Understanding braille printers/embossers
A large variety of braille printers exists, and these printers can have several character sets installed to accommodate different file formats. RoboBraille is a service, which can convert text into braille and change the character set of a document to fit a specific braille printer. Before you begin converting your document to the correct character set, you should have converted your document into a braille document using e.g. fulltext6@robobraille.org. Read more about braille converting here.
Understand your needs
When using the text to braille service, you need to know what type of braille printer, you have access to, and what type of character set the braille printer has installed. When you have identified the needed character set, you submit your braille document to export@robobraille.org with the character set written in the subject field such as nacb. Through this link, you can find a list of RoboBrailles supported character sets with the corresponding codes, which you can use in the emails subject field. Hence, the returned document will follow the same character set rules as your braille printer.
What about format and PEF?
A smart feature that you can use with the PEF command is to use it with one of the braille conversion accounts instead of the export@robobraille.org account. What account you should use depends of the languages the text is in. Choose grade 1 or 2 contracted braille, (only 6-dot is currently supported), you can just mail to the account and add the PEF command in the subject line. E.g. fulltext6@robobraille.org, and write in the subject line, PEF2929. This will take your original text and convert to the chosen braille format, and adjust it to the braille printer’s character set, in one single step. [Here is a link to all available accounts]. You may have noticed an option to choose the document format that you wish to print out. This is expressed horizontally and vertically e.g. PEF3028 means “30 characters per line and 28 lines pr. Page.”.
I have received the PEF file, now what?
PEF stands for Portable Embosser Format. It is an easy way to choose the needed character set from a dialog window, just by double clicking the PEF-file icon. The computer, which is connected to the braille printer, requires the PEF Easy Embossing Utility installed in order to print out. You can get access to the Easy Embossing utility, by emailing us a request for the software. contact@robobraille.org. The first time you use the utility you need to choose your braille printer from a list, and the character set. If your printer is not on the list, please contact us and let us know what braille printer you have. As an extra option, you can choose the document printout both in duplex and paginated, just by adding (d) or (p) in the subject field eg. pef2929pd.