The following is a summary of additions or changes to earlier versions of DBT whether on the Macintosh or Windows platform. DBT was reintroduced to the Mac as of version 12.1 and the first official release was 12.2.
A detailed change history is available on the Internet at http://www.duxburysystems.com.
Duxbury Systems is pleased to offer this service release to our customers, which addresses the following issues.
The first issue concerns VoiceOver. Just prior to the DBT 12.2 release, change events to VoiceOver were inadvertently disabled, so that VoiceOver did not receive input regarding changes in the DBT editor. This has been fixed and full VoiceOver functionality restored.
The second issue concerns Word file imports to DBT. These files were importing without paying attention to the formatting information supplied in Word. That formatting information is now recognized and translated into the DBT equivalent formatting, mostly eliminating the need to format the document again.
This service release also features the following JAWS script improvements:
Numerous additions to math functionality; here are the highlights:
Helpful additions in the JAWS script files for DBT, including:
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Catalan: Fixed percent sign and capitalization issues. |
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Czech: Fixed ten punctuation characters. |
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Many fixes for UEB English. |
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Hungarian: Supports the new fully contracted 2014 Hungarian rules, both print-to-braille and braille-to-print. |
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Japanese: Fixed the ryu, and a few other translation items. |
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Korean: Fixes to improve both print-to-braille and braille-to-print translators. |
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Spanish: added a Puerto Rico variation for certain punctuation marks. |
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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. |
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.
This Service Release includes the following improvements, many of which are significant for some users:
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 7.0, 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 7.0 is included on the 12.3 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.
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.
| Country | Details |
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Armenian now supporting the U+055B Armenian emphasis character. In ink-print, this is a single character at the end of a word. |
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Azerbaijani: question mark and curling quotes have been fixed. |
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Cantonese now handling English text mixed with Cantonese. |
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Danish now handles lower quote marks. |
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We now support the Dutch 2005 braille revision. |
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Italian braille-to-print now produces the at-sign correctly |
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DBT now supports the Taiwan variation for Mandarin braille. |
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Turkish letter sign and uncontracted Turkish now function properly. |
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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. |
This web Service Release included the following improvements, a few of which are significant for some users:
Braille fonts and Courier (and Consolas) fonts are recognized.
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.
We continue to improve DBT's math braille capabilities, and are grateful to those who have helped us in this regard.
Support for A5 and A5 landscape has been added to the Everest (V3 and V4)
| National Flag(s) | Improvements Made |
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The Croatian translator now meets all standards for contracted and uncontracted braille. |
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Danish: the braille-to-print translator has been fixed for four contractions, to match the print-to-braille Danish translator. |
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Updated Filipino and Tagalog to deal with a list of words which did not contract correctly. |
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Added automatic hyphenation for Italian. Also respecting emphasis on braille-to-print. |
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We have revised both translators for Japanese. We have also improved import of Japanese punctuation, and added a better screen display for Japanese transcribers. |
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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. |
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The Swahilli table has been modified to incorporate handling grade one Arabic script. |
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We have corrected the Unicode character 04AF (y) in Tatar (a minority language in Russia). |
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Turkish: two modified tables and 4 new "Learning Level" tables: DBT now supports contracted Turkish (and 4 levels of partial contraction). |
This web Service Release included the following improvements, a few of which are significant for some users:
1) You start with a pure Nemeth braille document in DBT (no contractions).
How is this created?
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.
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.
| National Flag(s) | Improvements Made |
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DBT now has a braille-to-print translator for the Amharic. |
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The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Armenian translators have been improved. |
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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. |
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DBT now has a Chinese User Interface. |
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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). |
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DBT now supports the braille code of Taiwan through a supplemental download from Duxbury Systems. |
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DBT has a modest improvement in the Cantonese braille translator. |
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DBT now supports contracted Croatian print-to-braille and braille-to-print. |
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DBT now has a Czech a User Interface. |
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The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print tables have also been improved. |
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DBT has made improvements for the English translators used in the US, the United Kingdom, and other nations. |
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The braille-to-print Dzongkha translator has been improved. |
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The print-to-braille Esperanto translator has been fixed (for the question mark). |
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The print-to-braille Ewe translator has been fixed. |
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The braille-to-print Farsi translator has been substantially improved. |
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The French translator has been improved, based on feedback from a user. |
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The German translator has been improved, based on feedback from a user. |
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The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print translator for Greek has been substantially improved. |
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DBT now has a braille-to-print translator for the Hausa language. |
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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] |
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The braille-to-print translator for Hebrew has been substantially improved. |
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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. |
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The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Norwegian translators have been improved. |
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DBT now supports Montenegrin (supported the same as Serbian). |
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The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Polish translators have been improved. |
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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 |
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DBT now has a braille-to-print translator for the Somali language. |
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The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Swedish translators have been improved. |
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DBT now has a braille-to-print translator for the Swahili language. |
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DBT now supports Tatar (a minority language in Russia). |
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The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Thai translators have been improved.Third party software can improve the Thai braille output. |
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The print-to-braille and the braille-to-print Tibetan translators have been improved. |
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DBT now supports contracted Turkish (and 4 levels of partial contraction) through a supplemental download from Duxbury Systems. |
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DBT now supports Udmurt (a minority language in Russia). |
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The print-to-braille Ukrainian translator now supports automatic hyphenation. |
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The braille-to-print translator for Urdu has been substantially improved. |
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The braille-to-print translator for Vietnamese has been substantially improved. |
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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
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.
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.
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.
Updated BANA translation
Updated BANA templates for DBT and Word, now include a Quotation style. Word Template (BANA Braille 2008)
Updated French templates and fonts
Updated French braille encoding (for display)
Improved communications to PED-30
Fixed ELEKUL 03 support
Allow disabling of serial port initialization, which can improve compatibility with some serial ports.
Fix to a rare crash when importing Word documents
Fix to a rare lockup during search and replace
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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
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.
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.
The following language translation tables have been added or substantially updated:
(Some of these have been included in service packs for DBT 10.5.)
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.