XML Conversion as Per DAISY Technology/Standards

DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) Consortium leads the worldwide transition from analog to Digital Talking Books. It has developed standards, technologies and implementation strategies to enable global access by people with print disabilities to information provided by mainstream publishers, governments and libraries. The first DAISY Standard was proprietary, originating in Sweden in 1994.

Our Swedish-based client for braille audio books is a government body that provides access to printed materials for people with physical impairment. The mission of our client is to produce and lend talking books and books in Braille. The client has been producing books in DAISY format since 2001.

Highlights

A Daisy digital talking book is played on a CD-ROM disc, containing up to 50 hours of narration. The reader can navigate between chapters, sections, and pages. Bookmarks can be placed anywhere in the talking book and notes (written or narrated) can be made in relation to the text. A DAISY talking book is read on a pc with CD-ROM drive and a specific reading programme or in a special talking book player.

Client Requirements

The client approached us to convert the content from print originals to DAISY specific format applying XML meta tags. We were required to convert more than 200 books in a span of 11 months. The client required a third-party provider that can complete the work with accuracy and that offers robust, consistent and single source files.

Challenges

One of the major challenges faced by SunTec India was to familiarize its XML team with DAISY standards and conventions.

The client required 100% accuracy with text and XML conversion.
The printed materials had to be scanned and ASCII code had to be extracted using OCR technique.
The entire text had to be proofread to ensure textual accuracy.
The proofread text had to be converted as per the DAISY standard.

The images and illustrations had to optimized as per the defined standard.
XML document creation is limited, based on pre-defined DTD (template).
XML must be well formed and valid.

Solution

SunTec India which has established itself in the field of XML conversion received the contact for data conversion from printed material to digital format using XML technology. We have handled XML conversion for some of the major libraries and academic institutions.

Powered by a superior production grade capturing system that includes an advanced OCR engine, and the OCR to XML conversion tool for a comprehensive XML conversion process, SunTec India provides high quality paper to XML conversion.

Impact

SunTec India's conversion of the data from printed originals to XML for this client got us more projects from similar bodies.

SunTec India is a premier developer of advanced, high-quality XML content creation, conversion, and publishing solutions. We are familiar with industry standard Document Type Definitions. We use XML in content management and net publishing solutions as it can effectively re-purpose content for a variety of platforms and formats like print, website, mobile phone, database and so forth. Through the use of XML we ensure that data can be searched across an entire database.