What was New in Previous Versions?

The following is a basic summary of additions or changes to earlier versions of DBT.

A detailed change history is available on the Internet at https://www.duxburysystems.com.

DBT 12.2 SR1

Template Improvements

• The BANA Template for Word, "2017.dot" has new features since its initial release, for example, the Line Continuation Indicator for controlling line breaks on long text, and many new controls for Nemeth math in UEB (& EBAE). This template synchronizes with SWIFT 5.5, also now available.

• The "English (UEB) - UK Formatting (UKAAF)" template is updated with new styles, and streamlined, with rarely used styles hidden and unused styles deleted. For a more detailed explanation of this template, please see Styles in the English (UEB) - UK Formatting (UKAAF) Template.

• The Exercise style in the "English (UEB) - BANA with Nemeth" template is fixed, removing a hidden right margin.

• The Australian UEB Template is improved, with several issues fixed.

• New styles in all UEB templates enable ALL CAPS passages to continue across multiple paragraphs (CapTgr), fine control of capitalized passages (CapBreak), and control over line breaks on long URLs, email addresses, etc, (Continuation). (We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the Australian Braille Authority.)

• The DBT templates, "English (BANA Pre-UEB Textbook DE) - BANA" and "English (BANA Pre-UEB Textbook DE) - BANA with Nemeth", now remove unwanted blank lines in several circumstances, such as between second and third level headings.

DBT Editor Improvements

• Substantial additions and updates to DBT Help.

• The DBT Find function now accepts braille fonts in a search string. Likewise, a hard hyphen can once again be part of a search string (restoring 12.1 functionality).

• DBT's automatic table of contents function now closely aligns with UKAAF guidelines when working in the "UK basic" TOC style. The TOC user interface has new controls to set Fill Codes and End Codes to facilitate this.

• Text from DBT may be copied and pasted into "CorelDRAW".

• A DBT file may be inserted into another file (restoring functionality).

• DBT can now reload images saved in .dxp and .dxb files even if the images have no labels.

Math Improvements

• In the LaTeX importer, math elements with text above arrows and text below arrows are now handled.

• Math imports now have improved automatic placement of the End-Nemeth code.

Miscellaneous Changes

• Performance of the Word Importer has been improved (8% overall) with dramatic speed-up for files with many links (URLs) in them such as Wikipedia articles.

• Per the new formatting rules, linear tables no longer have a period at the end of a line.

• DBT now allows braille entry of dots 456 (underscore) via a braille device linked using JAWS.

• Most, possibly all, of the circumstances that caused generating braille fonts to fail have been eliminated. Should any remain, the provisions for diagnosing and fixing the problem are much improved. (This issue affected only a few customers.)

Language Improvements
Country Improvements
Flag of Biblical Biblical Original Languages: updates are now based on the recent English UEB table.
Danish Flag Danish: a question mark as a word ending does not disrupt contractions in braille-to-print.
French Flag French: updated to ensure use of dots 36 in a contraction is not confused with a hyphen.
Flag of Israel
Flag of the United States 		Hebrew (American): this table is now based on the latest UEB table. The translated line now respects the language context to display both English and Hebrew correctly.
Hungarian Flag Hungarian: improved translation in the braille-to-print direction.
International Phonetic Alphabet Flag IPA: fix one character on braille-to-print.
Mongolian Flag Mongolian: improved braille-to-print translation to recognize emphasis, as well as other changes.
Flag of Myanmar Myanmar: translation has been totally rebuilt and demonstrates high accuracy.
Flag of Norway Norwegian: fix one serious contraction error in braille-to-print.
Flag of Poland Polish: improved grade one braille, plus improved punctuation both directions.
Flag of Slovenia Slovenian: improvements in print-to-braille translation.
Flag of Spain Spanish: fix more punctuation, add certain Guarani characters; support emphasis in braille-to-print.
Flag of Taiwan Taiwan-style Chinese Mandarin: improved print-to-braille and braille-to-print translators, uses Zhuyin characters intead of Pinyin. It is now possible to mix Chinese and English as long as English segments start with a capital letter. (Originally intended for DBT 12.2, and now available.)
Ethiopian Flag The Tigrinya language now has a functional back translator.

DBT 12.2

Primary Areas of Improvement

  • JAWS script file improvements (see below)
  • Translated Line is greatly improved and more responsive.
  • Math improvements (see below)
  • DBT templates are now readable text files. This allows skilled users to assemble their own templates much more easily.
  • New template for users in the United Kingdom: English (UEB) - UK Formatting (UKAAF)
  • New Table of Contents Style - UK Basic - which follows UKAAF formatting recommendations.
  • Improvements to the UEB translator (Unified English Braille) (see below)
  • New embossers and embosser improvements (see below)
  • TactileView integration repaired.
  • Many internal efficiency improvements.
  • Language improvements (see below)

English UEB

  • Now supports document-specific Typeform Indicators as defined in the RUEB Section 9 for inkprint attributes that carry meanings the braille reader needs to know about . A range of such indicators can be defined such as the use of Script Font, Text Color or Highlight Color, as well as Drop Shadow and Outline Text. See the new user interface in the Global: Word-Importer dialogue. (See also a Word file example here DBT_Typeform_Indicators.docx)
  • Certain currency expressions, when marked as "technical notation," no longer give rise to an unnecessary grade one word indicator.
  • When a sequence of single capitalized letters is treated as a passage, the last such letter is included in the passage.
  • If [ps]...[pe] (i.e. superscript) codes immediately surround a trademark symbol (U+2122), they are now discarded as redundant.
  • Contractions of several uncommon medical terms have been improved.

New Embossers and Embosser Fixes

  • Support for the Braillo 300 S2 has been added to DBT.
  • TranSend SE is now supported on Romeo 60 and Juliet 120.

JAWS Improvements

  • JAWS now has better support for the DBT Spell Checker.
  • When reading a line as braille characters, for multiple spaces JAWS now says the number of spaces instead of speaking each space individually.
  • The JAWS script files for DBT include several new keyboard commands:
    • Alt+Comma - once, speaks the current column position; twice, speaks the number of remaining characters on the line.
    • Alt+Period - once, speaks the number of characters on the line; twice, speaks the number of spaces on the left.
    • Alt+Slash: speaks the last word on the line.
    • Alt+Semicolon - new keystroke to toggle between the PC cursor and the JAWS cursor at the start of the translated line.
  • No digits are missing when you press Alt+9 to hear location information.
  • JAWS consistently speaks the new page number when you move from one page to another in a DBT document.
  • For those using JAWS with refreshable braille using grade 2 translation, JAWS no longer says "computer braille" when DBT switches to a braille document window and the JAWS translation setting for refreshable braille changes to computer braille. Those announcements could be frequent, and users found them annoying.

Math Improvements

  • For translating into Nemeth Code in UEB context, we have solved a problem that caused intermittent errors at the start of math sections, such as a missing numeric indicator for a number at the start of a Nemeth Code section.
  • When importing a LaTeX file (from Scientific Notebook or another source) to create Nemeth Code in a UEB context, DBT now correctly suppresses the terminating and starting Nemeth indicators where there should be a "pass through in math" section; it also puts in the "one-word switch" where appropriate.
  • When importing math for Nemeth Code in UEB context, embedded text in a math expression that occurs inside a pass through in math section no longer causes problems.
  • The translated line no longer drops spaces in certain locations. Specifically, use of the math style now does not cause a space to be dropped on the translated line.
  • When importing a LaTeX file that uses the command \includegraphics, the DBT document now gives the filename of the graphics file.

User Interface

  • The Global, Word-Importer dialogue has a new option for mapping font characteristics to transcriber-defined Typeform Indicators for English UEB. (See Global: Word Importer)
  • Selecting the correct language for Han character import now happens automatically with the choice of a DBT template. (Previously this selection always had to be done manually from the Global, Import Options dialogue, and that option is still allowed if the user wishes to continue to specify the choice directly.)
  • DBT updates documents immediately when certain global options are changed.

Miscellaneous Changes

  • We have improved the display of the translated line in formatted print documents for languages that introduce discretionary hyphens.
  • We have added two spaces to the formatted-view translated line at each place where a tab code is present in the markup.
  • We have eliminated the introduction of a bullet and space at the start of some "numbered" paragraphs in .docx files, where Word itself does not show them.
  • Treatment of blank cells in columnar tables has been amended to come more completely into compliance with BANA Guidelines.
  • The BANA Listed Table format now conforms to BANA Formats 2011 (11.16.1.e), so that for each row, the first element is formatted as a cell-5 heading. (That first element is normally labeled with the column heading.)
  • A Byte Order Mark, if present, is now stripped from the start of Unicode text imports, particularly when imported through DBT's formatted text importer.
  • DBT now adds codes to control spacing within the Exact Translation style when importing Word .doc and .docx files.

Language Improvements

Language Improvements
Country Improvements
Flag of Biblical Biblical Languages: many improvements, including a practical braille-to-print translator.
Flag of Bosnia Bosnian: braille-to-print now uses the new Croatian braille-to-print translator.
Flag of China Cantonese (Yue): now uses space as a tone mark in restricted circumstances. Has an improved braille-to-print translator.
Flag of China Chinese Mandarin: improved file importer, improved print-to-braille and braille-to-print translation. It is now possible to mix Chinese and English. (English segments must start with a capital letter).
Flag of Croatia Croatian: now with a functional braille-to-print translator.
Flag of Denmark Danish: braille-to-print translation properly uses the exclamation mark (when the dropped 'f' is at the end of a word) and better handles a contraction before a period (full stop).
Flag of Bhutan Dzongkha: DBT supports the new braille rules.
Flag representing the International Phonetic Alphabet IPA: handles the UEB indicators for brackets and slash.
Flag of South Korea Korean: the braille-to-print translation has many improvements.
Flag of Portugal Portuguese: now handles four additional punctuation marks in braille-to-print translation.
Flag of Slovenia Slovenian: the braille-to-print direction now uses the new Croatian braille-to-print translator.
Flag of Spain Spanish: braille-to-print translation can produce a proper period in all contexts.
Flag of Thailand Thai: fixed two formerly incorrect characters in print-to-braille.
South African Flag Venda: improvements in print-to-braille; now includes a functional braille-to-print translator.
Flag of Wales Welsh (Cymraeg): fixed some previously incorrect contractions.

What was New in DBT 12.1 SR1

Primary Improvements

  • In all UEB templates as well as those derived from UEB, the computer braille styles are updated to render accurate word breaking. Only those templates specifically for older (pre-UEB) documents still enforce the Pre-UEB word breaking rules.
  • The four DBT BANA templates (both UEB and Pre-UEB) are once again updated to the most recent versions. This corrects some formatting errors in the 12.1 BANA templates and includes BB-BoxBegin and H1-HeadingCentered.
  • In the English/American (pre-UEB) print-to-braille tables, the output of underline symbols is restored.
  • In the English/Unified (UEB) print-to-braille table certain contractions that follow an apostrophe have been improved.
  • The Afrikaans print-to-braille table and Sotho print-to-braille table have been updated with contraction changes received recently from South Africa.
  • Refinements in the Welsh print-to-braille table restrict shortform usage within large words to the officially approved list and ensure that strings of letters that could be read as extended shortforms are appropriately marked with grade 1 indicators. Other improvements include automated generation of hyphenation points within long technical expressions such as URLs.
  • For Myanmar text, DBT now handles some additional, critical Burmese characters for translating Burmese text to braille.

This service release also features the following JAWS script improvements:

  1. The script files for DBT 12.1 changed the technique for SayWord to insure the whole word was gathered and spoken. This change compromised making a selection. The latest script insures that if a selection is in progress, all the words in the selection are retained.
  2. When using a braille display with JAWS 17, the script files manage the JAWS braille translation settings better (turning off input translation) to ensure that output translation is off when you are viewing a braille document.
  3. The save and restore of a Speech Profile is now limited to JAWS version17 and higher to prevent "unknown function" errors in earlier versions of JAWS.
  4. Repetitious announcements of "computer braille" when the window focus is shifted are now suppressed.

DBT 12.1

Primary Areas of Improvement

  • Many updates to DBT code and translation tables, including UEB.
  • DXP (print) and DXB (braille) files are now interchangeable between DBT for Windows and DBT for Mac version 12.1
  • The Basic DBT templates have been streamlined
  • New embossers and embosser fixes
  • Math improvements
  • 62 step UEB Mangold Method learning series now included in the Learning tables (Click here)
  • Infrastructure changes to fix numerous issues with language switching and the translated line display in DBT
  • Language improvements

DBT Templates Streamlined

  • Historical DBT styles that no longer have effect have been removed
  • Each Basic Template now has ten DBT styles that use language switching:
    • Biblical_lang (Biblical original language studies)
    • English_UEB1 (UEB grade 1)
    • English_UEB2 (UEB grade 2)
    • English_UK_old (British pre-UEB)
    • French
    • German
    • IPA
    • Italian
    • Russian
    • Spanish
  • Italic, bold, and underline styles are now included in every basic language template
  • Improved Russian formatting using a new Word style mapping file, rus.mws
  • Better Australian formatting using a new Word style mapping file, aussie.mws, for UEB braille

Embossers

  • New Embossers supported:
    • ViewPlus Columbia
    • Enabling Juliet 120
    • Enabling Romeo 60
    • Index V5 embossers
  • Embosser fixes:
    • TactileView improved graphics support
    • Nippon Telesoft Gemini Super2 has been renamed as the Nippon Telesoft DOG-Pro
    • Nippon Telesoft DOG-Pro carriage width calculations are more accurate

Mathematics

Numerous additions to math functionality; here are the highlights:

  • Many more unusual mathematics characters are now handled
  • Spacing and control of spacing around function names in UEB math and French math have been improved
  • Better importing of aligned structures
  • Better handling of the Unicode minus sign
  • Nemeth translation has been updated to use dot 6 for the comma when outside of "technical notation" but still in "Nemeth mode." This means that in the English (UEB) - BANA with Nemeth template, a comma in the style math-TextInMath is brailled as dot 6, rather than dots 456,2 following Nemeth rules.

JAWS Developments

Helpful additions in the JAWS script files for DBT, including:

  • A better way for JAWS to announce style markup; it now says "begin style" and "end style"
  • Editing in print and braille documents with JAWS is now snappier
  • When moving by word in a braille document, JAWS no longer speaks the word as braille dots if you are also using a braille device
  • When you press Control+H for highlighting in DBT, JAWS keeps better track of when the highlighting is turned off
  • The script supports the use of a DBT-specific voice profile, with return to the default voice profile on leaving DBT
  • When arrowing left or right in a braille document in coded view with high contrast on, JAWS no longer says "space" for every character
  • In coded view, you can now navigate onto a left brace character ( { )

UEB Updates

  • When translating material into UEB, the translator is more selective about switching to a grade one passage for technical notation
  • Improved auto-hyphenation, including grouping of braille numbers 16 cells or less in length
  • Symbols that are not hyphens nor dashes, but contain dots 36, are no longer allowed as potential line break points
  • The translation of certain unusual names has been fixed
  • The translation of mixed alpha-numerics, such as AA.12, has been adjusted to be easier to read in braille
  • Mid-line ellipsis (U+22EF), double or triple dots over a variable name, and other uncommon math symbols, are now treated correctly
  • The Latin letter schwa (U+0259) and primary and secondary stress symbols, when entered as U+02C8 and U+02CC respectively, are now supported
  • Braille-to-print support for Old/Middle English letters: yogh, thorn, eth and wynn
  • Plus many other changes to improve the production of UEB braille

Restored Functionality

  • Restoration of the francais.mws Word style map file
  • Repair of the Hindi file importer

Misc Features

  • Improved read only text controls and their acceptance of keyboard focus
  • Improved identification and differentiation of single and double quotes

Language Improvements

(Listed in Alphabetical Order)
Flag Description
Andorra Flag Catalan: Fixed percent sign and capitalization issues.
Czech Flag Czech: Fixed ten punctuation characters.
Flag of the United Kingdom Many fixes for UEB English.
Hungarian Flag Hungarian: Supports the new fully contracted 2014 Hungarian rules, both print-to-braille and braille-to-print.
Japanese Flag Japanese: Fixed the ryu, and a few other translation items.
South Korean Flag Korean: Fixes to improve both print-to-braille and braille-to-print translators.
Flag of Spain Spanish: added a Puerto Rico variation for certain punctuation marks.
Flag of Spain Spanish: back translation can now produce a number sign (#) with the "forcer" of dots 3456, 13. Additional "forcer" sequences are: dots 45, 56, 26, which produces inverted question mark; dots 45, 45, 26 produces upright question mark; dots 45, 56, 235 produces inverted exclamation mark; and dots 45, 45, 235 produces upright exclamation mark, regardless of context.

What was New In DBT 11.2 SR4

DBT 11.2 SR4 fixes several minor bugs which are serious for a few users. We recommend all users update to 11.2 SR4 to prevent possible future frustration.

What was New In DBT 11.2 SR3

This Service Release includes the following improvements, many of which are significant for some users:

DAISY/NISO Importer

  • A flaw in the DAISY/NISO importer in DBT 11.2 SR2 causing the text of an imported document to be repeated has been fixed.

JAWS Scripts

  • The JAWS script files have been updated to set refreshable braille to six dots whenever you are editing a braille document.

Word File Importer

  • The importation of some space Unicode characters U+2000-200A has been improved. If a thin space (U+2009) is used between groups of digits, this becomes a dot 5 in UEB braille.
  • The importation of some Arabic presentation characters has been improved.
  • Alt Text for MathType objects is now imported in .docx files.
  • DBT more reliably imports (single line) headers and footers from .docx files.
  • When using Braille or Simbraille fonts, all spaces will be retained. This enables simple braille graphics to be produced in Word, which import faithfully in to DBT. (See Simple Braille Graphics for more information/).
  • Whenever the .docx importer places text in a brlinline style, it will also mark that text to preserve all spacing. All spaces in the .docx file should be preserved in the DBT print file.
  • DBT's .doc file importer now avoids cutting short Alt Text.
  • Inserting [lng] codes (to revert to a document's base language) when importing .docx files now works correctly.
  • Improvements have been made in the importing of matrices, determinants, systems of simultaneous equations, piecewise-defined functions, and the like via MathType.

BANA Template

  • The BANA templates supplied with DBT have been updated by Susan Christensen to improve support for the listed table format and direct braille entry. This update includes the BANA Braille 2014 template for Word and the three DBT templates that have BANA in their name.

Unified English Braille (UEB) Literary

  • The various English translators have been updated to treat a right single quote (U+2019) as an apostrophe when followed by a letter.
  • The English/Unified print-to-braille table has been updated to correct the contraction usage in several unusual words, notably certain words commencing with be.
  • The English/Unified print-to-braille translation table has been updated to correct the contraction of the word bein' in certain contexts.
  • The English/Unified print-to-braille translation table has been updated to improve the passage/word choice logic for certain unusual sequences of fully capitalized words.

Unified English Braille (UEB) Mathematical and Technical

A great deal of work has been done (and is still on-going) in connection with "UEB Guidelines for Technical Material". A slightly revised 2014 version of this publication is due to be released soon, and will be available from http://www.iceb.org/ueb.html.

Use of MathType 7.4, rather than earlier versions, improves DBT MathType imports of Word documents with math that was entered with Equation Editor instead of MathType. With earlier versions of MathType, the expressions would come into DBT as displayed math on a separate line even when they are meant to be embedded in the text.

A trial copy of MathType 7.4 is included on the 12.5 CD. Please note that you may only upgrade an existing 6.9 at no charge. You may also obtain it from here [Download 6.9]

Please keep a look out for a newer version of MathType which, at the time of this release, was not available.

If you are running an earlier version of MathType and wish to upgrade, please contact Design Science.

We would also like to formally and sincerely thank Design Science, developers of MathType for their continued co-operation and support.

  • The English/Unified print-to-braille translation table has been updated to support the code [big] for handling enlarged signs of enclosure, and also to support U+2257 (ring over equals).
  • Work is on-going with Matrices, but there have been improvements in this area.
  • The English/Unified translation tables have been updated to support several technical symbols.
  • The English/Unified print-to-braille translation table has been updated to recognize codes [sqrtsN] and [sqrteN] as equivalent to [sqrts] and [sqrte] respectively, and to add support for certain uncommon Unicode symbols.
  • The English/Unified print-to-braille translation table has been updated to correct the output for U+2197 (northeast arrow).

Nemeth Math

Tabular Material

  • Shift-Tab and Tab key navigation through tables with incomplete rows is working more smoothly.
  • Minimum guide dots for tabular material (related columns) has been set to two.
  • There is an adjustment to the number of header rows and header columns presumed for a table when no header column or row count is declared in the htbs code, as is generally the case for any newly-imported table. With the change, tables of related columns will continue to presume one header row only if there are at least two rows in the table. They will continue to presume one header column only if each row contains at least two columns. In all other cases, zero header rows/columns are assumed.

DBT Styles and Codes

  • DBT will more reliably reload the initial style if it is added, removed, or redefined.
  • There is a new code implemented in DBT: [svpalS:N]. It is intended to allow for variations to BANA Braille. See the codes reference for the details.
  • A problem with the [mfce] code has been fixed. The problem prevented resetting behaviors related to runovers.

Embossers and Embossing

  • Interpoint 55 - DBT produces *.x55 files, and these files can be directed to the Interpoint 55 with the Wprint55 program. (Click here for more details)
  • Cosmo embossing now uses a background thread. it is a convenience because it is possible to get back to editing sooner. However, it leaves no way to cancel embossing other than to exit DBT. Exiting DBT will cancel Cosmo embossing without warning.
  • ViewPlus Tiger embossers are now capable of being switched between single and double-sided from within DBT. (See Embossers and Embossing Topic for more details)
  • Viewplus Premier with Ink Connect is now supported.

Language Improvements

Language development is an on-going process, and the introduction of Unified English Braille in some countries, South Africa for example, has resulted in changes being made to languages used within the country.

List of main changes
Country Details
Flag of Armenia Armenian now supporting the U+055B Armenian emphasis character. In ink-print, this is a single character at the end of a word.
Flag of Azerbaijan

Azerbaijani: question mark and curling quotes have been fixed.
Flag of China

Cantonese now handling English text mixed with Cantonese.
Flag of Denmark

Danish now handles lower quote marks.
Dutch Flag We now support the Dutch 2005 braille revision.
Italian Flag

Italian braille-to-print now produces the at-sign correctly
Taiwanese Flag

DBT now supports the Taiwan variation for Mandarin braille.
Flag of Turkey

Turkish letter sign and uncontracted Turkish now function properly.
South African Flag South Africa. The Venda table has been updated. A stub braille-to-print table now uses UEB instead of older forms of English braille. Also Swati and Ndebele each have a single contraction fixed.

What was new in DBT 11.2 SR2

This web Service Release included the following improvements, a few of which are significant for some users:

Word 2007, 2010, 2013

  • The importer for docx files has been improved to allow better recognition of character fonts. Superscript and subscripts are again properly recognized.

  • Braille fonts and Courier (and Consolas) fonts are recognized.

  • Bold, Italic, and Underline recognized when applied through a character style, unless the character style is mapped into a DBT style.
  • The latest BANA Template for Word has been included.

Unified English Braille (UEB)

UEB will begin being formally taught in UK schools in September this year (2014). Users are therefore advised to ensure that upgrades have been applied to older versions.

  • There have been a number of very minor changes made to the UEB tables in this release due to clarification of some rules by ICEB.
  • A new template, named "English (Unified) - UK formatting" has been added to simplify the production of UEB braille while using current UK formatting conventions. The template parallels the existing "English (British) - with capitals" template in that it contains all of the same style names. Most styles are identically defined, but where necessary style definitions have been adapted for UEB. In particular, the <acronym> style has been set to null since no special treatment is required for acronyms in UEB.
  • A new template, named "English (Unified) - BANA" has been added to simplify the production of UEB braille while using BANA formatting conventions. The template parallels the existing "English (American Textbook DE) - BANA" template in that it contains all of the same style names, thus enabling production using Word in the same manner as now set up for production of pre-UEB American braille following BANA guidelines. Most styles are identically defined, but where necessary style definitions have been adapted for UEB. Styles have also been added for script, Maori, Hawaiian and Portuguese.

Mathematics

We continue to improve DBT's math braille capabilities, and are grateful to those who have helped us in this regard.

  • In MathType imports, we fixed some issues which caused extra blank lines.
  • Handling of over/under math characters has been enhanced.
  • Additional characters and a few more tabular structures are now supported.
  • In LaTeX imports we have added support for \widetilde.
  • For UEB math (not used in the United States), there is an issue about inserting optional spaces around signs of comparison for beginners. Please see the following link for details: https://www.duxburysystems.com/documentation/ueb_math_spacing.htm

Embossers and Embossing

Support for A5 and A5 landscape has been added to the Everest (V3 and V4)

Languages

Language Details
National Flag(s) Improvements Made
Flag of Croatia The Croatian translator now meets all standards for contracted and uncontracted braille.
Flag of Denmark Danish: the braille-to-print translator has been fixed for four contractions, to match the print-to-braille Danish translator.
Flag of the Philippines Updated Filipino and Tagalog to deal with a list of words which did not contract correctly.
Italian Flag Added automatic hyphenation for Italian. Also respecting emphasis on braille-to-print.
Flag of Japan We have revised both translators for Japanese. We have also improved import of Japanese punctuation, and added a better screen display for Japanese transcribers.
South African Flag Several tables for South African languages have been updated. They are: Nguni (Xhosa and Zulu), Ndebele, and Swati. Stub braille-to-print tables now use UEB instead of older forms of English braille.
Flag of Kenya Flag of Tanzania The Swahilli table has been modified to incorporate handling grade one Arabic script.
Flag of Russia We have corrected the Unicode character 04AF (y) in Tatar (a minority language in Russia).
Flag of Turkey Flag of Cyprus Turkish: two modified tables and 4 new "Learning Level" tables: DBT now supports contracted Turkish (and 4 levels of partial contraction).

What was new in DBT 11.2 SR1

This web Service Release included the following improvements, a few of which are significant for some users:

  • The activation wizard has been updated to fix a problem when using a custom installation in a drive other than C.
  • Embossing on all Braillo non-sideways embossers is improved. (That is all Braillo embosser models without "sw" or "stitch and fold" in their model names.)
  • The JAWS script has been updated.
  • Corrected the handling of the symbol right harpoon over left harpoon (used in Chemical equations) in file imports.
  • Languages: Cantonese (Yue) print-to-braille has been significantly improved, and we have added a new braille-to print translator for Cantonese.

Major New Features in 11.2

  • DBT has always been at the forefront in implementing Unified English Braille. 11.2 contains further enhancements. DBT now has a UEB Learning Series for the UK (these are series of translators that allow learning of contractions in graduated steps).
  • You can now use variable width fonts on the "print side" of DBT. For many languages, this is a substantial improvement.
  • Easier support for the new BANA 2011 Formats (used in the United States)
  • New SWIFT 4.0 gives greater power and flexibility from Microsoft Word
  • Nemeth Code, Braille to Print support added. (see below)
  • Export from DBT to Microsoft Word via HTML.
  • DBT has new software to handle installation and activation issues (see below)
  • DBT now contains a Czech and a Chinese User Interface (see Global Menu, Internationalization).
  • Formatted Braille Files with non-US encodings can now be imported by DBT (requires *.bff extension and the use of another encoding in the Global, Internationalization Menu).
  • Smart Phone Integration with DBT.
  • More languages and better support of existing languages (see very end of this page).
  • Better Embosser support (see below)
  • Math file importation and braille math translation have been improved substantially.
  • Numerous Miscellaneous Changes (see below)

Installation, Activation, De-activation, and Network Installation

  • DBT now contains an Activation Wizard to guide a user through the activation process.
  • The Activation Wizards contains a diagnostic screen to help the user understand the activation status on a given computer.
  • The Activation Wizard is very aware of subtle traps made by some versions of Microsoft: the Wizard knows about variations in UAC controls and only requests elevated credentials when they are truly needed.
  • It is now possible to fix many activation problems without having to uninstall DBT (and then re-install DBT).
  • The software to manage a network installation is available as a separate download. This program is helpful in situation where another product uses a similar activation system.
  • The Network installation no longer requires writing text files.

Mathematics Issues

  • Now students or teachers can six key in Nemeth and get print math to their printer for the print reader! (See next two items)
  • DBT now has a translation table to translate Nemeth Code technical notation into DBT print math in a .dxp file.
  • DBT now has an experimental option to save a .dxp file as LaTeX. This allows DBT print math, which may have come from braille-to-print translation of UEB or Nemeth Code, to be brought into a program, like Scientific Viewer, where a sighted teacher or colleague can view the math.
  • In a matrix or determinant, DBT now uses the proper one space between columns instead of two.
  • In Nemeth Code, bold items in technical notation, such as vectors and bold numbers, are now translated with the proper Nemeth Code typeform indicator.
  • DBT now imports a kind of matrix from Scientific Notebook and other LaTeX files that it did not recognize before. (Previously a matrix in a LaTeX file had to use \begin{array} and \end{array} commands; now \begin{matrix} and \end{matrix} work as well.)
  • A large number of problems with conversion from MathType that gave the message "MathType Conversion Error: mtTRANSLATOR" have been fixed.
  • A large number of problems with conversion from MathType that gave the message "MathType Conversion Error: mtNOT_FOUND" have been fixed.
  • A problem with converting very large expressions from MathType that gave the error message "MathType Conversion Error: mtMEMORY" has been fixed.
  • Some problems with converting from MathType that gave extra text like "0.5em" in the document have been fixed.
  • In UEB print-to-braille translation, a hyphen within technical notation is now treated as a minus sign (dots 5, 36) unless that is overridden with a new [ammh] code.
  • When importing a hard space from MathType or LaTeX, DBT now preserves it as a hard space. This is useful for handling numbers with separated groups of digits in UEB.
  • Some symbols that weren't included in the MathType importer and would come up missing in the DBT file have been added. These include the expanding integral sign (a character for the integral sign which takes care of changing its size for typesetting needs).
  • The handling of various commands and structures in the LaTeX importer has been improved. For example, the use of \[ and \] now causes the math item to be on a line of its own in DBT; the importing of LaTeX tables has been improved.

Nemeth Braille-to-Print

1) You start with a pure Nemeth braille document in DBT (no contractions).

How is this created?

  • You could start a blank, braille document in DBT and key it in.
  • You could start a blank, braille document in DBT and clipboard something you write in notepad.
  • You could write on a refreshable braille device and bring the file into DBT.

2) Go to the Document menu, then Translation Table. Choose Math Notation (Nemeth 1972 math mode only).

3) Press Control-T to Translate to ink print

4) Press F3 to Save As.

5) On the bottom selection (for file type), choose LaTeX (Experimental) *.tex Feel free to choose a file name and a directory that suits your needs

At this point, your work happens outside of Duxbury DBT. The output of the translation process is a LaTeX text file. You need some additional software that can take LaTeX and render it into math for viewing or printing. With Scientific Viewer (which is free) you can view or print the math. With Scientific Notebook (which is not free) you can also convert the file into PDF form.

We hope our users will help us identify other third party products which make use of LaTeX math files. To give you a head start, here is the Wikipedia entry on LaTeX.

Embosser Support

  • Support for the new Enabling Cyclone and Enabling Trident embossers.
  • Support for the Viewplus EmBraille
  • Support for new Braillo embossers: Braillo 300, Braillo 600SR, Braillo 650 6&F, and Braillo 650 SW
  • Support for the new Cosmo Brailler from EBrailler.
  • Improved support for the Index V4 embossers
  • Support for A4 paper and extended A4 paper on several embossers
  • Embosser form (paper) size name has been changed for some Index and ONCE Impacto embossers to more closely match choices offered by the manufacturer.

Miscellaneous Changes

  • DBT can now import files whose names contain unusual characters.
  • The JAWS scripts now verbalize the spaces and new lines on the braille side, verbalize DBT codes and style codes when you use backspace or delete, and also verbalize the context for replacing text.
  • You can now use a Moon font with DBT on the "braille side".
  • In "Verbose Mode", DBT shows the Unicode number of the current character at the cursor position on the status line.
  • As always, many improvements have been made to make DBT a more stable environment.
  • As always, many fixes have been done to improve the importation of Word and Open Office files.
  • As always, math importation and math translation has improved as we work to handle challenging files.

DBT 11.2: Languages and Braille

Language Highlights

Better Font Support for most languages. For many languages of the world, the DBT print screen is readable, and editing is possible.

New User Interfaces: now supporting a Czech and a Chinese User interface.

New Languages: Bengali for Bangladesh (supporting the braille rules of Feb. 1996), Croatian contracted braille supported, Montenegrin, Tatar, and Udmurt. Contracted Turkish braille and Taiwan braille supported with a supplemental download from Duxbury Systems.

New Braille-to-print for existing languages: Amharic, Mandarin Chinese, Hausa, Somali, Swahili, and Yoruba.

We have added a new feature to the Serbian braille-to-print: while this usually uses the Cyrillic alphabet, the use of a variation code [vrn~ar] changes the braille-to-print translator to use the Roman alphabet. Another variation code [vrn~ac] reverts back to using the Cyrillic alphabet. These codes also work on other languages closely tied to Serbian.

Modest adjustments have been made in the handling of punctuation in the translators for the following European languages: Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgian, Maltese, Portuguese, Serbian, and Turkish.

Modest adjustments have been made in the handling of punctuation in the translators for Georgian and Mandarin Chinese as well.

Arabic and Hebrew are still not supported by the DBT editor. While the display may be improved, DBT is still not able to entirely figure out what is right-to-left, and what is left-to-right, so editing a line is absolutely not recommended until this issue is resolved.

Inspired by new braille entry devices, Duxbury Systems has made an effort to improve braille-to-print in almost every language. We welcome your suggestions on how we can further make progress in this area. The languages of India, plus Lao, Thai, Hebrew, Vietnamese, have been especially improved.

Language Details
Language Details
National Flag(s) Improvements Made
Ethiopian Flag DBT now has a braille-to-print translator for the Amharic.
Flag of Armenia The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Armenian translators have been improved.
Flag of Bangladesh DBT now supports the Bangladesh braille rules of Feb. 1996 (Bengali language).
DBT also supports the SutonnyMJ font, widely used in Bangladesh for writing Bengali.
Flag of China Singapore Flag DBT now has a Chinese User Interface.
Flag of China Singapore Flag DBT's import of Chinese script into Pinyin has also been substantially improved. DBT now has a braille-to-print translator for Mandarin Chinese (into Pinyin Romanization, not into Chinese script).
Flag of China Taiwanese Flag DBT now supports the braille code of Taiwan through a supplemental download from Duxbury Systems.
Flag of China DBT has a modest improvement in the Cantonese braille translator.
Flag of Croatia DBT now supports contracted Croatian print-to-braille and braille-to-print.
Czech Flag DBT now has a Czech a User Interface.
Czech Flag The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print tables have also been improved.
Flag of the United Kingdom Flag of the United States DBT has made improvements for the English translators used in the US, the United Kingdom, and other nations.
Flag of Bhutan The braille-to-print Dzongkha translator has been improved.
Flag of Esperanto The print-to-braille Esperanto translator has been fixed (for the question mark).
Flag of Ghana The print-to-braille Ewe translator has been fixed.
Flag of Iran The braille-to-print Farsi translator has been substantially improved.
French Flag The French translator has been improved, based on feedback from a user.
German Flag The German translator has been improved, based on feedback from a user.
Flag of the United States of America Flag of Cyprus The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print translator for Greek has been substantially improved.
Nigerian Flag Flag of Niger DBT now has a braille-to-print translator for the Hausa language.
Flag of old Hawaii Flag of the United States DBT now has support for the Hawaiian Language in the following templates:
English/Unified (UEB), English/American (Standard Literary), and English/American (Textbook)through the use of the language tag [lng~haw]
Flag of Israel The braille-to-print translator for Hebrew has been substantially improved.
Flag of Laos The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print translator for Lao has been substantially improved. Third party software can improve the Lao braille output.
Flag of Norway The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Norwegian translators have been improved.
Flag of Montenegro DBT now supports Montenegrin (supported the same as Serbian).
Flag of Poland The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Polish translators have been improved.
Serbian Flag DBT now has improved the handling of punctuation in the Serbian translator. DBT now both the Cyrillic and the Roman alphabet in the braille-to-print translation
Somalian Flag DBT now has a braille-to-print translator for the Somali language.
Swedish Flag The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Swedish translators have been improved.
Flag of Kenya Flag of Tanzania DBT now has a braille-to-print translator for the Swahili language.
Flag of Russia DBT now supports Tatar (a minority language in Russia).
Flag of Thailand The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Thai translators have been improved.Third party software can improve the Thai braille output.
Flag of China The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Tibetan translators have been improved.
Flag of Turkey Flag of Cyprus DBT now supports contracted Turkish (and 4 levels of partial contraction) through a supplemental download from Duxbury Systems.
Flag of Russia DBT now supports Udmurt (a minority language in Russia).
Flag of Ukrania The print-to-braille Ukrainian translator now supports automatic hyphenation.
Pakistan Flag The braille-to-print translator for Urdu has been substantially improved.
Vietname Flag The braille-to-print translator for Vietnamese has been substantially improved.
Nigerian Flag DBT now has a braille-to-print translator for the Yoruba language.

d up to avoid “double translation”.

2. Swedish encoding of braille documents has been added. A new French encoding for braille documents, “French Chiffres”, has been added. The standard “French” braille encoding for braille documents has been modified to match updated standards; the older encoding is now called “French 6 points”. (These changes are in display.cpt.)

3. Revised French documentation, and revised French DBT and Word templates. These changes should affect only those who use adaptations to DBT developed at AVH for use in producing French braille.

4. Translation improvements have been made to the following tables:

a. English/American (literary)

b. English/American (textbook)

Both American tables have been updated to conform to new rules regarding partially-emphasized words, and for improved handling of Greek letters within English context. A new "variation" code has been added to permit entering fractions more conveniently using a simple slash, e.g. 1/2 for one-half, when appropriate (as in cookbooks).

c. Arabic

Additional Unicode characters are now supported, as well as the standard "Arabic" page.

d. Bulgarian

(Minor update only.)

e. Modern Greek

Additional Unicode characters, as well as the standard basic "Greek" page, are now supported. The Nemeth Code is now supported for mathematics

f. English/British

Corrections and improvements were made to the logic for inserting clarifying parentheses into algebraic fractions. The handling of mixed numbers imported from LaTeX documents was corrected. Other corrections affected the handling of certain apostrophe-letter endings in grade 1, embedded German, and other miscellaneous situations.

g. English/Unified

These tables were extensively updated to conform more closely to the latest transcriber rules for capitalization, shortform usage, lower-sign contraction usage, and other miscellaneous matters. A new pair of commands, [ucs] ... [uce], have been provided to allow manual control of capital passage extent when desired.

h. French/Unified

The treatment of apostrophe (') has been corrected in [cz;f] mode. Certain capital passage and double-sign issues have also been addressed.

i. Croatian

(Internal update only -- no functional change.)

j. Kazakh

Arabic script (as well as Cyrillic script) is now accepted as input.

k. Malay

The logic for contraction usage has been extensively updated.

l. Norwegian

The logic for contraction usage has been improved, and the treatment of comma within numbers corrected. Support for contracted English embedded within Norwegian has been removed, as such text is normally uncontracted.

m. Russian

Arabic script (as well as Cyrillic script) is now accepted as input.

n. Ukrainian

Arabic script (as well as Cyrillic script) is now accepted as input.

5. Improvements have been made for these embossers:

a. All supported Tiger models: DBT has been updated to meet the requirements of the latest drivers from ViewPlus. (However, we are not adding to DBT 10.7 SR1 support for any Tiger embosser models not supported by DBT 10.7.)

b. Tiger Pro Ink: ink placement has been corrected; ink placement, font choice and font size can also be adjusted, though this presently requires registry “tinkering”.

c. VersaPoint Duo: graphics support improved.

d. PED-30 plate embossers: more “handshaking” options have been added, and the inclusion of a blank “last side” when there are an odd number of sides to emboss has been suppressed, saving the operator loading a plate at the end of a job only to see it come through without any embossing.

e. Thiel Beta X-3: additional paper sizes are now supported.

f. A defect in interline print output on Gemini embossers has been corrected.

These changes are in dxemb.dll and emb.elt, which always “travel as a pair”. Additional changes in emb.elt are to support future development of “TranSend SE”. Because these have no functional effect for DBT 10.7 SR1, they do not merit mention in the documentation.

6. Internal improvements have been made to chitab.txt.

7. DBT’s Word importer will support use of the Math12 font.

Direct imports of math in Word documents with MathType 5 or 6 installed

The importer supports importation of mathematical expressions created with either MathType or Equation Editor. It does *not* support math typed directly into the text. That will still come in as it always has.

The importer requires that either MathType 6 or MathType 5 be installed and activated. They can be installed anywhere.

Updated BANA translation

English/American: The BANA 2007 updates have been implemented (see http://www.brailleauthority.org/update07.html), notably including the two-cell slash, the use of the termination sign instead of hyphen to signal the end of the effect of the double capital sign, and other updated rules and added symbols. A control ("[big]") was added to provide for enlarged enclosure symbols in Nemeth Code.

Updated BAUK translation

A facility has been added to enable "locking" of the grade of translation, primarily to facilitate production of texts entirely in grade 1 despite the presence of [g2] in the text or within styles. See LOCK Grade 1 or 2 for more details.

Updated UEB (Unified English Braille) Translation

English/UEB: Transcription rule decisions of the UEB Committee through January 2008 have been implemented, including those affecting the treatment of shortform words and lower signs, and the extent of grade 1 word mode when initiated by a number. The braille-to-print UEB tables have been revised to construct appropriate print (.dxp) file encoding for most math structures and certain symbols, thereby replacing some of the "double-brace" notation typically used for indicators, etc. when translating from braille to print.

NEW Pharma EBU/EC translation and template -EBU Pharma

At the time of writing (March 2008) the European Braille Union (EBU) have been discussing a proposed common/standard Pharmaceutical Braille code with European Braille Authorities to be used exclusively on medicinal packaging throughout Europe. See https://www.pharmabraille.com/pharmaceutical-braille/ for more details.

For more up to date information concerning the production of Pharma Braille labels, etc., you may wish to contact our U.K. distributor http://www.techno-vision.co.uk.

NEW Esperanto translation and template.

"Esperanto is a language, but not of any country or ethnic group: it is a neutral, international language." For more details about the Esperanto language please see http://www.esperanto.net/info/index_en.html

Details of DBT's new Esperanto table are described more fully here.Esperanto

Updated French translation

French/Unified: The print-to-braille tables have been updated to conform more closely to the new French mathematics code. The braille-to-print tables have been updated to include common computer and currency symbols.

Support added for Enabling Technologies new Romeo Pro 50LE

At the time of writing (March 2008) Enabling Technologies Inc were in the process of manufacturing a dedicated labelling embosser. Limited to 24 cells maximum width, the output is approximately 40% faster than a standard Romeo Pro.

DBT 10.7 includes additional form depths for this embosser from 0.5 inches to 4 inches in depth in increments of 0.25 of an inch.

What was New in DBT 10.6?

  • Undo and Redo.
  • Autosave.
  • Change Case - accessible using Shift-F3.
  • A Margin Bell can be enabled for braille entry.
  • Enhanced JAWS scripts add support for braille document input and review.
  • Templates included for every supported language.
  • Enhanced Installation and activation process.
  • Enhanced - Support for custom embosser definitions.
  • Use DBT Codes in Word for Windows.
  • New Word Template (BANA Braille 2006).
  • DBT can now optionally read publishers' page numbers.
  • New [linenum] code for line-numbered poetry or prose.
  • Enhanced [folds] code supports more sophisticated fold lines.
  • Customizable behavior of Alt-3 ("CBC"), CTRL-Enter ("New page"), and Enter.
  • Vertical page centering.
  • Enhanced - Braille-Build can build fonts with California spacing.Customizable for thermal paper, thermoform and other processes. Marburg spacing primarily for EU pharmaceutical artwork use.
  • Graphics supported for the Romeo Attaché.
  • A /template command line option allows desired template to be specified for imported files.
  • NEW - /brf and /prf command line options make it possible to use DBT as a file-to-file translation tool.
  • Text in HTML Help file topics now follows the settings in Internet Explorer's View: Text Size menu. They will also print a hard copy with appropriately select text size. Users with a wheel mouse can adjust the font size by focusing on any topic, hold down the Ctrl key, and scroll the mouse wheel to adjust the font size.
Updated Translations

The following language translation tables have been added or substantially updated:

(Some of these have been included in service packs for DBT 10.5.)

Additional Interfaces
Still More Improvements
  • New BANA templates have been introduced. The Word template file is now called "BANA Braille 2006". When importing to DBT, two templates are available; one is specifically for Nemeth documents.
  • Enhanced - WordPerfect imports.
  • Enhanced - French template translation table settings.
  • Enhanced - Operation of Workstations that Share an Activation.
  • NEW Undo when typing over selected text.
  • Enhanced - Redesigned and uniform Emboss and Print.
  • NEW Hard spaces can now be entered when searching and replacing.
  • Enhanced - PED plate maker support.
Installation:

Installation is now performed using the MSI (Microsoft Installer) interface, resulting in many improvements all round.

Many Settings are now retained for individual users rather than entire system.

Network installations now support licensing on systems running RAID or Mirrored drives.