User's Manual

BrailleNote Apex BT User Guide
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7.16.1 6-dot or 8-dot Computer Braille.
There are two sorts of computer Braille: 6-dot and 8-dot. In 6-dot, a capital letter is obtained by
pressing SPACE with U before the letter. If you press SPACE with U twice, capitals continue until
you turn them off by pressing SPACE with U again.
Alternatively, you can employ 8-dot Braille. The two keys that we have been calling BACKSPACE
and ENTER are used in 8-dot Braille for dot 7 and dot 8 respectively. These two dots are the
bottom two of the 4 by 2 dot cell used for 8-dot Braille. There is no separate capital sign. Instead,
you get upper case by adding dot 7 to each letter sign. For instance, capital A is dots 1-7. Since
dots 7 and 8 are used for characters in 8-dot Braille, the ENTER and BACKSPACE functions have
to be obtained in a different way:
For ENTER, press SPACE with ENTER, and for BACKSPACE, press
SPACE with BACKSPACE.
In all KeySoft commands that use BACKSPACE or ENTER, you must add SPACE if you are using
8-dot Braille. For example, the command to delete the current word is usually
BACKSPACE with dots 2-5. When you are using 8-dot Braille, however, you must press
SPACE with BACKSPACE with dots 2-5 to delete the current word.
You can choose 6 or 8-dot computer Braille through the Options menu. Press SPACE with O, then
K for Keyboard Settings. Press SPACE repeatedly until KeySoft asks:
"Use 6 or 8 dot computer Braille?."
Enter 6 or 8 without a number sign.
The last prompt in this list asks you for the computer Braille language you wish to use. The choices
are "USA computer Braille,” or "UK computer Braille" and this setting applies to both 6 and 8
dots computer Braille. While the dot combinations for the letters of the alphabet are the same in
both languages, the dot combinations for numbers and most punctuation characters is different. For
example, an asterisk is obtained in USA computer Braille by pressing dots 1-6. In UK computer
Braille an asterisk is dots 3-5. Appendix D lists the computer Braille codes for both languages.