Hi, David and List,
There are several ways to write Spanish using the Apex. None of them are
perfect and some of them are downright tedious. I don't know what type of
keyboard you have, a braille or qwerty. But I'll try to answer using both
keyboards.
I assume you have Spanish enabled. The first thing to do is to change your
computer braille table to Spanish.
Go to the options menu and press b for braille options. Press space until
you find the option and change the computer braille table to Spanish. You
must also turn on 8 dot computer braille. BT users will write their text
files using Spanish computer braille. Qwerty users will have to create
braille documents and write Spanish computer braille using the home row as
the 8 dot braille keyboard.
The advantage of this method is you can write the accents, upside down
question mark and upside down exclamation point using one 8-dot cell and you
don't have to use the unicode tables. The disadvantage is you must learn
some new computer braille symbols. Most of them are easy. The accents are as
follows: a acute dots 1,2,5,6,8. E acute dots 2,3,4,6,8. I acute dots 3,4,8.
N tilde dots 1,2,4,5,6,8. O acute dots 3,4,6,8. U acute dots 2,3,4,5,6,8.
Inverted exclamation mark dots 2,3,5,8. Inverted question mark dots 2,6,8.
If you are familiar with the 6-dot accents used in US Spanish grade 1, then
memorizing these will be easy. But the numbers are different, the capital
sign is different and I don't remember the period.
If you are a qwerty user and you can't stand braille input using the home
row, you can create a text file. When you need to type a special symbol,
press control-g c to change to computer braille input for that symbol, write
the symbol in computer braille then press control-g q to change back to
qwerty input.
The second method is to use unicode tables to write the symbols. This method
is slow, especially if you must hunt for each unicode symbol from the table.
You must access the unicode tables using function-x or backspace x. If you
know the number for the unicode character, you can type the number. If you
don't, you'll have to hunt through the tables. If you have time, you can
assign macros for the unicode characters. No matter what, the unicode method
is slow!
The third method is to change your preferred braille code to UEB. You do
that through the braille display options menu. Once you have done that, you
can write your document in braille. BT users may like this, because you can
create a text file but you don't have to use computer braille because you're
using UEB. There are specific symbols for all the characters. A acute dots
45,34,1. E acute dots 45,34,15. I acute dots 45,34,24. O acute dots
45,34,135. N tilde dots 45,12456,1345. U acute dots 45,34,136. Inverted
question mark dots 45,56,236. Inverted exclamation mark dots 45,56,235. To
be on the safe side, you should use uncontracted braille for the rest of the
document.
Like the first method, it's fast, but not as fast and the symbols take more
than one cell. But if you don't like using 8 dot braille, this system should
work.
The same disadvantage for qwerty users is you must write braille documents
using the 6 dot braille keyboard on the home row. Still, it's faster than
using unicode characters. You could try writing a text document and use
control-g 1, braille the symbol and press control-g q to get back to qwerty
input.
I sure wish there was a better way to write foreign languages, especially
for qwerty users, but there isn't.
Happy Labor Day!
Terri, Amateur Radio call sign KF6CA.
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