Braille from EPUB

Braille from EPUB

The EasyConverter from Dolphin can import an EPUB and convert it to Braille. The steps are described in the article Convert EPUB to Braille Using EasyConverter. The links to purchase and download EasyConverter are included in this article.

If you are looking at other ways, then consider the following options. It may be noted that at the time of writing this article EPUB import feature is not available in Duxbury, the popular Braille Transcription tool.

Convert EPUB to Word

You can use the free Codex to convert EPUB to RTF/Microsoft Word format. The Word document can be easily imported in Braille transcription tools.

Extract HTML files from EPUB

All EPUB files are basically compressed archives and contain the text of the publication in HTML files. These HTML files can be imported easily in any Braille transcription application like Duxbury. You can perform the steps listed below to convert EPUB files to Braille.

  1. Rename the EPUB file: delete the .epub extension and replace it with .zip. Now uncompress this .zip file using any utility like WinZip, 7zip or the Windows default extraction utility. You will get a folder with at least one or more sub-directory and file named “mimetype”.
  2. Explore the content of the sub-directories and identify the HTML/XHTML files which contain the complete text of the publication. You can open these files in any web browser to examine its contents. At this time you need to identify all the files that need to be transcribed into Braille. Generally the files are numbered and their sequence is easy to identify.
  3. Merge all the HTML/XHTML files to create one file with complete content of the publication. This is an optional step. The files identified in the previous step can also be imported one by one in the Braille transcription application. However, when the EPUB contains a large number of files then it may be easier to merge all the HTML files. To do this, you can use utilities like HTML Merge or anything similar.
  4. Import file/s in Duxbury: Import the multiple files one by one or the single file created in the previous step in Duxbury application. You should now have complete text from the publication ready for Braille printing.
  5. Review and format text: EPUB files can vary a lot in content and mark-up. Therefore, it is important to thoroughly review the text in Duxbury. In particular you may like to check the headings, tables and image alt text imported by Duxbury. Delete unwanted text and apply formatting as you consider appropriate for the Braille book.
  6. Emboss Braille: Finally you can translate the text to Braille code in Duxbury (Ctrl + T) and emboss on paper.
Tags: EPUB