Braille transcription software for BrailleRAP. NVDA compatible. The project use several open source licensed software:
- liblouisreact, a liblouis version slightly modified to run in react.js environnement.
- liblouis
- pandoc
- pywebview
We provide pre-built binaries for Windows and Linux. See releases for more information.
AccessBrailleRAP depends on glibc version. Unfortunately recent Debian and Ubuntu distribution are not using exactly the same. If your are using Debian12 or a derivate distribution, use desktopbraillerap-debian. If you are using Ubuntu24.04 or a derivate distribution, use desktopbraillerap-ubuntu
To use the BrailleRAP embosser from Linux, the user need permission to use the serial port. This generaly mean that your user need to be in the dialout group.
AccessBrailleRAP use liblouis to translate text into Braille. You can select the Braille language (English, French...), contracted or uncontacted Braille, and 6 dots or 8 Dots Braille standard. The original version of liblouis is available here https://github.com/liblouis/liblouis The modified version for react.js is available here https://github.com/crocsg/liblouis The module for react.js is available here https://github.com/crocsg/liblouisreact
liblouis and liblouisreact are licensed under GNU LGPL V2.1
AccesBrailleRAP use pandoc via pypandoc python module, to extract plain text from various file format as word or open office document. So you can open an .odt file, translate it into Braille and emboss.
the original version of pandoc is available here www.pandoc.org
pandoc is licensed under GNU GPL V2.
AccessBrailleRAP use pywebview to display the react.js GUI embedded in Python backend. Pywebview is a cross-platform wrapper around the webview library. The original version of pywebview is available here https://github.com/r0x0/pywebview
pywebview is licensed under MIT.
AccessBrailleRAP is licensed under GNU GPL V3.
- Translate text into Braille
- Translate word document into Braille
- Emboss Braille on BrailleRAP embosser
If you need the software in your locale language, we will be happy to add a new translation. Translation files are hosted on codeberg community translation platform and can be updated by anyone weblate host on codeberg for more information.
Feel free to open issues or pull requests ! We will be happy to review and merge your changes. BTW we have a great focus on accessibility and user friendly design.
Translation files are available on codeberg weblate host . Some languages are partialy translated , we are looking for contributors to complete and check them.
- Python 3.6 or later
- NodeJS 20.12 or later
python -m venv venv
.\venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
npm install
npm run startview
npm run buildview
check DesktopBrailleRAP.exe in dist folder
We need several development tools to build AccessBrailleRAP, python, nodejs and gcc to build some python dependencies. Depending on your system, you will also need a desktop environment installed on the build machine.
General build tools:
apt install cmake build-essential git ninja-build autoconf gnulib
apt install ca-certificates curl gnupg
apt install software-properties-common
apt install python3 python3-venv python3-dev
apt install pkg-config
apt install gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gir1.2-webkit2-4.1
apt install python3-tk
apt install xvfb
apt install libcairo2 libcairo2-dev libgirepository1.0-dev
apt install tcl curl
Nodejs:
General Nodejs
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | bash -
apt update
apt install -y nodejs
npm i npm@latest -g
Install AccessBrailleRAP nodejs dependencies
npm install
Python:
Create a python3 virtual environment
python3 -m venv venv
Activate python3 virtual environment
source ./venv/bin/activate
Install python3 AccessBrailleRAP dependencies
pip install -r requirement_linux.txt
Activate python virtual env
source ./venv/bin/activate
npm run startview
npm run builddebian
Check the ./dist folder for the AccessBrailleRAP executable
The packaged binary release has been build on a Raspberry 4 2GO with latest 64 bits Raspberry PI OS (debian bookworm)
Raspberry PI OS come with python, we only need to istall nodejs and some python dependicies. We love to use virtual env on python, but the needed python packages are not available has wheel packages on arm (packages for pip cmd), so we must install the python dependencies in the global system configuration.
sudo apt install git-extras
sudo apt install python3-gi python3-gi-cairo gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gir1.2-webkit2-4.1
sudo apt install python3-pyqt5 python3-pyqt5.qtwebengine python3-pyqt5.qtwebchannel
sudo apt install libqt5webkit5-dev
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | bash -
apt update
apt install -y nodejs
npm i npm@latest -g
python3 -m venv venv --system-site-packages
npm i
source ./venv/bin/activate
pip install pywebview
pip install pyserial
pip install pyinstaller
pip install pypandoc
npm run startview
npm run buildrpi
Check the dist folder for accessbraillerap-rpi executable. You can install the .deb package with :
sudo apt install accessbraillerap-rpi-x.x.x.deb
You can use Docker configuration to build AccessBrailleRAP for a Linux distribution.
Docker configuration to build AccessBrailleRAP for Debian or Ubuntu are available here: