The Liblouis software suite provides an open-source braille translator, back-translator and formatter for a large number of languages and braille codes. It is a set of libraries designed for use in any of a number of applications, both free and commercial. It is written in C so that it does not require a runtime environment and hence can be used in applications written in high-level languages such as Java and Python.
A lot of intense work by Matt, Paul, Leonard, Eric, Sarah and Bert went into this release. There are new tables for Biblical Language and Ancient Near Eastern Studies. We have improvements for UEB, Spanish, Turkish and Hungarian. There are also a couple of new features, for example the handling of the language metadata has been extended to handle language ranges.
This release adds support for new braille tables, such as Thai contracted and Greek International US, and updates existing braille tables such as the Finnish table which has been updated to the latest braille standard. Benehalo has uncovered a number of security problems in the liblouis code and has thankfully also provided fixes for them by hardening the code.
We are very excited to present this release, as a lot of enthusiasm and energy have gone into it. A host of of new contributors have improved liblouis and added support for new languages. We now have support for many ancient languages, like Akkadian, Ugaritic, Biblical Hebrew and Syriac. This release also supports Yiddish. And the Dutch tables got a very innovative upgrade.
Liblouis is an open-source braille translator and back-translator named in honor of Louis Braille. It features support for computer and literary braille, supports contracted and uncontracted translation for many languages and has support for hyphenation. New languages can easily be added through tables that support a rule- or dictionary based approach. Tools for testing and debugging tables are also included. Liblouis also supports math braille (Nemeth and Marburg).
Liblouis has features to support screen-reading programs. This has led to its use in numerous open-source and proprietary screenreaders such as NVDA, Orca, BrailleBack and JAWS. It is also used in some commercial assistive technology applications for example by ViewPlus.
Liblouis is the translator of choice for Benetech’s Bookshare, providing braille access to more than 350,000 books to members worldwide. Bookshare currently offers titles in braille in more than a dozen languages, with the ability to quickly add new languages as translation tables become available.
Liblouis is based on the translation routines in the BRLTTY screenreader for Linux. It has, however, gone far beyond these routines. In Linux and Mac OSX it is a shared library, and in Windows it is a DLL.
Liblouis is free software licensed under the GNU Lesser GPL.
The software has interfaces to a number of programming languages. There are known bindings to C, Python, Java and Javascript.
Liblouisutdml is an open-source braille formatter. The formatting can be configured via a style sheet. By incorporating Liblouis it provides the capability of translating any XML or plain text file into properly transcribed, embosser-ready braille. This includes translation into grade two, mathematical codes, etc.
Liblouisutdml is free software licensed under the GNU Lesser GPL.
There are several braille production systems based on Liblouis and/or Liblouisutdml.
BrailleBlaster, a joint project between ViewPlus Technologies, American Printing House for the Blind and Abilitiessoft, is aimed at hands-on production where every detail of the Braille is controlled via a graphical user interface.
DAISY Pipeline, backed by the DAISY Consortium, is aimed at automated, hands-off, high-volume production on the server.
Sao Mai Braille, a rich text editing and Braille translation software for Windows, is developed by Sao Mai Center for the Blind, a non-profit organization based in Vietnam.