What is new in Duxbury DBT Win
DBT 12.7 sr3
2024-04-11 (2023-04-17)
Duxbury Systems continually revises DBT to add new features, support new and updated embossers, and fix problems, as well as to respond to the latest revisions in braille rules, operating system updates, and third party changes.
Below you will find our advances and improvements since the prior release.
For more sources of information, please take advantage of "Check for Updates" from your DBT Help menu. Or, visit the Duxbury Website for both new information and historical information about DBT features and updates.
Service Release SR3 is free to all licensed users of DBT 12.7. It includes these fixes as improvements.
- JAWS scripts have been updated to fix reading of hard space characters in Formatted View.
- JAWS scripts handling of Find and Replace dialogs for braille documents has been corrected.
- Chuvash, Ingush, and Udmurt are identified as European, not Asian languages.
- Some uncommon contraction errors in English/Unified (UEB) have been corrected.
- Support for Cherokee and Navajo has been added.
- Croatian support has been updated and improved to match the latest specifications we have. Uncontracted braille is now the default.
- Swahili translation has been adapted specifically for Kenya. DBT now offers a Swahili (Kenya) template that supports a contracted braille code that appears to be used only in Kenya, and a Swahili (General) template for use elsewhere.
- We have increased the range of characters that can be imported into DBT, with particular increases in the characters to be imported into the Arabic, Hindi, and Devanagari scripts.
- DBT now imports the long division symbol (U+27cc) properly from MathType. In addition, the Nemeth Code templates properly translate the long division sign and barred brackets from print to braille and back to print again.
- Styles in the English BANA pre-UEB templates have been adjusted so that documents containing math give better support for Nemeth Code.
- There is a new template specifically for uncontracted UEB with Nemeth, to avoid the problem of switching into contracted braille following math segments.
- There are five fonts packaged with DBT: Braille, SimBraille, Braille Français, SimBraille Français, and Swell Braille. Each of these has been updated to version 3.1, incorporating these improvements:
- Encoding of Unicode Braille Patterns characters U+2800 through U+283F as well as Unicode U+2011.
- Improved appearance when ClearType is enabled. This change also applies to display of braille documents in DBT. Please note that disabling ClearType remains preferred.
- Technical fixes that may sometimes have prevented proper rendering, particularly of Braille, Braille Français, and Swell Braille.
- Braille-Build has been fixed and updated to generate version 3.1 fonts.
- Use of <esc>Pnn for Braillo 650SW embossers is restricted to values of nn 01-99. This corrects a problem with embossing certain larger documents.
- We have fixed a problem with single-sided output on classic Enabling Technologies embossers when a page contains graphics.
- The columnar table formatter is better able to handle tables with a few columns, some of which have lots of text.
- A bug that caused unnecessary "failsafe" formatting of tables has been fixed.
- A bug has been fixed to correct formatting of tables on pages witih antipicatory page headings, as used in the UK.
- The Word importer now correctly imports certain Word text boxes that were previously missed.
- The translated line display has been improved, to allow display of all or most codes. Use the "Formatted View Translated Line Codes" control in the Gobal View Preferences dialog to set this up.
- The translated line display for BANA with Nemeth documents eliminates spurious display of shall and which.
- DBT command line processing has been fixed. DBT will now exit now after processing files with /brf option or similar options, unless one or more files is opened using the command line as well.
- On some computers, DBT was prone to crashing when selecting certainly Edit menu items after closing a document. This has been corrected.
- An [mfcs] code without a corresponding [mfce] code will no longer cause DBT to lock up.
DBT 12.7 sr2
2023-10-03 (2023-10-02)
Service Release SR2 is free to all licensed users of DBT 12.7. It includes these fixes as improvements.
- Additional UI Automation and JAWS script improvements have been made, particularly improving the stability of DBT when running with UI Automation enabled and the JAWS screen reader in use.
- Handling of Nemeth in two templates, English (BANA Pre-UEB Textbook DE) - BANA and English (BANA Pre-UEB Textbook DE) - BANA Nemeth, has been corrected.
- English/Unified (UEB) braille-to-print translation has been improved. The same improvements are included in all the learning tables.
- Croatian braille-to-print translation has been improved.
- Serbian braille-to-print translation has been improved.
- Placement of the second page of a two page table has been corrected.
- When importing math as UEB with Nemeth, a problem in DBT 12.7 caused the loss of the space after problem numbers in a list of problems within the Nemeth switches. This problem has been fixed.
DBT 12.7 sr1
2023-9-06 (2023-9-11)
DBT 12.7 SR1 has been released free to all users of DBT 12.7 to fix a few critical issues:
- A new problem causing crashes with tabular material has been fixed.
- We fixed a few crashing problems when DBT is run with JAWS and UI Automation enabled.
- For reading lines in a braille document with JAWS, the default setting is once again reading the translated line. This corrects the unwanted default setting in DBT 12.7 of reading braille lines by character.
- DBT does not crash when you set a window of fewer than 9 lines.
- Import of braille files using "Orbit Reader" no longer favors uppercase. This improves subsequent braille-to-print translation.
- There is a new template "Haitian Creole". The translation is identical to French uncontracted.
- DBT can now read characters beyond U+FFFF; it supports 54 new Unicode ranges beyond this limit. These are largely ancient languages and additional Asian scripts. The most requested scripts are Cuneiform and Ugaritic. Click here for an external web page for the details.
DBT 12.7
2023-7-19 (2023-7-24)
DBT 12.7 provides the following important improvements and fixes and more.
Accessibility
- We have changed the JAWS keystroke in DBT to read the last word on the current line from Alt+Slash to Alt+End. The keyboard entry for Alt+Slash was causing problems for some users of non-English JAWS.
- We have fixed a problem with voicing DBT codes in the fields for Find and Replace and the fields for adding and modifying styles.
- JAWS scripts ensure that the grade of braille on a braille device on the print side matches the user's translation settings in JAWS.
- JAWS voicing of keystrokes on the Cosmo Brailler is improved.
Document Importing
- Importing .docx files avoids an unusual pitfall that could cause a DBT crash.
Document Exporting
- HTML and Word exports can reconstruct hyperlinks from DBT markup when a URL is included. Importers for HTML and .docx files produce the appropriate markup, so hyperlinks can, in effect, be preserved round-trip through braille.
- HTML and Word exports can be customized.
- HTML and Word exports improve handling of many DBT styles, producing better indent and runover in the output.
Math
- Nemeth math-only print-to-braille translation has been updated to prevent insertion of unwanted script indicators in certain instances.
- Nemeth math-only braille-to-print translation has been updated for miscellaneous improvements including to the handling of typeform indicators and math styles.
- Improved recognition of the start and end of math when importing Word documents.
DBT Operations / General
- Find and Replace dialogs support limited wildcard use in codes.
- A new parameter in the [ind] code allows for right alignment of many lines of text.
- The menu and dialog in the Global menu formerly labeled Autosave Options is now labeled File Locations. You can use this dialog to set default locations for Open and Save dialogs. The dialog still allows for management of autosave options.
- DBT supports a new command line switch /resetfilesavefolder or /resetfileopenfolder for use when the Save As dialog or Open dialog will not appear, or appears only after a long delay. Please contact technical support for help using this.
Language Updates
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Bashkir: print-to-braille translation support added. |
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Biblical Original Languages table improved (better tables, better language switching). |
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Bulgarian: improved print-to-braille and braille-to-print translation, including hypenation issues; eliminated use of English contractions for embedded English script. |
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Canadian aboriginal: many languages are now supported via syllabic support when importing documents into any UEB template. |
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Danish: Supporting the new 2022 rules with print-to-braille and braille-to-print translation. We also support the older 1993 rules. |
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English/Unified (UEB): print-to-braille translation of several unusual words has been improved. |
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English/Unified (UEB) - United Kingdom: The new template (with some improvements) is called English (UEB) - UK formatting. The prior template is English (UEB) - UK formatting (legacy). Detailed documentation is available here. |
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Estonian: braille-to-print translation improved the handling of spaces following emphasis. Localized display of braille documents added. |
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Fula: Revised Fula translators are now identical to the new West African languages translators. |
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Japanese: handling of Kanji is greatly improved, especially for words comprising multiple Kanji characters. |
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Japanese: improved braille-to-print and print-to-braille handling of embedded Latin script text and certain special characters. |
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Khakas: language support added. |
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Khmer: braille-to-print translation improved the handling of independent vowels. |
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Korean: braille-to-print translation improved the handling of a certain character after dots 126. |
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N'ko (language and script): support through West African Languages. |
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Slovak: improved print-to-braille and braille-to-print translation, using the latest rule book. |
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Tifinagh (language and script): support through West African Languages. |
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Vai (language and script): support through West African Languages. |
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West African Languages: New language added (print-to-braille and braille-to-print). This is not an official code, but intended to serve for myriad West African languages with no currently defined official code, unless and until an official code is defined. Support for many scripts (Arabic, Extended Arabic, Amhrmic, N'ko, Vai, and Tifinagh) is included. More information is available online. |
DBT 12.7 adds support for about 20 additional Unicode ranges. For a complete list, see the List of Unicode Ranges (halfway down the page).
We are constantly working on improved language support. If you are interested in specific language improvements, please write to us at languages@duxsys.com.
Notice: Microsoft Windows 7
You may still find occasional references to the Windows 7 operating system in these Help pages, but be warned that Microsoft has ended support of Windows 7, and security updates ceased as of January 2020. For this reason, Duxbury cannot recommend using DBT on Windows 7 computers or on any earlier Microsoft operating system.