On 4 August 2010, the Catholic University of Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven - K.U.Leuven) released a freeware extension for an open source Software suite that enables users to save documents as Braille or to send them directly to a Braille embosser. 

The freeware extension in question is available for most operating systems. The current version supports eight Braille embossers, with additional embossers slated for further release. It is being developed by the ÆGIS project, a research and development project supported by the European Commission. The ÆGIS project develops software for persons with disabilities, covering the desktop platform, the Web and mobile devices.

The application is suitable for both Braille experts and occasional users. In addition to converting text documents to Braille, it allows users to directly input Braille in a document. Specifically, users can determine which particular Braille codes should be transferred to paper. More significantly, text documents can be converted to Braille automatically.

As most other software developed in the ÆGIS project, this application will be available as "open-source software". This means that users will not only be able to download the finished product but also the programming code, or "source code". They will also be able to modify and improve the source code, provided that they make their changes available to the developers or the community that maintains the software. This process enables a community of users to make improvements to the software and enables these improvements to be quickly available to other users.

The new Braille freeware can be downloaded from http://odt2braille.sourceforge.net/. This website also contains installation instructions and a manual.

Further Information:

• AEGIS project press release
• K.U.Leuven press release (in Dutch)