Hello Terri, I,too, used a Perkins Braille writer when I took my Spanish courses, but this student does not like using the Perkins; therefore, must learn to use the notetaker to complete the task. Thanks for this information.
Sharon -----Original Message----- From: Terri Pannett [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 2:06 PM To: [email protected]; BrailleNote List Subject: Re: creating dot assignments for reading characters and Macros for writing characters Hi, Sharon, To assign a dot pattern so characters can be read on the braille display: 1. Press function with x to bring up the unicode table. 2 Look for the character you want to assign dot pattern. 3. When you find the character, press control d. 4. If the character has never been assigned to anything, you will get the message: "character displays as nothing. option?" 5. Press the letter a to assign a dot pattern. 6. Type the dots you want to see the character displayed. The QT keyboard becomes a braille keyboard so f is dot 1, d is dot 2, s is dot 3, j is dot 4, k is dot 5 l is dot 6 a is dot 7 and semicolon is dot 8. Now, Here's a secret so you can see all of the special characters in a foreign language in braille without needing to assign a dot pattern to every character: change the computer braille table to the foreign language's table. To change the computer braille table to Spanish computer braille, go to the braille options menu by pressing function with o. Space until you get to "computer braille table?" Press control space until you get to "Spanish computer braille." Press enter. Be sure to cycle through the options until you get to "display computer braille using 6 or 8 dots." Press 8 so the computer will display as 8 dots. Here is how to create a macro for writing characters: 1. Press function with x and find the character you want to write, for example a acute, but don't press enter yet. 2. Press control k. The message "a acute is unassigned. option? appears. 3. Press the letter a to assign a macro. 4. The message "macro to assign a acute?" appears. 5. Type a character or more than one character then press enter. For example, you could type aa for a acute. 6. You will get the message: "asign function with c, then aa to a acute?" Press y for yes. 7. To write a acute using the new macro, press function c. At the prompt, "unicode macro?" type aa and press enter. There are two secrets for writing foreign languages without going through the hassle of finding unicode characters and creating macros: 1. Connect an external Qwerty keyboard to the BN. Turn numlock on. Hold down the left alt key on the external keyboard and type the unicode character's number using the external keyboard's numpad. For example, to write a acute, hold down the alt key and press 225. Here are the numbers for the Spanish characters: a acute 225; e acute 233; i acute 237; n tilde 241; o acute 243; u acute 250; inverted exclamation mark 161; inverted question mark 191; cap A acute 193; cap E acute 201; cap I acute 205; cap N tilde 209; cap O acute 211; cap U acute 118. (It's been so long since I've studied Spanish I can't remember if they used cap acute letters. I don't think they did, but I included them anyway.) By the way, you can enter these numbers using the BN's QT keyboard, but you always have to press function with x first. This step isn't necessary with an external QWERTY keyboard. 2. Another way to write Spanish quickly is to change the keyboard type and braille grade in use to computer braille and write them in braille. To write an a acute, you would press dots 1,2,3,5,6,8. You must have Spanish computer braille table loaded and you must have 8 dot braille turned on. Note: All of the Spanish accented characters and inverted question mark and inverted exclamation mark use the same dots as US Spanish braille but you add dot 8. For example, e acute is dots 2,3,4,6,8 the inverted exclamation mark is dots 2,3,5,8 inverted question mark is 2,6,8 acute i is 3,4,8 acute o is 3,4,6,8 acute u is 2,3,4,5,6,8 n tilde is 1,2,4,5,6,8. Note: If you don't mind using the QT keyboard in braille mode, you could write all of your Spanish using braille. I'm telling you about these methods for writing Spanish because when I took Spanish many years ago, I had to take high speed dictation using a Perkins brailler. If I had had to go through all the steps of writing the characters by pressing function with x followed by the number, I would never have been able to keep up. Note: You can always change back to US computer braille when you don't need to write Spanish. Note that the numbers in the Spanish computer braille table are different from the numbers in the US table. I hope these instructions are helpful. If you have any questions, please let me know. Terri Amateur Radio call sign KF6CA. ___ Replies to this message will go directly to the sender. If your reply would be useful to the list, please send a copy to the list as well. 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
