Ottawa Canada Dear Michele:
Your reference to A4 paper tells me you may be in Europe or the UK. Many blind people have tried Braille production as a cottage industry and an awful lot of them have found very few paying clients. Before you tool up for Braille production, think about the following: 1. Who else will Braille menus or business cards? What do they charge the restaurant or client for Brailing? What can I offer the customer that makes me a better Braille production service than the existing firms? Is there enough demand for my service to make money and cover my expenses of buying equipment and programs, etc? Oh and it helps a lot if you are a Certified Braille Transcriber or Proofreader according to your national Braille Authority. OK, so now you have decided there is money in Braille production, you need a Braille Translation Program and embosser. I like DBT, the Duxbury Braille Translator, butt other people have their own favourites and most are good too. The embosser: If you are embossing already printed and cut to size business cards, you probably won't be able to emboss them on an embosser as they don't have tractor holes and are too small to use the cut paper feeder. You'll have to emboss them with a slate and stylus or Perkins Brailler. For restaurant menus, you probably want an Interpoint embosser like the Juliet Pro, Bookmaker or other quality embosser. Yes these sort of embossers are quite expensive, but Interpoint is the way to go for booklets as it saves a lot of bulk and a bit of paper. Don't forget you will need binding equipment. Most Braille booklets have Cirlox (tm) bindings and a good Cirlox binding machine isn't cheap. And manually placing each hole in the paper onto the plastic ring of the binding is tedious and takes a certain amount of skill. I know, I have tried it. Inherited a Cirlox binding machine from a friend who tried home Braille production and lost her shirt and the buttons. Good luck with the project. Brian -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.15.26/594 - Release Date: 20/12/2006 3:54 PM ___ To leave the BrailleNote list, send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To view the list archives or change your preferences, visit http://list.humanware.com/mailman/listinfo/braillenote
