From: Al and Masha Sten-Clanton 
Subject: Re: quick and dirty braille
On 7 Feb 1998, Warren Figueiredo wrote:
> 
> 
> Quoting from the your message:
> As just one example, every apostrophe from the
> printed document was translated as the braille apostrophe
> character, followed by a question mark, a letter sign symbol and
> finally the possessive s for which the apostrophe was necessary.
> 
> I would guess that the original file was done with a newer word process 
that 
> was set to uses what is called smart quotes--that is when the typist enters 
> either an apostrophe or quotation marks, the software automatically 
replaces 
> with them with curly quotes or single quotes which look more decorative to 
> print readers but play havoc with braille translation. This Braille 
> translation software cannot distinguish between a single quote used as an 
> apostrophe and the legitimate use of the character as single quotation 
marks. 
> I've seen that many, many times in newer documents. This feature can be 
> turned off.
> 
> 
> Some people call this quick and dirty braille--a document that can be 
easily 
> produced and quickly distributed. Many readers acknowledge the limitations 
of 
> the translator and balance that with the lower cost and timely access of 
the 
> materials. They see the error, recognize what was meant and move on.
I can accept some imperfection in Braille that's needed quickly, but the
example Kelly Ford gave is pushing it a lot.  If you have to go to a
great deal of trouble to decipher it, bad Braille may be worse than none. 
 I say that though Braille is almost always my medium of choice when I
can have it.
I don't want to be critical of our Oregon affiliate, not knowing what
resources it has.  I'm not surprised, however, if a guest at a convention 
where such Braille problems and other apparent problems existed would
find fault.  He's certainly correct that few other organizations of any
kind in this country would get away with agendas that were difficult to
read.  I guess we just need to do our best, being gentle about our own
mistakes and those of others and learning what we can from them.
Al
> 
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