FOSS-AMASatellite event

odt2daisy: digital talking books

with open-source software

Christophe StrobbeKatholieke Universiteit Leuven

Belgium

27-28 March 2010, Paphos, Cyprus

Motivation & Problem Area

Digital talking books• For persons with “print disabilities”• DAISY – ANSI/NISO Z39/86• Production: typically

– by specialised production centres – for blind & visually impaired users– i.e. not by users (in 2007)

27-28 March 2010, Paphos, Cyprus

Objectives

Enable end-users to produce DAISY• In most European languages• In a free and open-source office suite• Support:

– DAISY 3 (with or without audio)– DAISY 2.02 (for older players)– Multilingual content– Mathematical Markup Language

27-28 March 2010, Paphos, Cyprus

Methodology

• Build OpenOffice.org extension– Odt2dtbook by Vincent Spiewak

available in 2008– Functionality available as extension and

as reusable JAR (Java Archive)– Add:

• DAISY 3 audio, DAISY 2.02• comprehensive set of test documents

(regression testing)• Support for multilingual content on Windows

27-28 March 2010, Paphos, Cyprus

odt2daisy Components (1)

• Java Open Document Library (JODL)– For ODT / XML preprocessing

• odt2daisy library– Converts ODT to DAISY XML (XSTL)– Validates output– Reusable Java library– Command line interface

27-28 March 2010, Paphos, Cyprus

odt2daisy Components (2)

• odt2daisy extension– Wrapper for other components:– Uses OpenOffice.org UNO API– Uses odt2daisy library– Uses DAISY Pipeline Lite (speech

synthesis)– Includes templates

• Templates with custom styles for DAISY production

27-28 March 2010, Paphos, Cyprus

Results (1)

• odt2daisy released November 2009– Tutorials in various formats (text, DAISY,

video)– Developer documentation– Test files for regression testing– TTS in 27 languages where eSpeak is

available (Linux, Windows)

27-28 March 2010, Paphos, Cyprus

Results (2)

• Support for ODT features– Heading, List, Table, Images, Captions,

Notes, Foot/Rear notes, Math, TOC, Section, Frame, Bookmark, Metadata, ...

– Page numbering (1,i,I,a,A; advanced)– Front / body / rear matter– “Complex text layout” and East-Asian

languages not supported

27-28 March 2010, Paphos, Cyprus

Conclusion and Outlook

• Some ODT features are hard to parse (e.g. multilingual text; “Asian” languages)

• Licensing: MP3 vs Ogg Vorbis for TTS• TTS quality: TTS as internet service/

in cloud computing?• Accessibility checking before export

27-28 March 2010, Paphos, Cyprus

Start Using It!

• http://odt2daisy.sf.net/

• Developer site:http://sourceforge.net/projects/odt2daisy/