[Trainer-Talk] Portable device recommendations

[Scott Davert]

This topic actually came up for me recently, but more specific to iDevices and braille. But because I'm low in the financial department at the moment, I have not had a chance to try out Voice Dream Writer. Does anyone know how the braille support is with this app? Any input on this would greatly be appricated!

Regards,
Scott

Sent from my iPhone

> On Mar 1, 2016, at 9:56 AM, New Vision Tech Center via Trainer-Talk <trainer-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> To answer your question. I think the iPhone or iPad are great solutions especially if you've already got them. The Smart Beetle from HIMS might be a good and cheap solution if you need Braille for editing. I'm not too impressed by AccessNote.. I think it might be good for notes but not a lot else. I want to say it can import RTF files but I'm a bit fuzzy on that. I'd recommend a pro tool like Voice Dream Writer... Not Reader... Writer. It can automatically generate outlines and quick ways to navigate and supports several cloud solutions. It also supports MarkDown writing natively.... As a blind writer I'd look into that.  MarkDown allows you to stiputate formating right in your writing. For example you want something to be a Heading or Title, You put a pound symbol in front of the line. You want it bold you put two asterisks before and after the item you want bold. You want italic use one asterisks... It's terribly easy and writers love it because you can compose your material any where and don't have to worry about file formats, a text file does the trick.  So just something to think about, there's tons of books and blogs about it. To be clear you can use MarkDown syntax in any word processor you want you will just need a converter tool on the back end to turn it into rich text; Many publishing houses and self-publishing places are markdown friendly and theirs plugins and what not to convert it into pretty text.
> 
> Now the advantage of Voice Dream Writer is you can use custom voices and more importantly you can create a custom pronunciation dictionary, so words in your book aren't constantly mispronounced when your reviewing.  IOS doesn't yet provide this feature... I've also noticed Pages, the Apple equivalent of Microsoft Word, it is pretty powerful but you won't get the pronunciation advantages... Last point, double-spacing... don't, I repeat don't worry about it. It a trival formating issue. Like changing the margins of your paper or font before printing. In MS Word you just highlight any text use your application key and go to paragraph settings and change it to double-spaced. It can be added and removed and its a trival thing for any word processor to do. Its a non issue. Hope that helps. Rock on! Love to hear more about your writing experience I have a student who's trying to get into writing.
> 
> All the best,
> David Ward
> 
>> On 2/24/2016 9:57 AM, sarah via Trainer-Talk wrote:
>>    Good morning. I write the first draft of novels on my Braille Sense u2 but need to send the u2 to Hims for repair. Is there a portable device anyone would recommend? In some ways, I don't think the u2 is the best option since I have to rewrite the books on my windows computer. Is there a way to save and double-space documents if I use microsoft word on my iPhone or an iPad? What file formats does the app AccessNote support? Are the Android tablets accessible? Feel free to email me off list. Thank you.       Sarah
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
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