From today, November 4th, the new installation setup of Biblos is available. This new Biblos contains many new features, some still unpublished. Always free to download and use, Biblos is the Word processor with special features for visual impairment and beyond.

Some features of this version will appear in the update 5.51, available in a few days. Those who have already installed Biblos just wait a few days and they will be able to enjoy these new features.

In the new installation setup there is a new English dictionary with more than 180,000 terms. The biggest novelty concerns Unicode characters. Unicode characters are a group of about 100,000 characters with which current operating systems handle any text. Unicode contains the characters of all the languages of the world, living and dead, symbols of any kind and matter and also emoji, the symbols with which in today's communication through social networks and not only, intentions and moods are manifested. 😄

Biblos already managed Unicode, but up to 16 bit Unicode. With the current version Unicode is extended to 21 bits, that is to all available characters, even emoji. Biblos before already managed all the languages of the world, living and dead. With this update can be used also ideograms of traditional Chinese language, extra mathematical symbols, chemical and alchemical symbols, graphics of all kinds and emoji.

To obtain this functionality it was necessary to intervene on two fronts: in some internal features of Biblos and Biblos interface editor; on the integration of Jaws and NVDA, for which the scripts and the addon have been updated. Let's see together some news:

• The activator character "^" now detects also numbers over 16 bits. You can use it to insert emoji too, in all the editing fields of Biblos. For example, if you want to search for this emoji "😁", you can open the search window and you can enter the string "^128513".
• The functionality of entering characters by typing their code from the numeric keypad while holding down the Alt key extends to all Unicode characters, even those beyond the 65535 code. For example, holding down Alt key and typing the code "128519" from the keypad, you get this character: "😇".
• The "Insert Code" command from the Tools/Character menu accepts all Unicode codes. For example, if you press Alt+1 (extended keyboard) the input window opens, you type the codes "128521 128522" in the document the characters are written: "😉😊".
• You can create a keyboard map by inserting keys into it for typing any Unicode character. For example, you can create a keyboard map to easily type emoji.
• Among the codes of a Braille table, you can also insert codes to transcribe emoji.
• In the tactile graphics environment you can insert the instructions to draw emoji in order to print them in tactile.
• The status bar of the main window, when the cursor arrives on a character, correctly shows also the value and the description of all the Unicode codes.
• With the new scripts for the Jaws for Windows screen reader, in the document window, you can now read all Unicode characters, even character by character, even their value by pressing the 5 key on the keypad three times. Due to a Jaws bug, even though Biblos allows to write and display correctly all unicodes in all other program fields - editing fields, list views, etc. -, Jaws cannot interpret them. -Jaws can't interpret the codes correctly, so it reads wrong values and descriptions.
• With the new addon for the NVDA screen reader, you can correctly read all Unicode codes in any program window, even their value by pressing the 2 key on the keypad three times.

The current version of Biblos contains also other new features, accompanying all the updates since version 5.40. Here is a short list of them.

• Biblos 5.50: Added new prefixes and suffixes to Braille table features, useful for customizing Braille transcription of special codes. Added Braille driver for printing with Gemini Super from Nippon Telesoft, a very special printer that prints Braille and ink together.
• Biblos 5.49: Updates to the Characters management window and to the management of Unicode characters.
• Biblos 5.48: New scripts for Jaws that in some versions of the screen reader modify the behavior of the "Read all" command.
• Biblos 5.47: Update to status bars. New features to the inline help Windows, where you can search for text within the manual and where you can create an entire book of the open manual.
• Biblos 5.46: Optimized calculation of ink pages and Braille pages when printing ink documents or Braille documents when there are double-indexed table of contents.
• Biblos 5.45: Correction to index elements, the elements that show in the document and in the print the ink or Braille pages.
• Biblos 5.44: On Windows 10 you can use Microsoft Onecore speech synthesis technology, to read the document with the internal reader or to create audiobooks.
• Biblos 5.43: Profound change to the Substitutions used in the creation of audiobooks and Character Transliterations.
• Biblos 5.42: New native file opening and saving formats. You can natively open and save DOCX and Markdown files.
• Biblos 5.41: Available "Binary File" format to open and save any type of binary file. Profound changes to the data the Software uses and their management Windows.
• Biblos 5.40: Updated the OCR module containing 41 recognition languages.

Biblos is the Italian reference Software for printing in Braille and tactile graphics. The quality of the Software is guaranteed and expressed through a constant and meticulous care of its functionalities. The results obtained are the expression of professional skills in the development of this teaching aid for students with visual disabilities.

For further support you can subscribe the Biblos Group on Facebook.