NLS EReader
I just recently received an NLS EReader and will be learning how to make the most of it both while connected to my phone with bluetooth and on its own.
The NLS EReader is a 20 cell Braille display that is being made available to patrons of the United States National Library Service. This government program offers Braille and audio material free of charge to blind and physically handicapped individuals.
Many people are familiar with the NLS Talkingbook player that plays audio material from a special cartridge or USB drive. That is probably because those players have been available for many years. The Braille EReader is a much more recent provision. To acquire either of these devices you will have to be qualified and signed up with the NLS Braille and Talkingbook Library in your state. If you are already a Library patron you can call to request an NLS reader.
The EReader I received is the model made by Humanware. I Know of at least 2 other 20 cell braille display models that are being distributed by the NLS program.
As well as having applications to download and read braille books from NLS, Bookshare, and NFB Newsline, it can use a USB drive or SD card to read files you provide.
I am working on finding the best way to load the Bible and other publications from jw.org on my NLS EReader. Unfortunately, it can only use .brf files and not the brl files that are available from jw.org. Changing the file extension from .brl to .brf works if it is done on a computer. It does not work to try to change the file extension by renaming it on the EReader.
Yes, the EReader can open RTF files, but the NWT2013 Bible in RTF certainly wasn't made to be used by any braille display. They didn't make searching for a chapter possible. If you search for the word chapter you will find everything you weren't trying to get to in the outline of the book. Maybe there is some way to find the beginning of the actual Bible book's text, but I haven't found it. Besides that, they left the pronunciation diacritics in the names in the text which are impossible to deal with on a braille display since they turn in to about 12 characters of complete gibberish.
Of course, it is extremely slow and nearly impossible to find any scripture in the Bible as it is when downloaded and unzipped from jw.org. Oh, such a familiar problem. All through college I was constantly expected to use material in an only halfway accessible format. Just as I did then, i immediately started to think about what could be done to change the downloaded Bible to work efficiently for me.
My husband wrote a shell script to wrought my required changes to those brl files in the grade II NWT 2013 Bible zip file called
nwt_s-BR2_E.brl.zip
You can download that Bible from this page on jw.org
On that page find "Publication download options New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (2013 Revision)" and then activate the BRL button.
Now find and activate the "zip 2MB" button after the words "Braille Grade 2".
A file named nwt_s-BR2_E.brl.zip should end up in your downloads folder.
Now the problem is that in order to use the convenient shell script you will have to have access to a BASH shell. No problem on Mac or Linux. It will be present by default. On Windows installing and using it is possible but takes some work.
If you are a Linux user you probably don't need anyone to give you directions on how to run a shell script, so I won't.
Here are directions for running the shell script on a Mac.
I am still working on creating usable directions for installing BASH and running the shell script on Windows. I will put them here when i have succeeded.
Whatever OS you are using press enter on the following link to download the conversion shell script from this site.
If you know how to run a shell on your operating system open a shell prompt at your Downloads folder after both the shell script and the BRL grade 2 NWT 2013 Bible zip file have been downloaded.
Type:
./convert
Then press tab to autocomplete
convert_nwt_brl_to_brf.sh
Press enter.
The script will print "done" when it is finished.
Now there should be a new folder in your Downloads folder called
nwt2013brf
Inside that folder will be a books folder and an extras folder. The books folder will contain all the books of the Bible in brf format. They will simply be named with the name of the book. By having the full book name written out and no extra numbers or other clutter it is possible to find a book with first letter navigation on a braille display.
Obviously, there are Bible books that start with the same number or letter but not so many that you can't find the correct one. Remember that it can be more efficient to type R and be placed on Revelation but then press the keys to go back one item to find Psalms, or pressing 3 and then going backwards to find 2 Timothy.
the NLS EReader has a search feature, but not all notetakers do. No notetaker I know of has the ability to find a file name by typing more than 1 letter, so very few naming conventions are usable. The file names used by this script should make the Bible useable on any NoteTaker or Braille display with internal storage. Sorry, you will have to use something else to learn the original correct order of the Bible books.
The extras folder contains all the other files that are part of this version of the Bible. This includes the publisher's page and many features like the Introduction and appendices.
If you have a BrailleNote or other NoteTaker that doesn't handle nested folders well, you may want to select and move all the files in the books folder and put them in the nwt2013brf folder. just make sure to keep the files in the extras folder separate or efficient navigation will become impossible again.
The script replaces the word "chapter" before each chapter number with the ch sign (dots 1-6) which makes it possible to find a chapter quickly using the display's Find function. Press Space+F and type ch sign number sign chapter number. Then press Enter.
Yes, that includes psalms which aren't really chapters, but who can remember that while trying to quickly look something up? The script also put the ch sign, or *, in front of the number of each Psalm.
Once in the correct chapter press Space+F again and type a number sign followed by the verse number. Then press Enter.
Now you should be able to start reading at the correct verse.
I have tested this for looking up scriptures to follow along at Meetings. Once you've got your muscle memory trained, it usually works fast enough.
One absolutely essential detail is that on the NLS EReader from Humanware you must not have braille reflow on. If it is focus will rarely ever be placed on the verse number you typed in. That makes it pretty much impossible to find a verse efficiently, since you will have to scroll and scroll until you happen to come across it.
To make sure braille reflow is off:
Press space with M to go to the main menu.
Press S to move to Settings.
Press Enter on Settings.
Press Enter on User Settings.
Press the down thumb-key repeatedly until you find
brl reflow:
Press the cursor routing key above the word on to switch it to off.
If it is already set to off then everything is fine and you can exit out of Settings.
You should also be aware that On the NLS EReader after pressing Space+dots1-2-3 to go to the top of the file you must press the down thumb-key before trying to search again. I don't know why they made it stupid in that way.
Also, If for some reason the search fails you must press Space with E to exit out of the search before attempting another search.
The last thing that the script does is put a linebreak every approximately 75 characters. It will always be between words. On the NLS EReader those line breaks won't be shown. It seems to suppress many linebreaks. I think that is because unnecessary linebreaks are very common in braille files.
We did that because otherwise an unnecessary line-break appears after every 80 characters. Weirdly, that line-break was not suppressed. I guess I'm extremely irritated by anything that causes wasteful clutter on such a tiny display because it messes with my reading speed, and extra scrolling is damaging to my wrist. I apologize if this makes even more linebreaks on the type of display you are using. Feel free to complain to me about it.
There will still be far too many line breaks because of the "poetic" formatting of many Bible books. I'd get rid of that if I could, because it doesn't improve reading when that poetry has been translated to another language, but it isn't possible without damaging other necessary linebreaks. BRL files don't differentiate between paragraph breaks and unnecessary linebreaks.
I would really like to hear from every single person who uses the Bible or other brl files from jw.org on a Braille display. I can't help it. I'm just curious what might actually work well for almost everyone. Call or text me at (651)321-4786 and leave a message.
Also contact the Blind and Low Vision Help Desk at the world headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses if you have any comments about the brl or RTF files that you download from jw.org and have used unmodified. They need to know whether they work well for you or not.