What's 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 Susan Christensen BANA templates supplied with DBT have been updated by her 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 6.9, 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 6.9 is included on the DBT 11.2 (SR4) 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.

• When translating Nemeth Code from braille to print, default numeric subscripts are now supported.
• When translating from print to Nemeth Code braille, a number at the baseline level that immediately follows a letter now gets a preceding dot 5 as desired.

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 & 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.

	Armenian now supporting the U+055B Armenian emphasis character. In ink-print, this is a single character at the end of a word.
	Azerbaijani: question mark and curling quotes have been fixed.
	Cantonese now handling English text mixed with Cantonese.
	Danish now handles lower quote marks.
	We now support the Dutch 2005 braille revision.
	Italian braille-to-print now produces the at-sign correctly
	DBT now supports the Taiwan variation for Mandarin braille.
	Turkish letter sign and uncontracted Turkish now function properly.
	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: http://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

National Flag(s)	Improvements Made
	The Croatian translator now meets all standards for contracted and uncontracted braille.
	Danish: the braille-to-print translator has been fixed for four contractions, to match the print-to-braille Danish translator.
	Updated Filipino and Tagalog to deal with a list of words which did not contract correctly.
	Added automatic hyphenation for Italian. Also respecting emphasis on braille-to-print.
	We have revised both translators for Japanese. We have also improved import of Japanese punctuation, and added a better screen display for Japanese transcribers.
	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.
	The Swahilli table has been modified to incorporate handling grade one Arabic script.
	We have corrected the Unicode character 04AF (y) in Tatar (a minority language in Russia).
	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

National Flag(s)	Improvements Made
	DBT now has a braille-to-print translator for the Amharic.
	The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Armenian translators have been improved.
	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.
	DBT now has a Chinese User Interface.
	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).
	DBT now supports the braille code of Taiwan through a supplemental download from Duxbury Systems.
	DBT has a modest improvement in the Cantonese braille translator.
	DBT now supports contracted Croatian print-to-braille and braille-to-print.
	DBT now has a Czech a User Interface.
	The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print tables have also been improved.
	DBT has made improvements for the English translators used in the US, the United Kingdom, and other nations.
	The braille-to-print Dzongkha translator has been improved.
	The print-to-braille Esperanto translator has been fixed (for the question mark).
	The print-to-braille Ewe translator has been fixed.
	The braille-to-print Farsi translator has been substantially improved.
	The French translator has been improved, based on feedback from a user.
	The German translator has been improved, based on feedback from a user.
	The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print translator for Greek has been substantially improved.
	DBT now has a braille-to-print translator for the Hausa language.
	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]
	The braille-to-print translator for Hebrew has been substantially improved.
	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.
	The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Norwegian translators have been improved.
	DBT now supports Montenegrin (supported the same as Serbian).
	The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Polish translators have been improved.
	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
	DBT now has a braille-to-print translator for the Somali language.
	The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Swedish translators have been improved.
	DBT now has a braille-to-print translator for the Swahili language.
	DBT now supports Tatar (a minority language in Russia).
	The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Thai translators have been improved. Third party software can improve the Thai braille output.
	The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Tibetan translators have been improved.
	DBT now supports contracted Turkish (and 4 levels of partial contraction) through a supplemental download from Duxbury Systems.
	DBT now supports Udmurt (a minority language in Russia).
	The print-to-braille Ukrainian translator now supports automatic hyphenation.
	The braille-to-print translator for Urdu has been substantially improved.
	The braille-to-print translator for Vietnamese has been substantially improved.
	DBT now has a braille-to-print translator for the Yoruba language.