are ignored; but, multiple spaces in between words
collapse to single space.
<p>For example, if you want to insult someone,
<pre>
\usepackage{braille}
\braille{May you live in an interesting time.}
</pre>
will print grade 1 braille,
<p> <img height="72" width="636" src="braillegif1.gif">
<p>and
<pre>\braille{May {you} live {in} an {in}t{er}e{st}{ing} {time}.}</pre>
will print grade 2 braille,
<p> <img height="72" width="534" src="braillegif2.gif">
<p>Now, if you can read and write Braille, then you can type
the braille tags manually. But, since my knowledge of Braille is
limited and recent, I wrote Python scripts to generate the braille
tags automatically.
<h2><a name="Sec3">3 grade1.py, grade2.py</a></h2>
<p>Grade 1 Braille is simple character-by-character
translation of text. Most braille tags are the same as text
characters. However, some puctuation markups, such as double and
single quotations, are made up of multi-character string which must be
enclosed in {} in order to be understood by LaTeX.
<p>Grade 2 Braille defines translation of 189 common strings
and where they can be used. Since braille tags here are the same
multi-character string as the text, they must be enclosed in {}. The
complexity of grade 2 is not so much in the replacement of strings,
words, or part of words, but it is in figuring out whether the
replacement can take place. The rules for applying grade 2
contractions are complicated with many exceptions; sometimes you can
replace it, sometimes you can't.
<p>The Python scripts <b>grade1.py</b> and <b>grade2.py</b>
take ordinary text and generate grade 1 and 2 braille tags as defined
by <b>braille.sty</b>. Since the output is returned all in one line,
the scripts are originally designed to be used from text editor which
can format a long line into multi-line paragraph. The command line
usages are
<dl>
<dd>python grade1.py < <i>text_file</i> > <i>tag_file</i>
<dd>python grade2.py < <i>text_file</i> > <i>tag_file</i>
</dl>
or their usage as python module are
<dl>
<dd><i>string</i> = grade1.convert(<i>string</i>)
<dd><i>string</i> = grade2.convert(<i>string</i>)
</dl>
<h2><a name="Sec4">4 Table of Contents</a></h2>
<ul>
<li> <a href="#Sec1">1 Introduction</a>
<li> <a href="#Sec2">2 braille.sty</a>
<li> <a href="#Sec3">3 grade1.py, grade2.py</a>
<li> <a href="#Sec4">4 Table of Contents</a>
</ul>
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