Robo Braille: enhancing the accessibility of documents

By Scott Davert, Monday, August 13, 2012

For many reasons, people who are blind or deaf-blind find it
necessary to convert files from one format to another. For example,
converting a graphical PDF file to an accessible format such as
Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx), rich text format (.rtf), digital
braille (.brf) or plain text (.txt). This is especially the case when
textbook publishers send out books in PDF format.

There are many software applications that can convert files from one
format to another, but these must be installed in order to perform
conversions for some of the above mentioned formats. That is, until a
service called Robobraille came in to being.

Robobraille, (www.robobraille.org), is a Danish Web based service that
will convert files from one format to another.

Files can be converted from or to: uncontracted and contracted
Braille, plain text, Microsoft Word,JPEG, PDF, and many more.

There are also many languages supported such as Danish, French,
German, Spanish, Arabic, and several others.

You can even view the Web interface from the list of available buttons
for the languages that are present on the home page.

The process of converting files is very straight forward. First choose
the file you’d like to convert and upload it on the front page of the
site much as you would upload a file on any Web site.

The only issue with this is that once your file has successfully
uploaded, the upload file portion of the web page remains there, so
you have to arrow around to find out when your file has completed
uploading.
The service has a 32MB limit on file size, which could present some
issues for those who need very large PDF documents converted.

The complete list of input file types supported are : .doc, .docx,
.pdf, .txt, .xml, .html, .htm, .rtf, .epub, .mobi, .tiff, .tif, .gif,
.jpg, .bmp, .pcx, .dcx, .j2k, .jp2, .jpx, .djv and.asc Once you have
uploaded the file, you will be presented with a list of alternative
types for the file such as a document, tagged PDF, audio, or an eBook.
The next series of options are contextual. For example, if you’re
converting a PDF file to another document type, you will be presented
with the various formats available.

MP3 audio, eBook formats including EPUB and MOBI, document (10 different
types to choose from), and various forms of digital Braille are all
available with for PDF file. If you choose to convert the file to an
MP3, you will then have a choice as to the speed of the speech along
with whether you’d like the text-to-speech engine to read in an
American or British voice.
These options vary slightly based on what you upload.
For example, if you upload a Microsoft Word file for conversion, you
get the additional option of DAISY format, even with both text and
audio.

After choosing your desired format, you then need to enter an email
address where Robobraille can email you the converted file as an
attachment, or in the case of MP3 files, you will be provided with a
link to the file from their server. You can then download the file,
and be on your way to enjoying the file format of your choice.

I have found that graphical PDF documents are quite accurately
converted with the OCR tool Robobraile is using.
The 5 documents I tested this conversion with had AN AVERAGE OF LESS
THAN one error for each page.
Turnaround time varies based on the size of the document. For example,
a 3 page document may take less than 2 minutes, while a 300 page
document could take over an hour.

A few limitations:
As mentioned above, the files you upload must be less than 32MB. Also,
protected documents cannot be converted.
Finally, while one can convert to digital Braille, it is slightly
misleading that the files are given the file extensions .txt. It
would be nice if Robobraille could include the BRF format as an input
format so that those who create .brf files can have them converted to
another format when needed.
This would also be nice to see for some of the other proprietary
formats such as Key Word.

Overall, this is a great service that can come in handy when no
conversion software is available. While they gladly accept donations,
the service is free and worked with Safari, Internet Explorer, and
Firefox when I tested it.
Obviously, going through each type of file you can upload and all of
its options is beyond the scope of this article, but the above
examples demonstrate how Robobraille can become yet another resource
in the ever expanding assistive technology toolbox for users of
adaptive technology.