Request for additional ODF tags for Braille translation in Japanese[Fwd: about your talk on ODF and accessibility]

[Peter Korn <Peter.Korn@Sun.COM>]

Dear SC,

Attached please find a letter I received from Ken T. Murata of the 
Center for Information Technology, at Ehime University in Japan.  
Murata-san has developed a translator of ODF into Braille, and finds 
that to do the job as well as he would like, there are several 
additional tags he would like to see added to ODF - namely <Range>, 
<telephone number> and <e-mail address> (specific semantics not 
specified). 

Chieko, Hiro, and Tatsuya (in particular) - are you familiar with 
Japanese Braille encoding?  Do you have any thoughts on this?  To do 
what is asked, I think we would not only need these tags, but also a 
user interface in a Writer-like application in order for a user to mark 
text with these new tags (perhaps as a set of pre-defined text styles).


Thoughts?

Peter Korn
Accessibility Architect,
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

--- Begin Message ---

• From: "Ken T. Murata" <murata@cite.ehime-u.ac.jp>
• To: korn@sun.com
• Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:33:51 +0900

Peter Korn

My name is Ken T. Murata, who attended your presentation about 
ODF and accessibility in CSUN2008.
I was very much impressed by your talk.

I have been developing "an automatic conversion 
application from digital document file to (Japanese) Braille".
Using the application, one can automatically convert 
a Japanese document which is made (and edited) 
on OpenOffice Writer automatically to Japanese Braille.
What is wonderful is that this system doesn't require you any
knowledge of Braille.

The technique is as follows:

First the digital document is (implicitly) saved on /tmp 
in the form of ODF.
Then, the application converts the ODF (XML) to BrailleML (XML).
The BrailleML is an original XML designed for Japanese Braille.
It contains all of the necessary description of Japanese Braille, 
as shown in the attached PDF.
The design is based on the most reliable textbook of Japanese 
Braille grammar, thus all of the formats of Japanese Braille 
can be described with the BrailleML.
(One to one correspondence between Braille grammar and 
BrailleML tags.)

For example, we put 8 spaces in case of title when you write Braiile.
The title is shown as <title> in BrailleML.

Another example is <Range> tag. Since we put one space 
when we describe range, we need this tag in BrailleML.
This is described in BrailleML as <Range> tag.

See a table in the third page of attached document.
Several samples are given to show correspondences 
between BrailleML and ODF.

The reason that I am writing to you is followings.

As you can see in the table in the thrid page of attached PDF file, 
there is no corresponding description of  <Range> in the ODF.
The is also no description of <telephone number>, 
<e-mail address> and so on in the ODF, which are 
necessary information for Japanese Braille.

I definitely agree to your idea that the ODF leads to 
accessibility for the visually impaired.
However, if there is no necessary definition of tags in 
the ODF, it cannot be.

It seems that you are a member of regulation of the ODF. 
I would like to ask you to add such necessary definition 
when you develop the ODF if possible.
It will help our easy conversion or exchange from digital 
documents to Brille documents.

I should have discussed with you this matter face to face. 
I visited your booth on the next day of your presentation, 
but you were already gone (home) unfortunately. 

Allow me to write to you by e-mail.

I hope I could keep in touch concerning with this subject.

Sincerely 

Ken T. Murata

===========================
Ken T. Murata (murata@cite.ehime-u.ac.jp)
Center for Information Technology, Ehime University
3 Bunkyo-cho Matsuyama, Ehime 790-8577
TEL&FAX +81-89-927-9970
http://www.infonet.cite.ehime-u.ac.jp (in Japanese)

BrailleML.pdf

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