| # Introduction | |
| [](https://travis-ci.org/liblouis/liblouis) | |
| 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 two open-source screenreaders, [NVDA][] and [Orca][]. It | |
| is also used in some commercial assistive technology applications for | |
| example by [ViewPlus][]. | |
| 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 LGPLv2.1+][] (see | |
| the file COPYING.LESSER). | |
| The command line tools, are licensed under the [GNU GPLv3+][] (see the | |
| file COPYING). | |
| # Documentation | |
| For documentation, see the [liblouis documentation][] (either as info | |
| file, html, txt or pdf) in the doc directory. For examples | |
| of translation tables, see `en-us-g2.ctb`, `en-us-g1.ctb`, | |
| `chardefs.cti`, and whatever other files they may include in the | |
| tables directory. This directory contains tables for many languages. | |
| The Nemeth files will only work with the sister library | |
| [liblouisutdml][]. | |
| # Installation | |
| After unpacking the distribution tarball from [releases][] go to the directory it creates. | |
| You now have the choice to compile liblouis for either 16- or 32-bit | |
| unicode. By default it is compiled for the former. To get 32-bit Unicode | |
| run configure with `--enable-ucs4`. | |
| After running `./configure` run `make` and then `make install`. You | |
| must have root privileges for the installation step. | |
| (For other ways of installation, see the file HACKING) | |
| This will produce the liblouis library and the programs `lou_allround` | |
| (for testing the library), `lou_checkhyphens`, `lou_checktable` (for | |
| checking translation tables), `lou_debug` (for debugging translation | |
| tables), `lou_translate` (for extensive testing of forward and | |
| backwards translation) and `lou_trace` (for tracing if individual | |
| translations). For more details see the liblouis documentation. | |
| If you wish to have man pages for the programs you might want to | |
| install `help2man` before running configure. | |
| If you want to run the test suite with `make check` you should install | |
| `libyaml` as that will enable extensive tests on the tables. If you | |
| want to skip those tests you can do so by running `configure --without-yaml`. | |
| # Participating | |
| You can contribute to Liblouis in several different ways: | |
| - If you have comments, questions, or want to use your knowledge to | |
| help others, come join the conversation on either the mailing list | |
| or on IRC. You can reach us at liblouis-liblouisxml@freelists.org | |
| or in channel #liblouis on irc:irc.oftc.net. | |
| - To report a problem or request a feature, please file an issue. | |
| - Of course, we welcome pull requests and patches. | |
| Finally, if you want to see what we have for the future and learn more | |
| about our release cycles, all this information is detailed on the | |
| [wiki](https://github.com/liblouis/liblouis/wiki/Release-schedule) | |
| # Release Notes | |
| For notes on the newest and older releases see the file NEWS. | |
| # History | |
| Liblouis was begun in 2002 largely as a business decision by | |
| [ViewPlus][]. They believed that they could never have good braille | |
| except as part of an open source effort and knew that John Boyer was | |
| dying to start just such a project. So ViewPlus did start it on the | |
| agreement that they would give a small monthly stipend to John Boyer | |
| that allowed him to pay for sighted assistants. While ViewPlus has not | |
| contributed much to the coding, it certainly has contributed and | |
| continues to contribute to liblouis through that support of John | |
| Boyer. | |
| [Louis Braille]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Braille | |
| [many languages]: https://github.com/liblouis/liblouis/tree/master/tables | |
| [NVDA]: http://www.nvda-project.org/ | |
| [Orca]: http://live.gnome.org/Orca | |
| [ViewPlus]: http://www.viewplus.com | |
| [BRLTTY]: http://mielke.cc/brltty/ | |
| [GNU LGPLv2.1+]: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/lgpl-2.1.html | |
| [GNU GPLv3+]: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html | |
| [liblouisutdml]: http://www.liblouis.org/ | |
| [liblouis documentation]: http://www.liblouis.org/documentation/liblouis.html | |
| [releases]: https://github.com/liblouis/liblouis/releases | |
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