Duxbury Systems, Inc. designs and manufactures software for braille; it is the oldest company in the world to specialize in such products (since 1975). Our principal products provide for translation from various print forms to braille, for English and many other languages and types of notation, and also for word-processing of both the print and the braille.
Duxbury's braille fonts have been developed over a period of years, at least as far back as Duxbury's first Macintosh-based product release in 1989, as component parts of many of its products for braille translation and word-processing. Currently, all of Duxbury's principal products--the Duxbury Braille Translator (DBT) for all platforms (Windows, Macintosh and MS-DOS) and also the Braille Board for Windows--include the fonts in some form. So, if you have any of those products installed, you may already have these fonts, in which case this freeware distribution will not be of use to you.
A braille font is a way to "convert" ordinary text characters into dot patterns, which is how the Duxbury Braille Translator (DBT) can display braille dots and print them out. Even if you do not need braille translation or editing software, it is possible that braille fonts would be useful for some purposes, such as:
Further details on some of these possibilities are given under "Usage", below. In order to allow such uses, in the service of braille generally, Duxbury Systems is making these fonts available under a limited freeware license, the terms of which are detailed in a later section.
One very important caution, though, applies to any case where you use any braille font directly, that is by simply applying the font to text: A BRAILLE FONT IS NOT IN ITSELF A VALID METHOD FOR TRANSLATION OF PRINT TO BRAILLE. In other words, if you just apply a font to ordinary print text, the result will most likely NOT be valid customary braille. The basic advice here is this: If you yourself do not know braille, make sure that you work with a qualified braille transcriber or braille proofreader, or at least use the output of a high-quality translation program such as Duxbury's, when using a braille font! Moreover, if you really need to be sure that it's correct, use the same precaution that you would with important print text--have it checked by a qualified braille proofreader.
A braille "cell" or character comprises six potential dot positions, arranged in two columns, each three dots high. At each of these positions, a raised dot may or may not be present, making 64 (2 to the 6th power) distinct combinations. The meanings and uses of these 64 combinations is discussed on a page describing the braille system at the web site of Duxbury Systems, Inc. at URL:
http://www.duxburysystems.com
These fonts map ASCII characters to braille dot configurations according to the table of "North American ASCII-Braille Equivalents" as defined on the abovementioned web page. So, even if you know braille, you will need to learn or reference that table to use the font properly. For example, to set the word "information" in English grade 2 braille, you would need to know enough to type in the five characters:
9=m,n
and then apply the font to them. If there is anything about this brief example that you do not understand, then you really need to obtain qualified assistance, as explained in the cautionary paragraph under "Background", above. To reiterate: It is VERY important to understand that valid braille CANNOT, in general, be obtained by simply applying a braille font to ordinary print text. Unless you understand the braille rules as they apply to the language and type of material that you need to put into braille, you will need to work with a person who does have that knowledge (a braille transcriber) and/or a transcribing program such as the Duxbury Braille Translator in order to obtain valid braille.
Two distinct fonts are provided, "Braille" and "SimBraille".
Subject to the above, these fonts are used just as any other TrueType fonts, which are supported by a wide variety of Windows applications, and even a few DOS applications. To word processing programs and the like, Braille and SimBraille are just like any other font, such as Courier, Helvetica or Times Roman.
The "Braille" font can be used for simulated braille where just the dots that would be physically raised in real (embossed) braille are displayed as filled black circles. No mark is present in the other, unraised positions. This font can also be used in support of physical processes that result in real raised braille. For example, there are papers made with special materials so that, when they are heated, any black mark upon the paper causes a local swelling and hence a dot wherever a black circle has been printed. When used for real braille, or for simulated braille in any case where it is desirable for the printed characters to be the same size as real braille, the font should size should be set at 24 points. Of course, there are many instances where other point sizes are useful for printed simulated braille.
At the 24-point size, the diameter of the black dots is at the nominal size specified by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), i.e. .059 inches. Sometimes, when the font is used along with certain physical processes to create real braille, it is desirable to use a smaller or larger dot diameter to compensate for gain or loss inherent to the physical process. For example, 80% of nominal size may be best when using the special paper described above. In Duxbury's products that use this font, there is a special utility program called "Braille Build" that allows the font to be generated at any useful size, from a minimal point to dots so large that they touch. While that utility is not provided in this freeware distribution, one or more useful alternate sizes, in addition to the normal 100% size, may be provided for freeware distribution.
With the "SimBraille" font, the raised dots are shown as black filled circles, just as with the Braille font, and in addition the other positions are marked with a tiny dot, sometimes called a "shadow" or "placement" dot, for reference. This is useful so that, for instance, it is easy to distinguish the dots 1-2-3 character (all three left-hand dots) from the dots 4-5-6 character (all three right-hand dots) -- which otherwise would be hard to tell apart if there were a lot of space on both sides of the character. However, since this approach can only apply to printed simulated braille, and not to real braille, this font is only used for the simulated form and is not subject to resizing of the dot diameters.
This software and associated documentation is:
Distribution of this freeware license is by downloading from Duxbury's Web site (see URL above).