[blindLaw] Getting better at formatting

Áine Kelly-Costello ainekc at gmail.com
Fri Nov 26 21:05:05 UTC 2021


I know most of you on the list use JAWS but in case someone wants to know how to get the formatting to display with NVDA, use the Braille Extender addon and  then you can customise these settings in great detail under "document formatting" (if I recall the menu item name correctly). 

> On 26/11/2021, at 8:50 PM, Singh, Nandini via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> I have a quick follow-up related to this. How are you able to use a Braille display to show emphasis, like bolding or italics? I have searched for this utility in schemes, which is admittedly more for sounds and what information JAWS orally conveys, and display settings, where I think I might be skipping over the right item because it may have a name that is not registering as the correct one to enable emphasis indication. I would like to improve how I work with my display, so clarification would be appreciated!
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindLaw <blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Laura Wolk via BlindLaw
> Sent: Friday, November 26, 2021 9:42 AM
> To: Blind Law Mailing List <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Laura Wolk <laura.wolk at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [blindLaw] Getting better at formatting
> 
> 
> 
> [EXTERNAL]
> 
> 
> 
> Rahul,
> 
> 
> 
> I use Braille for some of this (detecting bold and extra spaces after periods), but as for indenting and paragraph spacing, you can fix this by turning off all auto-indent and auto-spacing options in Word.  I turn off as many auto-formatting options as humanly possible because they cause more harm than help.  As for pasting text, there are also options for this.  I can't recall off the top of my head, but there are options in word that basically say when copying from other sources, do you want to retain formatting or change the formatting to match what you're pasting into.  there are two checkboxes, one when pasting between word files, and one when pasting from outside word.  I have them both checked so that the copied text takes on the formatting of the document you are pasting into.  With pasting, you can also always use ctl+alt+v to do a plain text paste, if you really want to be sure.
> 
> 
> 
> Unfortunately, I can't recall exactly where these options are located, but hopefully knowing this can get you on the right track to find them.
> 
> 
> 
> As for extra spaces between words and sentences, as a general rule, I always do a control+f for three blank spaces in a row before sending a document around.  If you're only doing one space after periods, you can do the same thing with a search for a period followed by two spaces or just two spaces.  I am also almost certain that if grammar check is turned on it will flag extra spaces after words.
> 
> 
> 
> I hope some of that is helpful.
> 
> 
> 
> Laura
> 
> 
> 
>> On 11/26/21, Rahul Bajaj via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi Everyone,
> 
>> 
> 
>> In the last few months, I have been keeping track of the formatting
> 
>> changes that others have made to documents I have produced. The idea
> 
>> in doing so is to map out the precise formatting issues where I need
> 
>> to improve and then to figure out how to minimize my errors.
> 
>> 
> 
>> Here are the common changes that people make to my documents:
> 
>> 
> 
>> A. Text is sometimes inadvertently bolded or not bolded which they fix.
> 
>> B. The font color changes from black for some text [when it is copied
> 
>> from sources with non-black coloured text], so they have to make it
> 
>> uniformly black.
> 
>> C. The indenting requires fixing.
> 
>> D. There are multiple spaces when there should be only one, between
> 
>> sentences or words. Or the spacing between paragraphs is not uniform.
> 
>> E. Superscripts somehow inadvertently crop up in the tex.
> 
>> 
> 
>> Do you have any strategies in mind for me to be able to detect and
> 
>> rectify these issues on my own? I rarely use features like text
> 
>> analyzer. When I do, I get confused by all the information it reports
> 
>> and do not know what to do. In particular, it reports the location of
> 
>> the proposed change in a very weird format which is hard to
> 
>> comprehend. So I only do the following, formatting-wise:
> 
>> A. Select the entire text and then select the font size and style that
> 
>> I want; and b. Bold all headings and italicize case names and Latin
> 
>> phrases, like prima facie.
> 
>> 
> 
>> I then send the text to a colleague or intern and request them to fix
> 
>> outstanding formatting issues.
> 
>> 
> 
>> I am wondering what process I should develop to minimize formatting
> 
>> errors so that I do not have to outsource so much of this task to
> 
>> sighted colleagues or interns. Thanks very much for any guidance.
> 
>> 
> 
>> Warmly,
> 
>> Rahul
> 
>> 
> 
>> 
> 
>> --
> 
>> --
> 
>> Rahul Bajaj
> 
>> Senior Resident Fellow,
> 
>> Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, New Delhi, India Rhodes Scholar (India
> 
>> and Linacre 2018) University of Oxford
> 
>> 
> 
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>> 
> 
> 
> 
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