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Liblouis User's and Programmer's Manual

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1 Introduction

Liblouis is an open-source braille translator and back-translator derived from the translation routines in the BRLTTY screen reader for Linux. It has, however, gone far beyond these routines. It is named in honor of Louis Braille. In Linux and Mac OSX it is a shared library, and in Windows it is a DLL. For installation instructions see the README file. Please report bugs and oddities to the mailing list,

This documentation is derived from the BRLTTY manual, but it has been extensively rewritten to cover new features.

1.1 Who is this manual for

This manual has two main audiences: People who want to write or improve a braille translation table and people who want to use the braille translator library in their own programs. This manual is probably not for people who are looking for some turn-key braille translation software.

1.2 How to read this manual

If you are mostly interested in writing braille translation tables then you want to focus on How to Write Translation Tables. You might want to look at Notes on Back-Translation if you are interested in back-translation. Read Table Metadata if you want to find out how you can augment your tables with metadata in order to make them discoverable by programs. Finally Testing Translation Tables interactively and Automated Testing of Translation Tables will show how your braille translation tables can be tested interactively and also in an automated fashion.

If you want to use the braille translation library in your own program or you are interested in enhancing the braille translation library itself then you will want to look at Programming with liblouis.

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