Visual Aid Volunteers of Florida, Inc.

BrailleBlaster V2 has a ton of changes that folks will really love, including increased stability, better DOCX conversion, and new items starting with the same style as the previous item. One other change that can be very beneficial is the new Six-Key Mode.

If you're a long timer with BrailleBlaster, then you'll know that in the previous V1 release, you had to six-key into a separate window and then the results would be inserted into the print view. That old behavior has been corrected, and now you enter a real Six-Key Mode!

To start Six-Key Mode, you can either go to the Tools menu and select Six-Key Mode to activate it, or you can use the hotkey, which on Windows is Alt + X. Once in this mode, you can start typing braille directly into the print view using the keys s, d, f, j, k, and l. You can also use space (so really, it's more like seven-key!).

That's it! You can six-key the entire document, a small section, or even a single word or letter—whatever you prefer! When you're done, you turn off six-key mode with the same menu item or hotkey and you can go back to typing text as you traditionally would.

I would recommend using Six-Key Mode sparingly because when you six-key, it'll lock your translation into whatever you've typed. Whereas if you use print text and ASCII Math, your translation will update as you change it via Settings > Translation Settings. That'll mean everything will update automatically between UEB or Nemeth with just a few clicks. Six-Key Mode can be useful for places that require that handmade touch, though, like arrows and other similar configurations.

However you use BrailleBlaster, I hope you enjoy it. Remember to download BrailleBlaster at brailleblaster.org and keep making braille!