EASI 4-part Webinar Series:
Better E-books with DAISY EPUB and More
Week 4, May 8, 2012:
Demonstrating the add-in to save Word Documents
in the DAISY Format
Presenter: Craig Mill, Assistive Technology Advisor at
CALL Scotland (Communication, Access, Literacy and Learning)
MARISOL MIRANDA: Hello, everyone, I am Marisol Miranda from EASI, and I want to welcome you all to this last webinar in our series, "Better E-Books With DAISY EPUB and More." This week the presentation is on demonstrating the app and how to save Word documents in the DAISY format. Today's presenter is Craig Mill. Now I will turn the mic over to Norm Coombs.
PROFESSOR COOMBS: Hi, Marisol, hi Craig, thank you for coming, and hello to everyone who is here so far. Hello to those who are still coming. I want to give two promos. First, EASI does webinars, as you know because you are here. So I hope you will keep track of the webinars that are coming up. Some of them are free and others are fee-based, and even the fee-based are free to the webinar members. So you go to the EASI home page, look for webinars, and you can see the schedule of things that are coming. The next one here is a free webinar on May 22, I believe it is, on plain English. Normally we are dealing with technology, so what are we doing with plain English? Well, we are about communication and trying to make clearer and better communication. I have a lawyer and I am updating my will, and I pay him a lot of money to just shuffle a lot of paper. I tell you, I have 30 or 40 pages and I cannot understand any of it. I have to ask the lawyer what it means, it is lousy communication, the worst I ever saw. So they could learn a lot about plain English. So if we are interested in communication, we need to learn about plain English. So if you don't think you need it, you better come because you probably do need it.
On the next screen I have a word to say about our EASI membership program. We have a program for members, and you can help support EASI. We need your support and your money. If you sign up for the annual membership as an individual, you get free access to all of the webinars, to the recordings for two or three years, and to some other features that we will be giving from time to time. With an institutional membership, the institution can provide access to all of these things to as many people from the institution as it wants.
So those are the promos, we have those behind us. I want to introduce Craig Mill. He is in Edinburgh, Scotland. He has a lovely Scottish accent, and I'm going to enjoy listening to him, and I'm sure you will too. So let me turn the microphone over to Craig. Craig, thank you for coming, and I'm going to sit back and listen. It is all yours.
CRAIG MILL: Okay, Norm, thank you very much, thank you for the introduction, and thank you to everyone who is attending today. Actually, it is an unusually nice, sunny evening in Scotland. Very unusual. It is a real pleasure to be doing this webinar for EASI and also on behalf of the DAISY Consortium.
If I'm going too fast, please just pop something in the text page to slow down, or if maybe there is something you did not understand that you would like me to go over again, also just pop that into the text and let me know, and I will go through it again.
Today I'm going to be looking at the Save As DAISY add-in for Microsoft Word 2010, which was released back in November, just last year. In November or December. So I want to do a quick straw poll and ask anyone to use the chat page to tell me who has used this at all, who has used this venue, the Save As DAISY add-in for Microsoft Word. I just want to find out if there are some users here who have used or are using it.
Okay. Okay, Norm. Okay, Robin, not yet. Okay, thank you, Michael. Okay, Penny, a long time ago. Fine. Okay, that's fine. That's good to see that there are some eager learners. Hopefully the session will put some light on the app.
Okay, I will move on to the next slide. As I said, the app was released in connection with the DAISY Consortium and Microsoft in 2011, back in November. [INAUDIBLE] from the DAISY Consortium asked me to do four videos which outlined the Save As DAISY add-in. I did those, and they are now available on the DAISY Consortium YouTube channel. So if you can't get access to that, it is www.youtube.com/user/daisyconsortium/videos. And I can put that in the text page so you can have a shot at those, have a look at those videos.
The videos are tutorials and they are in four different parts. The first part is how to download and install the Save As DAISY add-in. The second part is using the Save As DAISY add-in. Part three is using the DAISY reader, so how you would then export the DAISY file and use the DAISY reader. And the fourth one is setting the default voice. Now, I mentioned to Norm earlier that here in Scotland we are very lucky to have some access to good quality voices that we can make available to schools and colleges and universities. So if you can set the default voice to a good quality voice, then that can make all the difference. And we will look at that toward the end of the session.
So let's continue. I have to say that if you have not used it -- and there are quite a few people in the webinar who have not used it -- I urge you, it is a brilliant piece of software. It really is a simply fantastic add-in to our program. You can click on a document, export it, and you can use it with a whole variety of devices. It opens the door to so many people. And it is not just people who may be blind or who have visual impairments, but maybe somebody who has dyslexia or literacy difficulty, who has difficulties accessing text. It's really very excellent for that. And is easy to use as well.
The plug-in of the add-in installs into Word's ribbon, so it will work on 2007 and 2010. I see that Penny, for example, used it a long time ago. It's possible she used it on Word 2003, and it was not so good then, I have to say. There were some problems with it. But certainly on 2010 it works seamlessly and works really well, and it has never crashed or anything like that. It's been really good.
Essentially what it does is it converts a structured Word document -- so obviously just a Word document that has appropriate headings and the heading structure, page numbers, things with tags -- into a full DAISY talking book. So that is one option, but it also translates it into an XML-ready document so that you can use it with the DAISY translator, for example. I personally use the XML file when I have converted it into using Toby, so you have centralized text and speech as well. And that is just a really excellent resource to have.
So the question has been asked me, what is the Save As DAISY add-in? Well, as well as downloading the toolbar into the ribbon, in the start menu you get See files. So you can go to the See files. There is what is called 'Accessibility Demo File.' So if you do not have access to a structured Word document, you can practice with this one. It is a read-only file, and it is possible to save it to the desktop and then just practice with it. I tried it just before we started, and during the validation process -- which we will talk about shortly -- there is a validation error in the demo file. I am not sure if it has been put there on purpose, but it is quite good just to look at that and do a validation and see what kind of result that you get.
There is also the DAISY translator instruction manual. It is fully supported, and you also get the Save As DAISY add-in 'Getting Started' document as well. So lots of support, and as we will see shortly, it is also supported within the Save As DAISY add-in as well. And that is available in a DAISY talking book. So there is lots of support. And of course there are the videos too.
Just before I continue, is everybody okay? You can understand what I'm saying? Am I going too fast, or too slow? Is everybody okay? I just want to check that everybody is fine. Okay.
Okay, great stuff, right. I know that in the United States, for example, you can have quite strict legislation in terms of accessibility legislation. You can ask the question why bother, why bother having something like a Save As DAISY add-in in Word. Obviously, because of the legal imperative that was set in the United Kingdom last year. We had the single equalities legislation which really puts a duty on all organizations to make sure that information they produce is accessible. Probably more importantly, available in the range of [INAUDIBLE] four months. So that is an excellent piece of legislation. It is actually trying to [INAUDIBLE]. So the Save As DAISY add-in is a great resource to be able to create documents and have them available in different formats.
Of the single equality legislation, we also have the [INAUDIBLE] legislation act in the UK, and essentially that is the concept of making a reasonable adjustment, that we are obliged to make reasonable adjustments. And again, the DAISY does make a reasonable adjustment for someone who is able to get access to a well-structured document and a DAISY talking book. And probably, I think, for me the best part is it promotes [INAUDIBLE] practice using Microsoft Word. It is the way that Microsoft Word should have been or should be used. I think it is the way that Bill Gates designed it to be used, by using the heading structure and the tags and all of those other things.
And what does it do? The end result is it benefits everyone. It is not just for maybe somebody with a visual difficulty or who was not able to read the text; it benefits everybody. It is an all-around winner. And that is why I think it is such an important and good piece of software.
I hope I am encouraging you to use it. And again, one of the really good things about the Save As DAISY add-in is the various ways in which you can export it. It is the uploads of the add-in which are excellent. So if you are saving it as an XML file, or you are saving it in the full DAISY format, then you can use that on your computer maybe by using something like the open source program, which will work with a DAISY reader. It could be, for example, a text talk as well. You could save it as a CD. You can even upload it to a server and just have a URL so you can get access to it through the URL. Some of the new DAISY devices are coming out; the handheld device with full navigation. You can navigate the formats quite well from that. And my favorite just now is exporting the Save As DAISY add-in to be used on the iPhone or the iPad, and also with the Android devices as well. It does open up a whole world of opportunities.
My favorite -- this is a personal favorite -- is the DAISY app before the iPad and iPhone. In the United Kingdom it is about 14 pounds, I'm not sure but I think that would be about $20 in the United States. It really reads the documents well. There are good highlighting options, and it is great for just the way that you can navigate around the various options within the reader. Excellent stuff.
Of course, there is the World Wide Web as well, so you can publish it to the web and have it read back in [INAUDIBLE], or DAISY, or whichever. So there are so many options in which you can use it.
So what are the features of the Save As DAISY add-in? Well, when you actually go into Word and look along the ribbon, it sets up a new tab called 'Accessibility' tab. So you will find a new tab, Accessibility. If you are a screen reader user, then the alt key will open up the various options within Word, and I think it is [INAUDIBLE] which will take you to accessibility. It is fully keyboard accessible as well. So it's keyboard accessible, and each of the items on the main menu are read back. So that is good for a lots of different users.
First I'm going to work from back to front looking at the end part of the add-in and work up to the actual Save As DAISY. I want to go that way because it makes more sense to cover it step-by-step. So the first section -- or excuse me, the last section of the toolbar at the top is where you have the [INAUDIBLE] details and also the translator help. So I mentioned that it is fully supported. There is the option that you can have it -- to download it in the DocX format and also in DAISY talking book format. So those are some really good options there.
The next part of the toolbar is the DAISY settings that are available. It is worthwhile looking at them, because I found sometimes that if you maybe import an image into word and you do not set the image size -- because one of the options is the image size. There are three options, the original image, re-size image, and sample image, they tend to [INAUDIBLE] using the original image. So what might happen is if you have a large image that you put into Word and that you converted to DAISY, when it is read by the DAISY reader it is this massive, huge image which can take up a lot of space and be quite heavy on the download as well. So I always recommend users resize the image, and it comes out exactly as you have it or as you said it in Word.
Other options there are the page numbers, and you can just set the custom page numbers. So if you put the page numbers and let Word assign them as the page numbers, or you can create automatic ones as well. So that is definitely -- if you're working with images -- it is one to look for.
The next section -- there are two sections, and one here is the language section, the other is add footnotes. I am not sure how many languages are in there, but there must be over 20 different languages. Probably whichever language works would be available, and I imagine that the language is an option in there too. So starting off from Afrikaans to Arabic -- and various types of Arabic, as well -- right through to United States and United Kingdom English. There is a good range there. And if you are adding footnotes, it is a case of selecting the text that you want to be in footnotes, and the add-in will put in the footnote for you as well.
As you know if you have been using Word and you are using the heading styles, Word has its own built-in styles. But also on the import option, DAISY also has built in a whole range of DAISY styles which you can use. So as well as using the Word styles that are available, you can also use the DAISY styles. And recently I was working with a document, and I put a table of contents in, and I was just using the heading structures, the styles within word. And when I validated the document, I received an error, and the error was that there was an element missing to the table of contents. I scratched my head and wondered what on earth this could be, and I changed the spacing and did all sorts of things. And despite trying it just would not validate, and it became very frustrating. So I looked to Valerie at the DAISY Consortium, and she got back in touch. And one of the elements within the DAISY heading styles is something called [INAUDIBLE] matter, and it is an invisible tag and puts it at the end of the table of contents. Then I validated it and it went through without any problems. So if you have any doubt about the heading styles that are in Word, I would assume that you should err is on the side of using the DAISY styles just to make sure you don't have any validating problems. So I would definitely use that. Explore it and just try the different styles and see how you get on with it. If you do have any problems, it is a good way of publishing it and taking care of any issues that you come across.
Okay, an important aspect of the Save As DAISY add-in is that you have to validate your documents. So if it is in -- like some the HTML validators that you get, it does a similar job. It's going to validate the document, so if you have an image of the document it makes sure that it has the appropriate tag in it. If there are things like spacing between headings, then it is very unforgiving. It will flag them up. Things like page numbers, if you don't put page numbers it won't pick that up, you can get away with that. But certainly it can be quite frustrating because I think on the downside is that it does not always give you a good clear explanation of what the validation errors are. That can be quite troublesome. But again, I think if you just use the DAISY styles, then I think you've got a better chance of having a successful validation.
You also have to save the document before it validates, and it does not like read-only documents either. So it is worth checking.
What I did find is that if you do have difficulties with the Save As DAISY add-in and the validator, then there is a really good accessibility checker that is now built into Word 2010. So you can get access to that by going to the file menu, down into options, and then into add-ins. There is an option within add-ins that says -- the good thing about the Word 2010 accessibility checker is that it takes you through any errors in the document step-by-step. For example, if you're in a table and the table was not labeled properly, it tells you that the table was not labeled, and it will also give you recommendations on how to fix it. So that is really excellent. It is there and I use it all the time, and I find it actually better than the validator on the Save As DAISY add-in. So if you get access to that, it is worth it. On the tutorials, the video tutorials, it takes you through how to get that and find that.
Moving along now, there are options such as the manage abbreviations and acronyms as well. So you can select the text that you want to use an acronym or abbreviation for, you select that text and then pop it into the manage acronym panel, and you can set it to apply for all occurrences of that word, and then you can even get it to pronounce the acronym in the reader. So when you are using Emerson or AMI or one of the other readers, it reads back the full abbreviation or the acronym. I think that is a really nice touch for the add-in.
This is where you come to what you've got. You've got all those parts, you check the document, you've made sure it is validated, you have your abbreviations and your net acronyms and all of these sorts of things are checked. The final thing is that you can then have the option to export it either as a full narrator DAISY book or as an XML single doc. So depending on what your needs are, depending on what you want, maybe just the XML, you put it through the DAISY pipeline, and that gives you a lot more options, putting XML through the DAISY pipeline -- or if you want to just create the narrator data book. So you can either do that from a single document or from multiple documents as well. So that is a quite useful option if you have a lot of documents you want to just convert at the same time.
In the option that you get with the full translate, a panel appears, a Word dialog box appears, and first of all you have to tell DAISY where you want it to go. So for example if you want to select or create a folder on your desktop and just point the DAISY output to the folder. You must give it a title, who the creator is, and the publisher. So these are things that you can modify, customize, do yourself. But it also creates a unique identifier as well. And I don't think you can actually change that, I've never tried that. But just keep that, because it does not actually appear within the reader. So certainly you can modify the title, creator, and publisher, but I would not touch the identifier that you have there.
The XML translator is the same process. So if you are translating it as an XML document, then it is just finding the folder, creating a folder, and putting the same details then. And of course, it is not just using the DAISY pipeline, but if you are using Toby or even OBI, then you can use the XML file and you can create some fantastic things, particularly in Toby, with the file that you have created.
Here is a quick overview of the publishing [INAUDIBLE] of the DAISY [INAUDIBLE] process, and it could be either from a Word document, or even if you have Open Office as well. There is the plug-in, the Save As DAISY plug-in for Open Office right here, which works in a similar way to the Word documents. It is very good. It converts it to the XML in terms of the full DAISY translator, it is a DAISY translator pipeline that it uses, it is a light version of that. Then it exports the format, a .NCC or the .OPS, and that is known as the DAISY open specification. So if you have a .XTC or a .OPS, the DAISY reader will find that automatically and give you access to the rest of the document.
I don't really understand the technical specifications that are underneath the DAISY format, but I do know that when it exports with the 2010 version, it exports in two formats. It exports in DAISY 2 and DAISY 3. So if you're using an older DAISY reader, then there is not a problem, you can use that to open it up. If you are using the new DAISY 3 format, then as well it will export that. The difference is, I think, in terms of the DAISY 3, it exports to a .NCC or .OPS, so you have more flexibility on what kind of readers that you can open it with.
I mentioned that you might want to set the default voice in Windows through the control panel because the standards -- the default voice that comes with Windows 7 is Microsoft Anna. It's okay, it is a good voice. But if you have another voice on your computer, you might want to use that. So the way to set the default voice is by going into the Windows start menu, this is in Windows 7, the start menu. Navigate to the control panel, then to speech recognition, and within the speech recognition panel there is a text-to-speech option. When you select the text-to-speech option, that opens up a speech properties panel, and within that panel there are two tabs; speech recognition and text-to-speech. There is a drop-down list menu in there, and that is where you can set the voice. So once that voice has been set, anything that you output from the Save As DAISY add-in will always output in that default voice. So if you have a voice that you prefer to use, that is the way to do it.
You might find, as I did, that when you install -- when you have download it and you install the DAISY add-in into Word, it does not always appear in the ribbon. And that can be problematic, especially if maybe you do not have access to see what is on your ribbon and your ribbon -- you are relying on your screen reader, and you're wondering where on earth it is. To troubleshoot that, what you have to do is you have to go into file -- so in Word 2010, go to file. Then options, then to add-ins, and then to manage. Within the manage panel you have to look for the -- just tab through the various options until you come to the DAISY add-in. You select go, and you will probably have to restart Word. When you do that, the accessibility tab will be evident. But it is a real pain, because I did not know where it was. I uninstalled it and I reinstalled it, downloaded it and reinstalled it and went around in circles until I realized what the problem was. You just need to check it. And sometimes it disappears. Certainly in 2007, it disappeared quite a lot. But it is much more stable in 2010, and I think once you set it -- once in the add-in, it will stay there. You will find that it will not disappear. That is also covered in the video.
And as I remember, the video also has closed captions as well, so if you need closed captions they are there as well. And the navigation is also available in the Word document, so I can send you that as well if you need it. It will give you the step-by-step guide in Word.
If you need to get the downloads, you just go to www.daisy.org, and it is on the right-hand side column. As you go down there are different options. There is the Save As DAISY add-in that you are looking for. Or you can go straight to the download page, and I will pop that address into the chat window later on when we are finished so that everything will be there as well.
Okay, that is a quick overview at of the Save As DAISY add-in. We finished slightly earlier than what we planned, so I am happy to take any questions you have in the chat panel. I will switch off my microphone for now.
PROFESSOR COOMBS: Thank you very much. This is Norm. I found that very clear and easy to follow along. And seeing as how I have the mic, I will ask the first question. Way back you made some comment about when you are doing the output, different things you can do with it. One is publish it to the web. Can you explain a little further by what you meant by publishing DAISY to the web?
CRAIG MILL: When DAISY sends its output to the folder that you created, or maybe you put it onto a server so it is in a folder with all the files in there. And then you can use a program like AMI, which has the option to download the DAISY book from the web. It is easy to put the path into AMI, and it will give you the HTML books. So if you know what the path is, you could send it out to people as a hyperlink, and by clicking on the hyperlink it should get that book downloading straight into DAISY. Or copy and paste into AMI, and it puts the book straight into AMI. I'm not sure of any others do that, but that is one of the good features of AMI, you can just access it straight from there.
PROFESSOR COOMBS: I've got an old version of AMI, and I don't see that it is in the older version. But thank you, that is very helpful.
Thank you for giving us a really clear presentation. People do not have many questions.
CRAIG MILL: I will pop some of these links into the chat page. So here is the link to the download page. http://www.daisy.org/project/save-as-daisy-microsoft-word-add-in
PROFESSOR COOMBS: Let me point out some things to people. You can save this text chat, and so before you leave the room you can get the URLs that have been put into the text chat.
CRAIG MILL: Yes, and I've just put in the URL for the videos, the ones that are on the DAISY Consortium YouTube channel.
PROFESSOR COOMBS: When we put this in the archive, we will have those listed there as well under resources.
CRAIG MILL: Just before you finish, can I ask -- thank you, Todd -- can I ask if I've convinced anyone who is listening today to go and download and try out the add-in?
PROFESSOR COOMBS: You've got me on board. I am also teaching a course, and I'm going to include it as part of the course too.
CRAIG MILL: That's interesting that you say that, Julie, that you have used it quite a bit, and it is wonderful and also for faculty. Because I did a presentation at [INAUDIBLE] University, one of the universities in Scotland. And they are going to make it accessible throughout the university. So that is great, a really good step in the right direction.
Thank you, Michael.
One thing that comes to mind is that -- one of the reasons why [INAUDIBLE], for example, wanting to use the add-in is because at the library they have a lot of people who were just coming in, for example just off the street, and might need some HTML format. They don't always have it, it could be a hand bill or a leaflet. So it puts the power into your hands to create something very quickly if you have it in the Word format. You can publish it in two or three minutes, and then give it to the person in whatever format they require.
PROFESSOR COOMBS: Giving you a short story about the earlier version -- I wrote a book way back in the 70s about the black experience in America, [INAUDIBLE] something I could read. It gave me a text version, but I found [INAUDIBLE] HTML version [INAUDIBLE]. So I pasted that into Word, which saved the headers. And then I ran the DAISY add-in and it spit out a DAISY book with almost no work at all.
CRAIG MILL: I don't think there are any options for Mac users. In fact, I will just have a quick look on the page. I don't think there are any options for a Mac version, which is a shame. So maybe that is something we can speak to DAISY about, is getting a Mac version available.
PROFESSOR COOMBS: It shouldn't be too hard to get a Mac version that would work and the Mac version of Word.
CRAIG MILL: If you are looking for the cross-platform DAISY reader, this one has not been -- it is not an open-source one, and it has not been developed by the DAISY Consortium. but the Emerson reader will cross-platform and work on the Mac. So if you do have some existing books that you want to use, then Emerson will work on a Mac.
PROFESSOR COOMBS: I guess a Mac user could go into the virtual Windows and Mac and then use [INAUDIBLE] a reader.
CRAIG MILL: Marisol, for the iPad I use the DAISY app. I have used others, but I find that is the best one. It has some good options and it tends to pick up a lot of different formats whether it is open or NCC. It works seamlessly, it is very good.
PROFESSOR COOMBS: I took a try with the BookShare app for the DAISY book. I would think that the BookShare app work on any DAISY book.
CRAIG MILL: Yes, the BookShare app works well too.
PROFESSOR COOMBS: Yes, and it is free.
What I am waiting for, Craig, is when you get the add-in to go along with DAISY for when it comes out. We will end up basically with an EPUB as well as a DAISY book.
CRAIG MILL: Yes, that would be good to have the EPUB and the DAISY. I should've said that if you have an Android device, the Darwin app -- you get a 30 day free trial, and then thereafter it is, I think, about two pounds, about four or five dollars, I think. It is very good.
Did you say "Darwin, "D-a-w-r-i-n"?
CRAIG MILL: Yes, that's it. I will put it in the text window.
PROFESSOR COOMBS: Well, people can hang around if they want to, but I will bring the official webinar to a close and end the recording. And everybody who got an e-mail about this will get an e-mail about the recording. In fact, I will put a link to it into the text chat before you leave, in the chat window. http://easi.cc/archive/daisy-plus/resources.htm
So let me thank everybody for coming, and give a special thanks to Craig. I am really excited to get back and try the newest version. Thank you very much, Craig.
CRAIG MILL: Thank you very much, thanks.
MARISOL MIRANDA: Thanks, Craig. Thank you everyone for being here. Bye, Todd. Bye-bye.