XML-Based Formats and Tools to Produce Braille Documents

Abstract

The production of high quality Braille documents is time consuming because it often involves a lot of manual work to be done on the text. To increase the global number of Braille documents available to end-users, special efforts have to be done to automate as most as possible the production processes. At the mean time, the documents quality should not decrease, because Braille is often used in learning situations where errors are harmful for the users. This paper will present recent advances and current developments made in the field of Braille production. Especially, XML-based formats useful to create complex Braille documents will be introduced. Next, some tools operating on these formats will be described, and finally, we will underline the need and the possibility to create fully integrated production workflows based on these tools and formats.