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Computer conversions | 310 comments | Create New Account
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Computer conversions
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, July 01 2013 @ 02:38 PM EDT

Perhaps you don't understand how computer software works. When you have data (a poem, a novel, an encyclopedia entry, a list of facts, whatever) in a readily accessible format - it is easy to convert that into any format you want. For example, some points on a basic hard-copy novel:

    The paper size is understood and what is printed where is controlled by the software so it all fits perfectly.
    The concept of a Chapter is well understood, the software can easily be defined with a simple rule that can mark the beginning of a chapter and start it on a new page.
    The concept of a paragraph is well understood. Again, easily defined so a simple rule marks a new paragraph so it can be indented.
These are just 3 points that show just how easily it is to take a plain text format and have it automatically formatted in a common reading format.

That format conversion includes printing out the braille on paper with that digital text as the source.

On the other hand .... when you have a proprietary format no one else understands.... or a hard-copy format as the source copy in your vault... then converting it into another format is much more difficult.

For that hard-copy you have to repeat the same process over and over of manual conversion. For that proprietary digital version, if you are not the owner of the format then you will find yourself trying to reverse engineer the format to make sense of it before you can proceed with converting into the new format.

Please explain to me how a hard-copy version sitting in a vault is easier to convert into a visually-impaired version then a plain text digital copy. And if it's not easier then it'd be reasonable for you to acknowledge the point that a master copy in a plain text digital format is more useful then any other master version as a starting point from which to make more copies.

RAS

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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