Hi Ben, Sorry for my late response; it seems I missed this mail last Friday.
On Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:02:17 +1000, Ben McGinnes <b...@adversary.org> wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA512 > > On 28/04/11 9:28 PM, Christophe Strobbe wrote: >> >> On Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:49:11 +1000, Ben McGinnes <b...@adversary.org> >> wrote: >>> >>> I hadn't even heard of DAISY, but it looks very cool so thanks for >>> pointing me at it. I just installed the extension and will have a >>> little play with it at some nebulous point in the future. >> >> Great :-) (I am involved in the development of odt2daisy.) > > Cool. Since then I've tried it on a couple of things and it is pretty > nifty. Although I should really poke around for some decent DAISY > software readers/players to see (and hear) how others would experience > any given thing. There is a list of software-based DAISY players in the Wikipedia article on DAISY: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAISY_Digital_Talking_Book#Software_players>. I try to update it when I find something new. Hardware DAISY players also exist, but they aren't cheap. > >> Since this thread mentions both ePub and DAISY I would like to point >> out that the IDPF (in charge of ePub) and the DAISY Consortium are >> working on a stronger convergence between the two formats. > <snip> > >> This means that ePub 3 will contain more features to support >> accessibility for people with disabilities than in previous >> versions. (DAISY was designed for persons with reading impairments >> from the outset.) > > This is what caught my attention with DAISY and why I'm now looking > forward to ePub 3. It's a great example of where ebooks can level the > field for everyone. > > I remember when I was a kid and already reading voraciously that my > Nan did too. Unfortunately her eyesight was very bad, so the only > books she could read were the large print books available at the local > library and she couldn't read everything she wanted to. This always > struck me as most unfair. We finally have the technology to render > this situation a thing of the past and we should do so. > >> But it also means that whatever content you put into an ePub doc >> will need features to make that type of content accessible. For many >> types of content (images, video, audio) this involves the use of >> text alternatives. Making math and science accessible is still a >> challenge, in spite of many years of research. 3D was also mentioned >> in this thread - I don't know how that would be made accessible. > > Fortunately for me my interest is essentially text only (regardless of > whether it is fiction or non-fiction). So I don't have to worry so > much about any of these, but it is definitely something to bear in > mind and work on. > >>> When it comes to books, PDF is only really useful for type-setting >>> a print book (e.g. the way Lulu uses them for preparing print on >>> demand books). >> >> I think tagged PDF with reflow options in PDF readers (see one of my >> previous mails) changed that a bit. Adobe Reader even has a Read Out >> Loud function (but you will need to get used to synthetic speech). > > Since I've used PDF for the odd report (the last one was an > anti-censorship thing), that's something I'll have to keep in mind for > next time. Also for the political stuff. > >>> It takes a little time to prepare all the relevant formats, but >>> compared to the process of writing, proofing and editing, not >>> really all that much. >> >> If you want a decent DAISY book, you will need (at the very least) >> to make sure that you use the correct styles for headings (to enable >> navigation) and that you mark the language(s) in the content >> correctly. > > Appropriate use of styles and headings was already looking like it > would be necessary for ePub and other things anyway. I take it with > regards to the language marking you're referring to specifying the > language for a document or paragraph (rather than just the default > language of LibreOffice), right? Yes, that is correct. > > Is there a guide somewhere of the right document/page/paragraph > attributes needed to generate decent DAISY documents? I made a presentation about this at FOSDEM in February of this year. My slides are on Slideshare at <http://www.slideshare.net/aegisproject/fosdem-2011-a11y-authoring-libre-office> but I can also send them off-list. There is more detailed guidance on accessible authoring (not geared at DAISY) from the "Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project": <http://adod.idrc.ocad.ca/>. Their techniques for OpenOffice.org also apply to LibreOffice. (And they also cover MS Word, Google Docs, Corel WordPerfect, iWork; it's an impressive set of documents.) Best regards, Christophe > > > Regards, > Ben > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ > > iEYEAREKAAYFAk26RlkACgkQNxrFv6BK4xPnCACfQ7qw5EbSJXy2jcj921Te8SCb > rXgAoOgGOBwi9NIEVqU+dQnHUwRqw6YD > =+61B > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Christophe Strobbe K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD Research Group on Document Architectures Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442 B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee BELGIUM tel: +32 16 32 85 51 www.docarch.be Twitter: @RabelaisA11y -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
