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A Beginners Guide to Duxbury Braille Translation

Opening Duxbury in Windows 95/98/nt

1.    Click the Start button on the Task Bar OR: Type the windows start button

2.    Choose Programs

3.    Select the "Duxbury" Program Group

4.    Click the "DBT Win" Icon OR: Using the arrow keys, move to the "DBT Win" option and type the enter key

Starting a New Document From Scratch

1.    Select "File: New" from the menu OR: use the shortcut command CTRL-N by typing the key marked "Ctrl" and the letter "t" at the same time.

2.    Select "Print" and "Standard Format" in the dialog box

3.    Click "OK"

Tip - Shortcut Keys (in pull-down menus)

Shortcut key commands are listed next to the corresponding menu command. For instance, when you select "File: New" from the menu, you can also type CTRL-N. This option is listed directly to the right of the menu command Shortcut key options are an easy, quick way to carry out commands which can take much longer if you use the menu.

Entering New Text

To create our first document, we are going to type a letter. Type the following:

Dear Mother,
How are you? I'm well. I'm learning how to use the Duxbury Braille Translator. It isn't very hard! All you have to do is to type in the text, tell the program to translate, and emboss!

Love,
Misty

That's all - it's that simple!


Translating a Document

1.    Select "File: Translate" from the menu or type CTRL-T.

2.    That's all! You've translated your document!

Embossing a Document

1.    Type CTRL-E, or select "Emboss" from the "File" Menu. IMPORTANT: IF YOU DO NOT HAVE AN EMBOSSER SET UP, DO NOT USE THE "EMBOSS" COMMAND!

2.    Click "OK" or type the enter key

Closing a Document

There are three ways to close a document. Be sure to close the document, not the application.

Take the Long Route - Use the File Menu

1.    Select "File: Close" from the menu

2.    If DBT asks whether you want to save the document, click "Discard."

Take the Mouse Shortcut

1.    Click the document's "Close" button

2.    If DBT asks whether you want to save the document, click "Discard."

Take the Keyboard Shortcut

1.    Type CTRL-F4

2.    If DBT asks whether you want to save the document, click "Discard."

Saving a Document       

1.    Select "File: Save" from the menu, or type CTRL-S.

2.    Type "letter.dxp"- the extension ".dxp" tells DBT that this is going to be a DBT print document.

3.    Be sure to save your document in the "dbtdocs" directory.

4.    Click "Save" or press the enter key.

A Note About Closing & Saving Documents:

When you exit DBT, the application first closes any open documents. If you have made changes to a document and have not saved those changes, DBT will ask you if you want to save your changes. DBT also saves the position of your cursor. If your document is a long one, you may find that the next time you open the document, you can't see the beginning of it. In order to avoid confusion, type CTRL-Home, to place your cursor at the beginning of the document, before saving. If you want to remember where you stopped working, then don't move the cursor to the beginning of the document before saving it.

Exiting DBT Win

Take the Long Route - Use the File Menu

Take the Mouse Shortcut

Take the Keyboard Shortcut:

to Import a Microsoft Word Document (See also SBS Guide)

First, we need a Microsoft Word document. This portion of the tutorial uses Microsoft Word. If you don't have Microsoft Word, please disregard this section for your own use. However, if you are receiving MS Word documents from another person for you to translate into Braille, you might want to show them this section of the tutorial so that their documents will be easier for you to translate.

Create a Microsoft Word Document

1.      Close any open documents and exit DBT.

2.      Start Microsoft Word.

3.      Choose "New" from the "File" menu

4.      Select blank document or "Normal" if you are prompted to select a template.

5.      Select "Style" From the "Format" menu

6.      Be sure "All Styles" is selected from the "List:" option

7.      Select "Heading 1"

8.      Click "Apply"

9.      Type "Title"

10. Type the Return key

11. Select "Style" from the "Format" menu

12. Select "Heading 2."

13. Click "Apply"

14. Type "Chapter 1"

15. Type the enter key twice.

16. Type "This text was centered using tabs and spaces."

17. Placing the cursor at the beginning of the line, center the text as best you can by typing the tab key a few times, and then the space key a few times.

18. Save the Microsoft Word document in the \dbtdocs directory as "Styles.doc"
Note: if you are using Word 2000 you must save your file with a Word6/Word95 File type

19. Close the document, and exit Word.

Open the document in DBT

1.      Select Open from the file menu OR: Type CTRL-O

2.      Open "Styles.doc"

OBSERVE: DBT recognizes the word document

3.      Select "OK" or type the enter key

OBSERVE: DBT applied its own styles to the first two lines. The corresponding styles are listed in the status bar. DBT removed the skipped line directly following the second line. The appearance of a skipped line remains, however, due to the formatting of the "h" style, which skips a line at the end of the paragraph. The style "para." was applied to the paragraph, and the sentence may or may not appear centered.

In order to see what really happened, view codes by typing ALT-F3 or selecting "Codes" from the "View" menu. DBT has applied styles ("es~para." and "ee~para." mean "start normal paragraph style" and "end normal paragraph style"), and kept the spaces and tabs.

4.    Translate the document to Braille. It will look very similarly formatted as compared with the print version, but no Braille document will ever look exactly the same as a print document. This is because of differences in formatting conventions and because Braille simply takes up more room than a print document. Always check your Braille document for formatting accuracy rather than assuming that the Braille will look like the print does. Just because your print document looks a certain way doesn't mean your Braille document should look the same!

The above materials have been adapted from Duxbury Online Tutorial at http://www.duxburysystems.com/tutorial/ with the permission of the author.