Multilingual Braille Output For Snow Leopard

Snow Leopard users can use VoiceOver in several languages, but by default the braille dot codes are output using the English braille code.

Regular written text uses different scripts for different languages – think of Greek and Russian for example. Braille is similar, with different braille codes for different languages.

Archie Robertson has made free uncontracted (grade 1) multilingual braille output available for OS X users in the following languages: Arabic, Danish, French, German, Greek/Coptic, Hebrew, Italian, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and US Unicode. The installer is localised in English and French and there are very clear instructions about how to set up VoiceOver to use your newly installed Braille codes.

Archie has said he’s interested in producing contracted braille sets too, but these are proving very difficult to implement. If you’d like a language that’s not included yet, or like to help work on these, Archie can be contacted at the email conseil at anarchie dot org dot uk.

- Ricky Buchanan