Re: CSS examples for Braille?

As Al has indicated, I am interested in the braille style sheet issue. I
posted a message to the list a few days ago, containing some admittedly
preliminary thoughts on possible extensions to the current braille media
type proposal.

Although the formatting possibilities for braille are governed largely by
the nature of the medium itself, it would be desirable to consult braille
experts from a number of different countries in developing the CSS
requirements. Formatting conventions differ between countries, and
although general controls for spacing, alignment, the representation of
emphasized text and so forth would satisfy most requirements, there might
be formatting techniques used in other countries that may need to be taken
into account. I am personally familiar with the English braille system,
and also have a book which describes the French contracted code (Abrege
Orthographique Francais Etendu).

There is a tendency for braille producers to conform to strict style
guidelines, which are prescribed by the various national braille
authorities (unfortunately I don't have a copy of such a document from
which to work). However, for purposes of CSS, it would be important not
only to be able to reproduce existing format conventions as contained in
style guides, but also to give the user flexibility in the design of style
sheets. I would suggest that both refreshable displays and embossed output
on paper should be considered when designing the braille CSS
specification. Thus, commands for controlling the placement of page
numbers, running headers and footers, and block protection, might well be
appropriate.

Currently there are very few HTML user agents which translate and format
text for braille output. One is the Sensus Internet Browser (see
http://www.sensus.dk/sib.htm). Another is the HTML to Braille
transformation Service at the University of Technology in Dresden
(http://elvis.inf.tu-dresden.de/html2braille/), which is actually a server
that retrieves HTML documents via the web, converts them into braille and
sends them to the user's client software. I understand that the Sensus
braille translation system in Denmark uses eight-dot braille (reference my
previous message), but I have not had any direct experience with this
system. I think CSS styles should accommodate both six-dot and eight-dot
braille, although the only aspect of formatting that varies depending upon
the use of a six or eight-dot system is the number of lines that can fit
onto a page of embossed output.

Jason White.

Received on Wednesday, 2 July 1997 21:30:41 UTC