Braille print preview

After clicking the PREPARE button, if you want to check how the braille document was formatted, simply click the PREVIEW button. A window opens showing the entire Braille document.

The preview window contains only a few elements:

- the sheet displaying the Braille document;

- the side toolbar;

- the status bar containing some information;

- the Braille page box;

- preview mode.

No changes can be made to the preview. The window is independent of the document window, so you can bring the document to the foreground to make the desired changes.

The preview sheet covers almost the entire window area and contains the Braille document to be printed. Preview text can be explored using the normal scroll keys. The preview is usually shown using a fixed width character, to get an exact spatial representation of the characters. In any case, the font can be changed.

The preview sheet is associated with a contextual menu containing various commands. Some of these are also available in the toolbar on the right side of the window. These are the menu commands:

- Find: Shows the dialog box for searching for text in the preview window;

- Find Next: Repeats to search for the entered text;

- Find Error: Moves the cursor to the next unrecognized character, if available;

- Add Code - allows you to add a Braille code to a table. A window is shown for choosing the Braille table where to add the code. The window for adding the code is shown below. If a preview text part is selected, or the cursor is on an incorrect character, the string field is already valorized. This feature is very useful when you want to immediately add an unrecognized character to a table when preparing your braille document;

- Go to Page: Shows a window from which you can choose the type and number of page to move to;

- Previous page: Moves the cursor to the top of the previous page;

- Next page: Moves the cursor to the beginning of the next page;

- Font: Changes the font in which the text is displayed;

- Larger: enlarges the size of the character in which the text is displayed;

- Smaller: Decreases the size of the character that displays the text;

- Copy: Copies the selected text to the clipboard;

- Select All: Select the entire preview text;

- Save: Saves the preview to a file. The saving format depends on the preview mode you are viewing. Available formats are: Rich Text RTF (text and braille mode); Ansi Text TXT (text and encoded mode); UTF Text-8 TXT (text and braille mode); Braille Text BRF (encoded and braille mode);

- Print: Prints the preview text in ink. This feature is very useful if you want to get an ink copy of your document that is printed in Braille. This is important in schools to give the teacher the possibility to follow the blind student using the same text layout;

- Hot keys: shows the window for customizing the hot keys of the menu items.

The last line of the window contains some information, useful for orientation between the characters and braille lines of the document. On the left side you can specify the position of the cursor, expressed in number of column and line inside the page where you are. Immediately after this, the value and name of the character in which the cursor is positioned are displayed. Below are the current page number and the total number of pages. Finally there is the field that indicates the current preview mode.

An editable element contained in the status bar is that of the Braille page field. Contains the page number you are browsing. The field is a SpinBox that can be modified with a normal value editing, with the vertical arrows or with the mouse using the buttons on the side. By changing the page value the cursor jumps immediately to the beginning of the selected page.

To make it easier for users to read the braille document, three preview modes are available: text, encoded, and braille.

- In text mode, the characters as they appear in the source document are displayed. The characters belonging to the document are displayed in black. All prefixes created by the Braille preparation, such as small markers and number markers, are displayed in blue. Instead, all suffixes are displayed in green. Finally, all unrecognized characters are displayed in red.

- In encoded mode, based on a print simulation using a generic model, all Braille characters are displayed encoded. The text can be read with a screen reader and a braille display. The type of generic model to use is configurable on the Advanced tab of the Braille Settings.

- In the third display mode, Braille mode, the document is displayed with natural Braille cells, a faithful representation of the corresponding printed paper. If only squares appear in this mode, you must choose a different font using the Font command in the context menu. If the font does not show any useful characters, you will need to install an appropriate font in your system to display the braille cells.

If the focus is in the preview document, you can use the Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab shortcuts to change the preview mode.