User's Manual

BrailleNote Apex BT User Guide
3-89
3.21 Opening ASCII and Plain Braille
format Documents.
Documents in KeyWord's native format, as well as Microsoft Word, RTF, or WordPerfect
documents precisely specify their contents and formatting. However, the contents and formatting of
documents containing plain ASCII text and the formatting of plain Braille documents are not at all
precisely defined, so it is necessary to give you control over how KeyWord interprets them. This is
done through a list of options presented when you open such a document. The initial settings for
these options are either the ones you established last time you opened the same document, or if you
have never opened the document before, settings that KeyWord assumes are most appropriate for
the document and therefore usually you will not need to make any changes. So that you can tell
whether or not you have opened this document before, the wording of the prompt changes from
"Review the options?" to "Review previous options?" accordingly. To continue and open the
document without reviewing the options, just press ENTER. To review the options, press Y.
The options given when opening a document are as follows:
“Is this a Braille or Text document?”
If the name extension is .brl or .brf indicating that it will be a Braille file, then this option will have
already been set to Braille. When open, these documents default to a reading grade of contracted
Braille, regardless of the preferred reading grade set, as most Braille documents are in contracted
Braille.
If the document is not .brf or .brl but contains Braille, then select "Braille" by pressing B. Otherwise
select "Text" by pressing T. Follow either entry with ENTER.
“Language for document?”
If more than one language is installed, you will be asked to select the language used for this
document.
“Use Line or Paragraph format when opening the document? currently Paragraph.”
When opening a document, it is important that KeyWord knows the difference between the ends of
lines within a paragraph and the end of the paragraph itself. Without this knowledge, paragraphs
might be run together, or each line within a paragraph may be taken as the end of a paragraph,
causing the speech to pause in the wrong places, and stopping the proper reformatting of lines
within a paragraph when a change is made. Plain text or plain Braille documents use the same
"control characters," for example, "carriage returns" and "line feeds" to show where lines within
paragraphs end as they use to show where a paragraph ends. This option allows you to control how
KeyWord interprets these control characters to distinguish between ends of lines and end of
paragraphs.
The option you choose here depends on the way the document you are opening is formatted: