Working with Duxbury

[Chris Clemens]

Hi. I have been experimenting with Duxbury software. It's a software I've barely used before except to do some 6-key entry with it. I've been using one of the other braille translation software products up until now.

I'm not sure I could get used to how Duxbury works-- unless I'm using it wrong somehow. It's hard for me to get used to not being able to go back and forth between the braille and the print once you've translated. I know you are not supposed to translate back to the print-a warning comes up not to do that.

I usually work in sections when I translate chapters-that's why I like going back and forth between the braille and print.
How is Duxbury supposed to be used? Is a person supposed to set up the whole file of a book/document in word first and then just select translate once, and then fix up the braille from what you get from that?

Especially with a large book, I like to work in smaller sections--I guess I feel leery to translate a huge word file at once especially since much editing may be needed later or shifting around of the pages etc.
Thanks for any insight anyone can give me.

[Chris Clemens]

I used Duxbury most of the time. I like that I can do most of my formatting and editing in Microsoft Word using the Bana template.
Then I import the Word file into Duxbury. When it is in Duxbury print you can further edit if you need to. Once the file is ready you translate to braille.
There is a strip along the bottom that shows each line in print and you can make the codes show up by depressing alt+f3. If you need to go back to your original document (print) you can exit out of the braille and go back. (not back translate) However the changes you make to the braille won't have been made in the print. So make sure that you keep track of changes you want to make if you go back. It is helpful if you read braille, to check your formatting once you have translated to braille. You can work in smaller sections and cut and paste them together, but I find proofing in the braille helpful.

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