Large print and braille, made in Word.
VistaType LP is a free Microsoft Word add-in for transcribers. It formats large-print documents for readers with low vision, and prepares braille source files for the Duxbury Braille Translator.
What it does
Two tabs appear on the Word ribbon — VistaType LP and Braille Macros — carrying the jobs a transcriber does over and over. They are added beside the tabs you already have; nothing on your ribbon is replaced or moved.
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Large print
Page size, margins, gutter and orientation set for the reader. Base font sizes applied across every style at once. Colored callout boxes, formatted tables of contents, multi-column layouts and fill-in lines.
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Braille and Duxbury
Prepares a Word file for the Duxbury Braille Translator against its BANA template — Nemeth math, UEB and EBAE, BANA bullets, and the right translation table recorded in the document itself.
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Reference page numbers
The print book's own page numbers, tagged into the text so the finished large print or braille can cite them. Tag automatically or by hand, then validate, embed, un-embed and format.
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Cleaning up source files
One pass that strips stray formatting, repairs paragraph marks, removes text boxes and frames, collapses multiple spaces, and turns a raw file into something you can actually work with.
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Images
Resize and recolor pictures for a large-print page, and handle the ones that arrive at the wrong scale or in a color scheme a low-vision reader cannot use.
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DAISY, NIMAS and text
Import and repair text-based source formats, so a file that arrives as a publisher's DAISY or NIMAS export can be worked on like any other document.
A typeface that measures what it says
VistaType LP installs its own typeface, VistaTypeLP Legible, and offers it beside Tahoma when you attach the large-print template.
It exists because of a mismatch that costs a reader real size. A point size in Word sets the height of an invisible box the letters sit in — not the height of the letters. Different typefaces fill that box differently, so a face can be set at 18 point and measure closer to 16½ on a font ruler. VistaTypeLP Legible is rescaled so that the number you type, the number Word reports, and the letters on the printed page all agree.
It is built on Atkinson Hyperlegible, the Braille Institute's typeface designed for readers with low vision, and is used under the SIL Open Font License.
Download
VistaType LP installs for your own Windows account. It does not ask for an administrator password, and it does not change your ribbon.
Windows may warn you. The installer is not yet code-signed, so Windows SmartScreen shows a blue “Windows protected your PC” message. Choose More info, then Run anyway. Some antivirus programs may quarantine it for the same reason.
What you need
- Windows, with Microsoft Word 2013 or newer — Microsoft 365 is fine.
- Word and Outlook closed before you run the installer.
- The Duxbury Braille Translator, if you want the braille side.
About
VistaType LP is written and maintained by Jerry Whittaker, and has been in daily use by working transcribers since 2015. It is free software under the GNU General Public License, version 3 — free to use, free to share, and the source is open to read.
Questions, problems, or a document it handles badly: jerry@vistatypelp.org.