The Talking Edition is the only known tool that can read contracted braille files as naturally spoken prose. Not only that, but this edition can be used by a blind transcriber to create or edit all kinds of braille files... as braille (not necessarily as print). That is because The Talking Edition can speak keyboard events (typing or six-key input) and give exact cursor position and current paragraph style. The blind transcriber may interrogate the cell at the cursor, by cell identity or by dots numbers. The Talking Edition can speak things that no screen reader can, because it has intimate knowledge of the structure of the braille document.
You do not need a license to evaluate The Talking Edition for yourself. Download and install Braille2000 by clicking HERE. After you click the link, tell your browser to "Run" the file (the setup mechanism for Braille2000). To do this, you need to be logged in as an "administrator" for Windows.
Installing Braille2000 will give you a "V2" icon on your desktop. Double-click that icon to launch the tool. In the initial dialog box "Launching Braille2000..." select the tab called "Evaluate Only" and then click the "Talking Edition" button. You can create new documents or open existing doccument to see how The Talking Edition behaves, but do not Save your file: the Evaluate Only mode does not support production work... it marks the document by over-writing the word "Demo" at random positions twice per page if you go to use the work produce via Save or Emboss or Copy (but except for that, you can do everything so long as the work product is ultimately discarded). You can get the user's guide to voice commands HERE.
(If you are a mouse user, you can click Menu and select Speak; that is what Alt k does through the keyboard. Keyboard commands will be mentioned below given that this capability is in support of visually impaired users.)
You can use Ctrl+o to "open" a file. Braille2000 can open many kinds of braille files including those prepared by Braille2000 (*.b2k *.abt), by ED-IT PC (*.abt), by Duxbury (*.dxb *.brf), by Pokadot (*.acn), by MicroBraille (*.brl). If you activate spoken status events (via Alt k v i, a toggle) Braille2000 will speck the outcome of the open operation.
To have Braille2000 read (i.e., speak) the entire file, enter Alt k r. The entire prose will be read. Press the ESC key to interrupt it.
If you move the cursor (e.g., via arrow keys) and you want to know where you are in the document, enter Alt k e e and Braille2000 will speak the page number, line number, and cell number of the cursor location. If you want Braille2000 to read the prose on the line at the cursor, enter Alt k l (that's "L" for "line"). To have Braille2000 read just the word at the cursor, use Alt k w. If you want to know the paragraph style at the cursor, use Alt k s.
The "Tell" command can be used to cause spontaneous speaking on cursor motion (i.e., when using arrow keys). You can ask Braille2000 to "tell" you the cursor position. Enter Alt k t e e. Then with each use of an arrow key (or pg/up pg/dn, i.e., any change in cursor location), Braille2000 will automatically speak the new cursor location. You can also have it say the word (or if you wish, just the cell) at the new location. Through "Telling" you can explore the document using arrow keys.
A blind transcriber (like any transcriber) will make a great many interactions with the document at hand. Control via the menu may become tedious, especially when the user becomes totally familiar with all the capabilities of The Talking Edition. For faster interactions, there is a subsystem of "quick commands" that begin with Ctrl+q and follow that with other control characters. In this fashion, you can have Braille2000 speak the word at the cursor as cell dot numbers via the input Ctrl+qwad (word as dots). Furthermore, frequently used imperative commands may be "recorded" as a Speedbraille™ macro and then triggered by a single keypress.
All license holders receive free technical support from Braille2000, LLC. Additional support and training is provided by our accessibility associate at JaredRimer.info.
A license is required to do production braille work using Braille2000. There are different license levels corresponding to the four "Editions" of the software (in reality, the software is the same, just that different parts are activated for use depending on the license level). If you have a Braille2000 license, contact us for the upgrade fee. If you need a new license, "Braille2000: The Talking Edition" can be licensed by the month for $30/month or a license may be purchased for $999. For more information, see our Price List.