Reading time: 5 minutes.

Setting your reading options

Before you start reading a document with your Braille display, you might want to consider the following five settings.

In the "Characters" dialog box (ALT + B, C, O), you may want to do one or more of the following:

• Select the "Cursor word contracted" checkbox to prevent the word containing the cursor appearing in Computer Braille. The uncontracted appearance of the word containing the cursor is most helpful when editing text.
• Deselect "Show capitals" checkbox if you want to hide the appearance of the capital letter sign on your display in order to save space. Note that not all Literary Braille tables include a capital letter sign. If you want to hide the capital letter sign, but want to continue to indicate capitals, then select the "Tremble capitals" checkbox (described below).
• 8 Dot Braille checkbox determines whether dots 7 and 8 are used on the display to show capital letters and enhanced character attributes such as bold, italic, and underlined styles. If you find the presence of dots 7 and 8 hindering your reading, then you may prefer to hide those dots.
• Tremble Capitals checkbox is supported by Literary Braille and Computer Braille. It is useful when you want to identify capital letters using six-dot Braille. it makes capital letters on your Braille display blink. The blink rate is set in the "Cursor" Dialog Box (ALT + B, U, S). You can set a rate of 1, 2, or 3. The higher the number the faster the blink rate.

And you may also want to:

• Turn off the dots that indicate the position of the cursor on the screen, which you can do by opening the "Cursor" submenu and deselecting the "Visible" menu item (ALT + B, U, V).

Following these steps will set your display to show the text using traditional 6-dot Braille as defined by your chosen Braille table.

Reading your document using your Braille display buttons

If your preference is to use Braille to read your documents, then the key commands you require are the Braille document read back and Braille document read forward buttons. Typically, these are the buttons assigned to Left and Right on your display.

When you press these buttons, you are automatically wrapped onto the next line of text in your document. You can use these buttons to read your complete document.

While reading your document, you can press the Braille move focus command to go back to the cursor position in your document, and you can use your display's Routing buttons to move the cursor to the position shown on the Braille display.

Tip: Routing buttons are usually positioned above the row of cells on a display. Most displays have a single row, but some may provide two rows of buttons. You can configure what your Routing buttons do when working in apps and when using the Dolphin Cursor, through the Braille "Input" submenu (ALT + B, I). Routing actions include left click, right click, and Describe cell.

Braille Navigation Hot Keys

You can also use keyboard commands to perform various Braille commands. This enables you to perform commands when no Braille button combination is readily available.

The distance the Braille will move is governed by a setting in the Control Panel called the Scroll Margin. This value is set in the "General Preferences" dialog box.

Other navigation keys that are available and will typically have Braille Button assignments are:

• Move Braille to start of line.
• Move Braille to end of line.
• Move Braille to next line.
• Move Braille to previous line.
• Move Braille to top.
• Move Braille to bottom.
• Scroll Braille cell left.
• Scroll Braille cell right.
• Scroll Braille half width left.
• Scroll Braille half width right.
• Scroll Braille left.
• Scroll Braille right.