14 DAY TRIAL // Odt2daisy is an OpenOffice.org extension created to enable visually impaired individuals export documents in DAISY 3, a talking book format designed specifically for those with seeing disabilities or some type of reading problems. The project started out in 2008 and odt2daisy 2.1 has recently been launched.
“Odt2daisy is an OpenOffice.org Writer extension, enabling to export in DAISY 3 format, including support of Mathematical content conforming to the MathML standard. DAISY is an NISO Z39.86 standard for blind, visual impaired, print-disabled, and learning-disabled people,” the extension’s homepage reads.
The extension is available for all supported platforms, Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris. It is also available as a library for others to implement and build on. Installing it is straightforward, go to the Tools menu and select the Extension Manager. In the manager, click the Add button and browse to the location of the downloaded extension. Odt2daisy works with OpenOffice.org 3 and above and supports the ODF 1.2 format. It can export files in the DAISY 2.02 and DAISY 3.0 formats.
The Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) is a talking book format that enables people with specific disabilities or impairments to hear and navigate books and other written works. The great advantage of DAISY is the navigation feature to move to a specific chapter or portion of the book. There are dedicated hardware or software DAISY book players, but the audio files can be used by any media player or device that supports them.
Odt2daisy can convert any OpenOffice.org document into either DAISY XML which creates the navigation and additional files, but not the audio ones. You can also export as Full DAISY, which creates audio files from the text using the text-to-speech software on your system. This varies with the operating system and depends on what components or software you have installed.
Odt2daisy for OpenOffice.org is available for download here on Softpedia. You can check out other OpenOffice.org extensions in our dedicated gallery.