Book Wizard Producer
User's Manual
Copyright 2001-2009
American Printing House for the Blind, Inc.
2010/9/7
Book Wizard Producer
User's Manual
Copyright 2001-2009
American Printing House for the Blind, Inc.
2010/9/7
Book Wizard Producer is a program to produce digital talking books as outlined in the specifications designed and approved by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) consortium.
There are two versions of Book Wizard; Book Wizard Reader
reads Daisy books, and Book Wizard Producer
creates Daisy books. This manual covers Book Wizard Producer. See the Book Wizard Reader User's Manual for more information on Book Wizard Reader.
Book Wizard is designed to work with Daisy/NISO Digital Talking Books, and it provides limited support for DAISY 2.02 talking books by providing full reading, control, and navigation capabilities, but the program does not support creating DAISY 2.02 books. When you create a digital talking book with Book Wizard Producer, the program uses the DAISY/NISO Z39.86-2002 format.
This help file contains the entire documentation for Book Wizard. This file is supplied on the Book Wizard disc as an HTML document you can read from your browsing software. The file is suitable for translation into braille and embossing. See the file bwp_doc.htm. See "Appendix A" for tips on common questions about using Book Wizard. You may also find additional information about Book Wizard on the APH web site at www.aph.org/tech/.
This document uses the "+" to indicate a series of keys that should be pressed together. The notation Alt+F, for example, means to hold down the Alt key, then while that key is still down, press the F key. Once the F is down, release the F and the Alt. You should not type the +; it is merely used to show that two or more keys should be pressed together.
In addition to this documentation for information about Book Wizard's operation, you may wish to subscribe to the Book Wizard email list. This list lets you speak to other users and directly to the developers of the product and provides you an opportunity to make suggestions and observations that can help the product improve.
To join the Book Wizard list, send a blank email to [email protected].
Book Wizard requires the following system as a minimum:
Note that if using Book Wizard Producer to create Digital Talking Books, especially those with audio content, disk space requirements are dramatically increased.
To install Book Wizard, insert the CD into your CD-ROM drive. Within a few seconds, the disk should start spinning and the Setup program should start. Once Setup starts, follow the instructions displayed on screen. Before you can continue with Setup, you must agree to the End User License Agreement that Setup displays.
If your CD-ROM drive does not automatically start the Setup program, open the My Computer icon on your desktop, open the CD-ROM drive that contains your Book Wizard CD, then open the program Setup.exe.
Once Book Wizard is installed, you will not need the CD to use the program.
To start Book Wizard, find its icon on the desktop, or go to the Start menu, Programs, Book Wizard menu, and Book Wizard program.
Book Wizard Producer provides all the features necessary to create several types of books. You can create books with audio only, text only, or text and audio. You can create books from scratch by recording your own voice directly into Book Wizard Producer, or you can import existing audio and HTML text files. You can make the navigation features of your new book as simple or as detailed as you like.
In most cases you begin a new book by using the "New Book Dialog". Follow these steps to get started.
Book Wizard Producer presents its main window with two "Views" or panes in it. One is the "Contents" view and the other is the "Audio" view. The Contents view represents the structure of your new book and now has just one item in it. The Audio view shows you information about the total playing time of the book, the current time where you are, the status of the audio control, and a progress bar. The status is either Idle, Playing, or Recording. Currently it should be Idle. Optionally you may also want to open the Peak Meter by selecting it from the "Audio" menu or by pressing Alt+M. You are now ready to begin adding content and structure to your new book.
One way to add content to your book is by recording directly into BWP with a microphone attached to your PC. It is important to make sure that your microphone is working and selected in Windows before you attempt to record. If you do not hear any audio after you record, check to be sure that your microphone and speakers are working in Windows. You may also have to use the Windows Volume Control to set the levels for recording. See the section on Microphone and Aux Input Levels for more information.
Try the following to begin adding audio to your new book:
Several things happened when you recorded your first segment of audio. Book Wizard Producer automatically created a new, level-1 Nav Point for you which now appears in the Contents View. (Nav points are points in the book to which the reader may navigate such as a part, chapter, or section.) It has an automatically generated label, probably "np_1". BWP also added the information about the audio you just recorded to the Audio view. This information is also now stored in the files that make up the book and is saved when you save the book.
It is likely that as you are recording you may want to go back and correct errors or record something again that did not come out just right. The easiest way to fix recording errors is to just back up and record the last part of the narration again. Let us say for example that you need to record the title and author of the book again because you mispronounced the author's name. Just follow these steps.
Note: You can also record new audio into the book without replacing existing audio by recording in insert mode. Use Shift+F6 to start recording in insert mode.
One of the many benefits of a DAISY book over traditional recorded texts is the ability to give the book a structure that can be easily navigated. Next, let's begin giving our book structure by adding another level-1 nav point. Follow these steps:
You can continue adding segments; nav points, paragraphs, page numbers, etc.; to your new book by repeating these steps. It is not strictly necessary to stop recording each time you begin a new segment. As you begin to feel comfortable with the controls you may want to continue to speak and just hit the keys to begin a new segment on the fly.
Note: If you add a nav point and then decide you do not want it where it is you can select that nav point in the Contents View and press Delete to remove it. Removing a nav point does NOT remove any audio from the book.
Another option for setting up your new book is to add all the nav points without recording them at first. After they have been added you can record audio into each one by navigating to that point in the book, pressing F6 to record, and then recording that segment before pressing F4 to stop.
Follow these steps to add the structure of the book first and then record the audio:
The advantage of using this method is that you get a chance to work on and get the book's structure right before you begin to record. You can even add text labels before you record if you wish.
If you like you can reverse this process by starting your new book, recording and editing the audio in the first level-1 nav point, and then inserting the nav points. This method is similar to the method used for importing audio files described in the next section.
There are actually a couple of different ways to begin a new book from an existing audio file. In this example you will simply open an audio file with Book Wizard Producer and then go through the steps to turn that audio file into a new book. Alternately you can start a new book just as you did in the previous section on direct recording and then insert audio files into the new book.
Note: You probably want to copy the audio file you are using to a folder where Book Wizard Producer will create the new book. It uses this folder by default. Putting your files here makes things much simpler and avoids cluttering up your documents folder with all the files that are created as part of the book.
Book Wizard presents the main screen as before with the Contents View and the Audio View. Notice that the Contents view now has two items; a root item and one level-1 nav point. This nav point references the entire audio file you just opened. You actually now have a DTB with one nav point. Now it is time to add more nav points.
To add additional nav points to this audio file it is necessary to use the audio navigation commands to move forward and backward through the audio, locating the points where you want nav points to occur.
Note: You can move and resize all of the views and Book Wizard Producer remembers how you had them set and resets them the next time you run the program.
If you like you can use the mouse and the Wave View to move to the point in the audio where the new nav point is to start and then press the number key to add the nav point.
You should repeat the process of navigating to the places in the audio file where nav points are to begin and adding them to the book until you have added all the desired nav points
Now that you've used two different methods to start a new book we need to talk about some other things that need to be done to make your new book more useful and complete. Book Wizard has labelled all of the nav points you created with generic ID's that are used as temporary labels. Let's go through the steps to make the text labels in your Contents View more useful and add audio labels.
Book Wizard updates the Contents View with your new label. repeat the above steps to label all of the nav points for levels 1-6. You do not label paragraphs, page numbers, and other segments that are not actually part of the NCX.
Note: Book Wizard Producer shows you all of the segments in your book, but only the nav points that represent headings in the book become a part of the NCX or "Navigation Control" of your DAISY book. Book Wizard does not allow you to enter text or audio labels for non-NCX nav points since those labels would be thrown out when the book was saved and would never become a part of your finished book. You can change a nav point from an NCX heading to a non-NCX segment or vice-versa by unchecking or checking the checkbox in the "Edit Item Dialog".
In addition to the text labels in a book with textual content, the nav points in an audioNCX book also need audio labels. The audio labels allow DAISY playback devices that do not have text-to-speech features to announce the headings of sections, chapters, and other sctructural elements in the narrator's voice. To add audio labels to the nav points follow these steps.
So that audio-only DAISY players can announce the title and author of your book you should add an audio label to these items in a way similar to the way you added audio labels for nav points.
To add an audio label for the title follow these steps:
Follow these steps:
Note: You can save your work at any time by pressing Ctrl+S or by selecting "Save" from the "File" menu. Book Wizard Producer asks you if you want to save your work when you exit the program.
You probably notice that as you move through the book there is a delay from when you navigate to a point in the book and the sound actually starts. This is because when you were recording you probably could not begin narrating exactly as you pressed the F6 (record) key. In order to make the book perform better we want to clean it up by eliminating some of the audio that comes before the narration begins.
There are actually two ways to accomplish this. One way is to delete the extra audio from the beginning of each nav point. The other is to set the beginning of the audio clip to where the narration begins without actually removing anything from the file.
If you plan for people to listen to the audio files outside the DAISY player you may want to use the first method so that the extra audio is removed from the files. For our purposes we are using the second method which leaves the audio in the file even though that audio won't be played as part of the book.
Follow these steps to tighten up the beginning of each of your nav points.
Information about the book such as title, author, copyright notices, language, audio format, subjects, and many others are kept in an organized section of a DAISY book so that machines and computer software can read and identify this information for searching, retrieval, and convenient presentation to the user. All of this information is referred to as "metadata" and is kept in a section near the beginning of each file with the exception of audio and image files. Most of the metadata can be found in the package or NCC file of a typical DAISY book. What information is present and how it is formatted is governed by the DAISY specifications. You can find detailed information about the DAISY formats at WWW.DAISY.ORG.
Book Wizard Producer provides a convenient page to enter and edit most of the metadata that your book may require. Much of the metadata is generated by Book Wizard Producer and some default values can be set to make managing metadata easier but you also need to enter some metadata for your new book.
When you record content with BWP it is recorded into raw audio files, (*.wav). These files are very large and not suitable for distribution because at most you could only put a few hours of audio on a CD. As a final step to creating your book, use BWP to create a "Distribution Copy" of the book. Along with some other processing, BWP encodes your audio into a more compact format. Currently MP3 is the supported encoding method though others may be supported in the future. Using MP3, many hours of audio fits onto a standard CD with a capacity of 650 to 700 MB. Depending on the quality of the recording and whether the recording is stereo or mono, typically 40 to 50 hours fits on a CD.
To build a distribution copy of your book follow these steps.
You can check your new distribution copy by closing the current book and opening the distribution copy. Follow these steps.
Your distribution copy looks and behaves exactly like the source copy but is much smaller. The distribution copy can be copied to a CDRom or some other portable medium for distribution.
Note: In the steps above we are assuming that your new book fits onto a 650 MB CD. If your book does not fit on a medium with the capacity listed in the Build Distribution Dialog then BWP divides your book into "volumes" or "media Units" each with its own folder named "m01", m02" "m03", etc. You can then copy the files in each of these folders to a separate CD, creating a multi-volume book for distribution. BWP creates all the files needed for DAISY players to handle these multiple CD's correctly.
Book Wizard Producer makes it easy to create a new book from a sequence of pre-recorded audio files. You can use a more advanced recording tool, such as Studio Recorder or Sonic Forge to record the audio into a set of audio files. You can also use the audio marks available in Studio Recorder to define the nav points in the book while recording so that the creation of the basic DTB is almost automatic.
Some preparation and special handling is required to make the process of creating a book from multiple prerecorded audio files work smoothly. Follow these steps.
While there is more detailed coverage of these topics elsewhere in this documentation, the process of creating navigation points is as simple as moving to the audio where you want the navigation point and pressing 1-6 on the keyboard to indicate the level number of the heading for that navigation point.
To create an audio label that gets announced when the reader moves to that point, follow the steps as outlined in Add Audio Labels.
With Book Wizard Producer you can create books using text from an HTML file. The HTML can represent the entire text of the book or only the headings that are to become the NCX of the book. You can use just the HTML text to create a "textOnly" DTB or you can pair the HTML with one or more audio files to create an "audioFullText" DTB. You can even use Book Wizard Producer to create the audio from the text using Microsoft's SAPI 5 text-to-speech engine and one of the voices available on your PC
There aare a few rules to follow in preparing your HTML text. If you choose not to follow these rules it will not usually cause BWP to fail, but following them enables BWP to create a much better book.
To create a new textNCX DTB from an HTML file you start with the HTML. Here is an example of a simple HTML file that could be turned into a DTB:
<html>
<head>
<title>Nursery Rhymes</title>
</head>
<body>
<div class="frontmatter">
<div class="doctitle">
<h1>Nursery Rhymes</h1>
</div>
</div>
<div class="bodymatter">
<h1>Mary had a Little Lamb</h1>
<p>Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow.</p>
<p>and everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go.</p>
<h1>Hickory Dickory Dock</h1>
<p>Hickory Dickory Dock. The mouse ran up the clock.</p>
<p>The clock struck one and down he ran. Hickory dickory dock.</p>
<h1>Hey Diddle Diddle</h1>
<p>Hey diddle diddle the cat and the fiddle. The cow jumped over the moon.</p>
<p>The little dog laughed to see such sport and the dish ran away with the spoon.</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Follow these steps to create a new book from the above HTML.
If you are comfortable and familiar with Microsoft Word, there is a plugin available called Save As Daisy. This plugin lets you save a structured Word document as a Daisy XML file. You may then use Book Wizard Producer to create a Digital Talking Book from that file.
Since many DAISY reading systems do not support text-to-speech it may be necessary to create an "audioFullText" book from the "textNCX" book we just created. Fortunately Book Wizard Producer makes it easy to do just that. Follow these steps.
You may want to use HTML to define the structure of the NCX and the text headings for your DTB. There are a few advantages to producing the NCX in this way:
Here is a simple example. The following is the same HTML file we used earlier but this one has only the headings in it:
<html>
<head>
<title>Nursery Rhymes</title>
</head>
<body>
<div class="frontmatter">
<div class="doctitle">
<h1>Nursery Rhymes</h1>
</div>
</div>
<div class="bodymatter">
<h1>Mary had a Little Lamb</h1>
<h1>Hickory Dickory Dock</h1>
<h1>Hey Diddle Diddle</h1>
</div>
</body>
</html>
To create a new book using the above HTML as the basis for the NCX do the following:
Now that you have learned how to create a new book with Book Wizard Producer you are ready to take a more detailed look at all of the features Book Wizard Producer provides. We begin with a close look at the "views" in Book Wizard Producer.
As mentioned earlier, Book Wizard Producer uses several "views" to display your book and its content. The most basic view is the "Nav View" or "Contents View". This view shows you the structure of your book. It is a common "Tree View" much like the one used in the Windows Explorer" and many other applications you might be familiar with. Each item in the tree represents a point in the book that may be navigated to including headings, paragraphs, page numbers, and many other elements of a DAISY book. We refer to these as "nav points".
Nav points are added to a book in one of two ways. Either you add them yourself using the number keys on the top row of the keyboard or they are created automatically by Book Wizard Producer when you import a new file, create a book from an existing file, or insert a new file into the book. All books begin with a "root" point that represents the entire book.
There are some simple rules to remember when tagging a book for structure:
First, you cannot skip levels. There can be no level 3 without a level 2 to contain it. You can, of course, move lower in numbers. It is quite common, for example, to follow a level 3 with a level 1 such as when a new chapter or article starts.
Use the following keys to add new nav points to your book
The level-1 through level-6 nav points become part of your book's navigation Control File (NCX). The others do not become part of the NCX but represent points in the SMIL file that can be navigated to using "local" navigation.
All of the NCX nav points levels 1 through 6 correspond to points in the book where headings appear. Because these become part of the book's navigation control file (NCX) they have a "nav label" that is saved in the book so that players can announce the heading of that nav point to the reader whenever they are navigated to. Every heading should be represented by either a text label, an audio label, or both.
In addition to a text and/or an audio label every NCX nav point has a "class" attribute that can tell a reading system what kind of nav point is represented. You can make the class anything you like, but using something like "chapter", "part", "article", or "contents" may be useful later.
Segments of a book usually correspond to paragraphs in a book's content but might not strictly be paragraphs. They can be used to mark any point in the book that you want to provide local navigation to. For example, you might not need to specifically mark a list as a "list" but do want to provide local navigation to the items in the list. You can use the "7" command to mark these points as segments. Paragraphs or segments are not saved as part of the book's NCX and do not appear as headings when the book is played with a DAISY player. For example Book Wizard Reader also has a tree view that looks like the one in Book Wizard Producer, but Book Wizard Reader's nav view only shows headings, not paragraphs or other nav points that do not represent headings in the book.
A book can have very rich markup. In addition to headings, paragraphs, and page numbers; a book may have such things as footnotes, lists, tables, sidebars, and other specific elements of the book marked in order to provide special navigation or reading options. You use the "8" command to add a "special" nav point to your book that can later be more specifically defined using the Edit Item Dialog. For more information about these special options see the sections on optional content and nav lists
Marking the page numbers in a book is important since these are used to provide page navigation.In an audio book this means marking the place in the book where the narrator reads the page numbers. In a text-only book it means marking where the page numbers appear in the textual content file (XML). Book Wizard Producer uses this markup to create a "page map" and puts that in the NCX file to provide page navigation.
You may remove a nav point by selecting that nav point and pressing the Delete key. This removes the nav point but does not delete any content. While it does not remove audio from the audio file, any audio referenced by the nav point is no longer included in the playback of the book. In most cases you will want to shift the audio either to the previous or next nav point before removing the nav point from the book.
Suppose there are two paragraphs that should have only been one. There is a "paragraph" nav point in the contents view for each paragraph, paragraph 1 and paragraph 2, and there is a clip of audio content associated with each nav point. To remove one of the paragraphs but keep both audio clips in the book follow these steps.
The "Edit Item" dialog is opened by bringing up the context menu for the item to be edited. The context menu is opened by selecting the nav point in the contents view and using the right mouse button or the App, (applications), key. The first item in the menu is "Edit" and is used to edit the text label and class for the nav point if it is an NCX nav point, check whether to make the point an NCX nav point, and choose the element type from a list of possible element types.
Shifts the current nav point up a level, from level 2 to level 1 for example. The children of the nav point are also shifted and following siblings are appended as additional child nav points.
Shifts the currently selected nav point down a level, from level 2 to level 3 for example. Child nav points are also shifted and the level of all siblings remain unchanged.
Book Wizard provides several audio editing functions that help make your audio editing jobs simple.
IN addition to the audio navigation and editing commands the audio view gives you some useful information:
Raises the volume of the audio playback independently of your computer's global volume setting.
Lowers the volume of audio playback independently of your computer's global volume setting.
Returns the volume level of audio playback to the normal setting.
Increases the speed of playback using Time Scale Modification (TSM).
Slows down the speed of playback after it has been increased using Time Scale Modification (TSM).
Returns the speed of playback to the normal, unmodified setting.
Stops playback. The spacebar is a toggle. If audio is playing or if you are recording it stops. If not then it starts playback.
Starts the audio playing. The Spacebar is a toggle. If the transport is idle it starts playback. If audio is playing or if you are recording it stops.
Starts recording and is used to record content directly into the book. This command overwrites existing audio content as you record from the current position to the end of the current audio clip. See the sections on Microphone and Aux Input Levels and the Peak Meter for information about setting your recording levels.
Exactly the same as "Record" except that it inserts new audio content without overwriting existing audio.
Plays the audio clip that announces the title of the book.
Plays the audio clip that announces the author of the book.
Plays a short clip of audio from the current position to the end of the phrase for orientation. When playback stops the position is returned to where it was when the command was given.
Resets the peak hold indicators if the peak meter is active.
These commands allow you to move your position in the audio file that is currently loaded. If Auto Sync is on and you navigate to a point in the book where a different audio file is used that file is automatically loaded and you can then continue to navigate in that file. Some of the commands behave in slightly different ways depending on the state of the Auto Sync and Auto Advance settings. With most commands Book Wizard plays a short clip of audio to indicate your position in the audio file without advancing the audio transport.
Move to the beginning of the audio clip, or to the beginning of the audio file if Auto Sync is off.
Moves to the beginning of the book.
Moves to the end of the audio clip, or to the end of the current audio file if Auto Sync is off.
Moves to the end of the book.
Moves to the beginning of the prior phrase or sentence using pause detection. Using the Alt or Ctrl keys with the F11 causes Book Wizard to use paragraph and section levels of pause detection respectively.
Moves to the beginning of the next phrase or sentence using pause detection. Using the Alt or Ctrl keys with the F12 causes Book Wizard to use paragraph and section levels of pause detection respectively.
Moves backward in the audio file by a predetermined interval. The interval used can be set using the "Shuttle" item in the "Settings" menu.
Moves forward in the audio file by a predetermined interval. The interval used can be set using the "Shuttle" item in the "Settings" menu.
Moves backward in the audio file by a predetermined interval and continues to play a short loop of audio until the Ctrl key is released. The interval used can be set using the "Shuttle" item in the "Settings" menu.
Moves forward in the audio file by a predetermined interval and continues to play a short loop of audio until the Ctrl key is released. The interval used can be set using the "Shuttle" item in the "Settings" menu.
Moves to the prior audio clip as defined in the SMIL file.
Moves to the next audio clip as defined in the SMIL file.
The Go To Time function moves directly to any place in the book. Select Go to Time from the Audio menu or press Ctrl+Shift+G and enter the time to move to a specific time in the document (absolute). You may also enter a specific amount of time proceeded by a +/- in order to go forward or backward the desired measure of time within the document (relative).
Sets the beginning of the current selection. The end of the selection defaults to the end of the current audio clip.
Sets the end of the selection. The beginning of the selection defaults to the beginning of the current audio clip.
Sets the beginning of the current audio clip to the current position.
Sets the end of the current audio clip to the current position.
Sets the current selection as the audio clip that announces the title of the book.
Sets the current selection as the audio clip that announces the author of the book.
Sets the current selection as the audio label for the current nav point, page number, or list item.
Removes the currently selected audio, or the current audio clip if there is no selection, from the audio file and places it on the clipboard.
Places a copy of the currently selected audio, or the current audio clip if no audio is selected, on the clipboard.
Pastes, or inserts, the contents of the audio clipboard at the current position.
Sets the end of the current audio clip and the beginning of the next clip to the current position.
Sets the beginning of the current clip and the end of the prior clip to the current position.
These two commands allow you to shift all or part of an audio clip into the previous or next audio clip. They are used whenever the beginning or end of a clip falls either earlier or later in the current audio file than you intended and are used to adjust the clip boundaries without allowing clips to overlap and without leaving gaps between clips.
For example, Suppose that you are checking a book and notice that when you navigate to a chapter you hear only the words "pter 3, Soups and Salads" in the current clip and hear "Cha" at the end of the previous clip. You would fix the problem using the Shift Audio Forward command as follows.
Two important features to keep in mind when working with audio using the audio view are the "auto-sync" and "auto-advance" switches. These are toggles accessible from the "Settings" menu or from the keyboard using Shift+F5 and Ctrl+F5 respectively. The status of these two switches can be found on the status line at the bottom of Book Wizard Producer's main window using the "adv" and "sync" indicators
Normally Book Wizard Producer keeps the SMIL presentation and the position in the navigation control, (Contents View), synchronized with your position in the audio file. That is, as you move through the audio with the rewind, fast-forward, phrase, or scrub navigation keys described in the next section on Audio Navigation Book Wizard automatically adjusts your position in the contents and SMIL files.
Sometimes, when setting the beginning or end of the current clip for example, you may not want Book Wizard to change your position in the navigation control or in the SMIL. Pressing Shift+F5 or selecting "Automatically Synchronize Audio with SMIL and NCX" from the "Settings" menu toggles this setting on and off.
Another advantage of turning off auto-sync is to navigate to and work with audio that is a part of the audio file, but not included in the audio clips of the SMIL presentation. In fact you may at times accidentally press a key that excludes audio from a clip and need to turn auto-sync off to navigate to and include that audio again.
Normally when playing a book you want the book to play continuously and seamlessly from one audio clip to the next. When you are creating and editing content however you usually want to go to a clip and be able to work on that clip without automatically moving into the next or prior clip. Book Wizard Producer uses the "Auto Advance" switch to determine whether to play and navigate through the book seamlessly or whether to limit playback and navigation to the current clip. The "adv" indicator on the status line tells you whether auto advance is on or off.
When auto advance is on navigation commands such as Rewind, Scrub Back, or Next Phrase seamlessly moves from one audio clip to the next. When it is off those same commands do not move beyond the beginning or end of the current clip.
Depending on where your source material comes from, you should set the levels for microphone or auxiliary input before beginning the recording process. Set these levels and select the input source from the Volume Control application as follows:
Book Wizard provides a peak meter to help obtain the optimum recording levels. The Peak Meter has two display columns and measures sound in units called decibels, (dB). Different decibel values are specified within the meter. These numbers are listed vertically down the center, between the two columns, and the spectrum ranges from 0 to -80, running from the top to the bottom of the meter.
The peak meter shows three different ranges of values, and it shows these three areas to you as three different colors. The red, yellow, and green areas let you quickly obtain information about the levels of your recording.
When the Peak Meter registers red, the sound signal being picked up by the program ranges from -4 to 0 dB. This indicates the computer detects sound that is approaching an amplitude level where it becomes impossible for it to accurately playback or record all of the auditory data, and the sample is clipped. As a result, the magnitude of the volume must be reduced to ensure the optimal degree of sound quality is preserved.
When the Peak Meter registers sound within the yellow spectrum, it has a volume between -20 to -4 dB. Signals that are in the yellow area, all or the majority of the time, are at an amplitude where the sound is good. It is therefore important to try and stay within this range to obtain the optimal recording.
The rest of the values in the meter are represented by the color green, which ranges from -80 to -20. Here, the signal for the auditory data is also questionable, because the sound is at too low of an amplitude, or too quiet. The meter is consequently notifying you that the volume of the sound you are working with should be increased.
In short, if the Peak Meter frequently registers in the green or the red zones, it means that the sound could be of poor quality or broken-up, as the result of a signal that is too strong (red) or too weak (green). The peak meter should stay in the yellow area for the majority of the time.
An additional feature of the peak meter are the two Peak Hold displays found at the top of the Peak Meter. Their function is to display numerically, the maximum amplitude value registered on the Peak Meter, during a particular recording session.
For example, the initial default value that both of the Peak Holds are set at is negative infinity or "-inf". Once you begin recording in a file, the Peak Holds provide you with the precise numerical information of the highest amplitude or volume which has been achieved since the program most recently began recording. If during the recording period, however, the value currently visible on the Peak Hold is exceeded, the displayed value is modified to reflect the greater amplitude reading.
Three other features of the Peak Meter should also be noted, along with the details that have been described above:
1. There are two Peak Holds, and therefore two Peak Meter displays, because for stereo recording there could be more than one input channel and both could have a different amplitude. Consequently to accommodate both recording approaches, two Peak Hold displays have been made available. When there is only one channel with a single amplitude, both Peak Hold displays show identical information.
2. The Peak Meter can be reset, which applies directly to the Peak Hold, rather than the meter itself as a whole. Therefore, when we refer to the reset Peak Meter command, we are actually talking about the process of resetting the Peak Holds. This action refers to the process of erasing the most recently displayed signal amplitude from the Peak Hold's memory, and having it reset back to the initial default position of "-inf".
The Peak Meter automatically resets itself when you begin recording in or playing a file from a stopped or a paused position. You need not manually enter the "Reset Command".
The reset Peak Meter command is most often used to establish a target amplitude value before the recording process begins, when you want your levels within a recording to not exceed a given value. You may also find at times that you want to reset your levels while you continue to record. This action cancels the previous feedback. The Peak Hold then provides you with a new set of information, and you can continue to record without stopping.
3. The last feature you should know about in the Peak Meter, which was incorporated in to the software for your convenience, is that its size and position on your computer screen can be manipulated. This can be done with the use of your mouse, following the same series of motions used in other applications when you move or adjust the size of icons.
The Peak Meter Window itself can also be removed entirely from the Book Wizard Application Window, and later can be replaced. The software automatically remembers what state it was most recently left in: if the window was minimized or maximized, where it was positioned in the application window, or whether it was even visible or not.
BWP's text view allows you to view the text of a DTB that includes text and listen to it via a text-to-speech synthesizer.
Often books contain items that a reader may want easy access to such as sidebars, notes, recipies, or tables. A DTB uses "nav lists" to provide such access within the navigation control file (NCX). As the name implies a nav list cannot be nested like the nav mat. It is a simple, sequencial list of items called "nav targets" which are similar to the nav points found in the nav map.
Certain items in a book may be optional so that a reader can have the reading system skip over them if they are not essential or interupt the flow of the book. Typically page numbers, notes, note refs, sidebars, and similar items should be treated as optional content. Which items are optional and whether they are played or skipped is controlled by the "custom test". Each custom test is given a name like "pagenums" and a default setting, that is whether it is played "true" or skipped "false". Each item in the SMIL file that is included in a class of items that are optional is given a "customTest" attirbute that matches the name of one of the custom tests. The reading system uses this attribute, compares it to the list of custom tests, and either plays or skips the item based on the true or false setting of that test.
Book Wizard is software that lets you read digital talking books. The program is also used to create digital talking books.
Book Wizard supports DAISY 3.0 books. It reads and creates such books. The program also reads DAISY 2.x books, but it does not create them.
In the late 1980's and early 1990's interest emerged in moving the traditional media, typically cassette, grooved disks, or other tape media, used for "talking books" recorded for use by individuals with visual or other physical disabilities to a digital medium. As interest in going digital grew there also grew an interest in making the formats used by various countries compatible to reduce the cost of players for the specialized format and to facilitate inter-library loans. The result of all this interest was the formation of the DAISY Consortium in 1996. For more information about the background and work of the DAISY consortium you can go to WWW.DAISY.ORG.
From the very beginning an emphasis has been placed on using established standards endorsed by the W3C and other authorities. The use of established standards allows for greater acceptance, more rapid development, and greater inter operability and inter nationalization.
There are actually two major versions of the DAISY specification that result in two kinds of DAISY books that are very different. This document discusses the first kind of DAISY book, DAISY 2.02, briefly and discusses the second kind of DAISY book, DAISY/NISO, in a bit more detail. Book Wizard Producer creates only the DAISY/NISO books.
Before getting into the specifics of how a DAISY book works we need to understand a few facts about DAISY books.
When you want to navigate in a print book you generally use either the table of contents or an index to locate the page number where the chapter or topic of the book begins. You turn to that page number and begin reading. Navigation through a braille book is done in a similar fashion and thus many braille books include both the braille page number as well as the page number in the print book so that the table of contents and indexes from the print book can also be used to navigate through the braille book. Navigation through audio books recorded on tape or grooved disks is not nearly as convenient. Generally this is done on these kind of books by counting "beep tones" recorded at low frequencies so that they can be heard clearly when the tape or record is moving fast. The tones are the beginning of sections of the book and sometimes page numbers as well. Navigation through a print or braille book can be done fairly quickly because the pages can be accessed "randomly", that is you can instantly open up any page in the book without having to turn through each page. With a tape however you have to fast-forward or rewind through all the pages of the book and count tones to get to the place you are looking for. This can take long enough with taped books to become very annoying and time consuming.
In a DAISY book the chapters and other sections of the book that a reader may want to navigate to are called "nav points" pages and other items in the book that a reader may want to navigate to are called "nav targets". A DAISY book, if properly prepared, offers a reader instant random access to all of the nav points and nav targets in a book. This feature of the book is control by the "nav control" and is contained in its own file called the "navigation control file". Both DAISY 2.02 and DAISY/NISO have navigation control files though they work differently in accomplishing the same purpose.
Most of us are familiar with books that come in different media formats. There are printed books which are the type that most of us think of as a "book", audio books such as those available from bookstores and many libraries, books where the story is mainly told in pictures or video and books in braille where the words are represented by raised dots that can be read with fingers. Traditionally sighted people like to use books that are printed on paper with or without pictures or illustrations. People who are blind or who have difficulty reading printed books traditionally use books recorded by a narrator, spoken by a computerized voice, or in braille.
DAISY books allow us to combine these various forms into a single digital document commonly called a "digital talking book". The term digital talking book or DTB is a carry over from the traditional books used by individuals with a print disability recorded on disks or cassette tapes. The term has stayed with us even though the technology used in DAISY books goes far beyond these traditional recorded books. It is much like the term we use when we say someone's phone is "ringing" even though it might be vibrating or playing a popular tune. It is possible to create a DAISY book that contains audio, text, images, braille, video, or even more exotic forms of communication from a single DAISY document and have all of the different types of media synchronized so that, for example, the audio is played at the same time the text is highlighted on the computer screen.
All this synchronization is made possible by a markup language called "Synchronized Multi-media Integration Language" (SMIL). SMIL is a common component in both DAISY 2.02 and DAISY/NISO. It defines two aspects of a DAISY book; the order in which the segments of the book are played or rendered, the sequence, and which segments of the various media types are played together, in parallel. All of the SMIL markup is contained in a file or files called SMIL files. These files do not contain any of the actual content of the book. They only contain the markup that synchronizes the playback or rendering of the content which is contained in other files.
In order for a machine, a DAISY reading system or player, to play a DAISY book it must be written in such a way that the machine knows what each item in the book is and thus how it should be rendered. The specifics of how the book is put together, tagged, and written is the "markup".
Historically we talk about the format of a book in terms of how it is stored. Print books and braille are generally in bound paper volumes. Audio books are on records or tapes. With DTB's the content of the book is independent of the medium on which it is stored. Just as computer files can be stored on disks such as CD's, on hard drives, or on memory cards so too can digital books be stored. Most DAISY books being distributed now are on CD's but soon the National Library Service will begin distributing its collection of books in the DAISY format on specially designed memory cards.
The first DAISY standard to be used widely is called DAISY 2.02. It relies on HTML markup for both the navigation control and the textual content. It also uses SMIL. Examples of organizations that use DAISY 2.02 currently are Recordings for the Blind and Dyslectic (RFB&D), Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB), and the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB in the UK. It is expected that organizations that will begin to use DAISY in the near future will use the DAISY/NISO standard instead and that these organizations that currently use DAISY 2.02 will switch to DAISY/NISO at some time in the future.
Book Wizard Reader and Book Wizard Producer will both open and play DAISY 2.02 books but only DAISY/NISO books can be created with Book Wizard Producer.
A DAISY book is not contained in a single file, rather it is a set of files and each file has a specific purpose. A DAISY/NISO book is at a minimum made up of a package file (OPF), a navigation control file (NCX), at least one synchronization file (SMIL), and one or more content files that may contain text, audio, or images.
The package file is the key to opening a DAISY/NISO DTB. It has an extension of ".opf" and is the file that the reader opens to begin reading or playing the book. It has three sections:
The navigation control file (NCX) is the file that controls navigation to various nav points and nav targets in the book. As mentioned above nav points are sections of the book that the reader can navigate to such as parts, chapters, sections, etc. Nav targets include such items as pages, notes, side bars, tables, etc. Each nav point or nav target can have a text and/or audio label that identifies it to the reader and an item that points the reading system (player) to a specific place in one of the SMIL files where reading should resume.
Every DAISY book contains at least one SMIL file. AS the name implies the purpose of this file is to synchronize the playback of the book. The SMIL file actually has two basic functions, it provides the order of the playback or sequence and also provides information about what sections of the various media types should be played together. Sometimes you will hear people talk about "seq" (sequence) and "par" (parallel) when discussing the SMIL presentation. For example a sequence in a SMIL file might simply be a list of audio files that should be played one after the other. If a book contains text and audio the SMIL file might have parallel items that indicate that a certain paragraph should be highlighted while a specific clip of audio is played.
Not all DAISY books include the text of the book, some include only an audio narration. If the text is included it is contained in a special file called the textual content file, XML file, or sometimes you will hear it called the "DTBook" file. If the producer has done a good job creating and marking the textual content file then the reading system will be able to identify which segments of text are headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, page numbers, etc.
Not all DAISY books include an audio version of the content, sometimes only the textual content is included. If the audio is included it is contained in one or more audio files. In most cases the audio files will be "MP3" files but other formats are allowed.
Other files are sometimes included with a book for validating the markup or providing other information. The only files that are required for a good DAISY book are the package file, navigation control file, at least one SMIL file, and at least one content file that may be either text or audio.
A DAISY book can contain audio, text, or both. Also it can either have navigation features or not, though without navigation features a DAISY book is not considered to be very useful and such books are discouraged. Thus, there are 6 types of DAISY books:
The National Instructional Media Accessibility Standard or NIMAS defines a way to use the DAISY/NISO text markup to create book files that can be used to produce large print, braille, or even DAISY/NISO books from a single source file. Beginning this year publishers are required to provide textbooks for grades K-12 that meet the NIMAS standard to a repository managed by APH called the National Instructional Media Access Center or NIMAC. for more information about NIMAS see NIMAS.Cast.org.
All NIMAS books contain:
Book Wizard Reader can be used to directly read NIMAS files and Book Wizard Producer can be used to turn a NIMAS book into a textNCX or audioFullText DAISY/NISO book.
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