Category: Geeks r Us
So I recently acquired a BrailleNote Apex, and I'm hoping to acquire an even better braille display/note taker in the near future. However, I have a bit of a problem that I'm curious about.
Being in college, I have a lot of books that I have to struggle to find in accessible format, and usually when I do they are full of mistakes. However, I could buy an electronic version of the book, or at least most of the books, from Amazon. Is there any way that I can either read those files on my braille display, or convert those files into a format that I can read on the braille display?
I can't be the first one to think of this, so does anyone have any ideas? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
I would say it depends on the file format the Amazon book is in? Supposedly, if you have a BrailleNote and the Kindle app on an IPhone or IPad, you can read it with your Braille display via Bluetooth.
Yep. And the format doesn't matter. Just hook up your IPhone to your braille note apex and it *should* act as a virtual display for the IDevice. Now, you're a bit out of luck because the braille note line has been notoriously crappy in terms of perfecting the braille display/IPhone connection despite the fact that it's supposedly possible. If you had one of the braille sense notetakers, you'd be able to connect and read books flawlessly. As it stands, at this point regarding the braille note, it's just a matter of your good luck. lol.
But yes. If it works for you and the connection is established without a problem, you can read anything on your braille display that your IPhone can access. Anything from the kindle store and beyond.
The BrailleNote works fine with the IPhone, just not with a keyboard.
If you have an iDevice, as others have said, you can pair it with your iPhone and use the Kindle app. The only time you'll run in to issues is when there are diagrams and such on the same page as the text. As far as reading the books on your BN directly goes, the Kindle files, as I understand them are DRM protected, meaning you can't modify them to convert them to a usable format that is supported on the Apex or any other notetaker for that matter.
Thanks all. I've paired my iphone and braille note before, and it worked fine. I just need to find an app to read the books on. IBooks seems a bit overly complicated.
I'm in this same boat as I just got a braille display. I've found that some books do and some books don't work. For example, any of the books on cousesmart.com will work. I haven't tried my book that uses the cingage system. The one that absolutely will not work is one published, and only available from, Kendle-Hunt. Even my sighted reader who is reading the charts etc, said that the print electronic version looks like crap.
One work around that I have found is to print via the freedom import printer. If you want to read it in braille, Openbook allows docs to be saved in .txt format. I don't know if you have OB or not but that's all I have come up with thus far.
Cody I would also get the Nook app for your iPhone, that covers the Barnes and Noble books.
If you can get books in PDF iBooks will read these. I have used this in the Coast Guard.
Yes, if you can hook up your braille display or braille note taker with your iDevice you are set to go. As far as how accessible and how user friendly an ebook will be, that is pretty much depending on how it got format, and how complex the content of the book and how it got lay out etc. Cody, i'm asume that you are not talking about a straight forward novel or a text document, but perhaps more towards reference books or technical books or such?
If that is the case, you might have some issue navigating through the book smoothly. And, in most case, you might face the same problem reading it with a screen reader on your computer, or on a braille device.
As far as how to convert an epub, (DRM protected) to more accessible format, well, unless you have way to break the drm, if not, it is almost near to impossible to convert the book legally.
I was able to pair my braille note with my IPhone, and I grabbed a free book for testing purposes with IBooks. It reads it, but only one page at a time. That is to say, I have to manually flip to the next page every time, and there's not a lot of text on each page. Anyone know how to make it scroll automatically?