adapro is a free word processor aimed atpeople with learning difficulties such as dyslexia or another type of functional diversity such as autism. Its adapted, transparent and configurable interface provides an environment that inspires enough security in the user to keep their attention.
Implements ARASAAC pictograms.
Software Development Department – Technology Area Technological and Renewable Energy Institute ITER S.A
Social Technological Innovation Area – Insular Society for the Promotion of People with Disabilities SINPROMI S. L
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adapro is a free word processor aimed atpeople with learning difficulties,such as dyslexia or other types of functional diversity. Its adapted, transparent and configurable interface provides an environment that inspires enough security in the user to keep their attention.
Adapted
With some types of functional diversity such as dyslexia, it is essential to prevent visual confusion of characters. The Sarakanda font greatly facilitates this task and is the perfect complement to the high-contrast functions:a specific contrast mode for the letters p/b/d/q,as well as two alternative global contrast modes to the classic black text on a white background.
In the case of other variants of functional diversity, reducing uncertainty is yet another objective to follow. This is precisely the role of virtual keyboards. They consist of groups of configurable keys with the possibility of inserting predefined text. Furthermore, a representative image of a specific context can be associated with the keyboard. Depending on the relationship or not of the words or phrases on the keyboard with the image, these will be automatically colored in one color or another.
In any case, the paradigm of the program is visual learning. For this, the user has the option of representing words using symbols or pictograms. The extensive adapro database currently stores more than 10,000 ARASAAC pictograms with graphic representation.
Transparent
One of the aspects that add more complexity to any word processor is the management of document files. adapro always stays on top of the file structure such that the user only sees documents. Folders, files and names with extensions disappear. Furthermore, documents can be made more easily recognizable by associating a pictogram. And if that’s not enough, a preview window lets you examine the document’s content before opening it. Of course, you can also do a search by name.
The complexity derived from the existence of multiple users is also reduced as much as possible. Thus, the login does not require a password and is based on avatars. This greatly simplifies the login process for any user: simply press the corresponding avatar button. Only access to the administration interface is password protected.
Configurable
The editing interface and virtual keyboards are fully configurable. You can select which buttons on the interface will be visible and create profiles (lists of visible buttons) according to the type of user. On the other hand, you can define the list of virtual keyboards available according to user. All from the administrator view, where you can also delete documents, create users or change avatars. Finally, an additional application is provided for creating and editing keyboards.
adapro is an ERDF project of the European Union framed in the Açores-Madeira-Canarias Transnational Cooperation Program (PCT-MAC). It is available in Spanish, English and Portuguese. It has been designed to be able to be executed from a pendrive and without previous installation, as long as Java is present in the system. And it can be downloaded free of charge thanks to its open source license.
AraWord has been developed within the framework of the collaboration between the Department of Computer Science and Systems Engineering of the School of Engineering and Architecture – EINA of the University of Zaragoza,the Public School of Special Education Alborada de Zaragoza,and the Aragonese Center of Technologies for Education – CATEDU.
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In this menu, we can select different options related to the Text or the Language of the document.
The basic options that we are going to find in this menu are
– Text formatting:allows us to choose the font, size and color of the text. Regarding the font, AraWord allows us to use any of the fonts that we have installed on our computer.
– Location of the text: allows us to place the text at the top / bottom of the pictogram.
– Upper/lower case text: allows us to exchange all the text or any of the texts between uppercase or lowercase letter.
– Language of the document:allows us to choose between the different languages to which the pictograms are translated, except those that have a spelling not supported by the Spanish keyboard (Chinese, Arabic, Romanian, Polish, …).
AraWord performs the conjugation of verb tenses in Spanish,as well as a wide repertoire of verbs frequently used in English, French and Catalan. In the rest of the languages, we must use the infinitive of the verb and, later, change the name with the option that we will explain in the next chapter.
The Edit menu presents the basic commands in any word processor.
One of the most striking options is the option to Paste a text that we have previously copied from the Internet.
IMPORTANT NOTE: the example shown below is just a sample of all the potential that AraWord has, but we recommend that, for a correct subtitling, you follow the suggestions that you will find in this section of the Open Classroom of ARASAAC: HOW TO SUBTITLE TEXTS WITH PICTOGRAMS
We select a phrase from the story “A special friend” in Easy Reading that we have extracted from the Sinpromi Base Library and using the combination Ctrl+C or the right mouse button we copy it.
Immediately, we head to AraWord and use the Paste option in the Edit menu or the Crtl+V combination.
As you can see the result is quite good. We will only have to use some tools that we will explain later to obtain the desired result.
When we open the application, we observe that the interface is very simple and that the toolbar has the most basic elements so that it can be used, not only by professionals or families, but also by users of augmentative and alternative communication systems. .
Initially, the AraWord icon appears showing us where the cursor is located. We can erase it to start writing. We are going to analyze the different options that appear in the File menu.
First, the New option appears, which allows us tostart writing a new text. Later we have the option of Save as … , which is used to save the text on which we are working and be able to Open it, later, to continue with the writing of the adapted texton which we are working. All those custom pictograms (which are not part of the ARASAACdatabase) that we have imported into AraWord and used in the document are also stored. In this way, regardless of which computer we open the document on, we will be sure that all the pictograms are displayed. The files are saved with the.awd extension, so in order to open them, we will have to do it directly with the Open option, from the application itself.
The Export As menu… offers, two possibilities: Export as image or Export as PDF
Within the Export as … Image option, we recommend using the JPG format. If you use this option, once the document is saved as an image, you can insert the image into any document or presentation.
In some occasions, when saving the image and inserting it, it may happen that we notice that the image contains empty space around it. To do this, the different text editing and presentation creation applications incorporate image cropping functions, which we can use to make it optimized.
The other option that we will find and that allows us to Print the documents is through the Export as …. PDF option.
The PDF export menuoffers us different possibilities, which as we configure, are shown in the Preview window:
Once the options that interest us have been defined and the final appearance of the document customized, we will press the “Export PDF” button, which will open a dialog box to save the PDF on our computer.
Once saved we can open it with any reader of this type of format and print it from there.
Before installing AraSuite, you should uninstall the previous version for those of you who have it installed.
To proceed with its download and installation in Windows,we must enter the AraSuitewebsite in SourceForge and click on the Downloadbutton.
The MacOS and Linux versions can be downloaded from this other page:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/arasuite/files/
Once you press the Downloadbutton, a new page will open. We must wait a few seconds for the compressed file download window to open.
When we have downloaded the file, we must double click on it and follow the installation process without modifying the parameters that appear by default.
As you can see, AraSuite also contains the applications TICO Interpreter and TICO Editor,corresponding to theTICO Proyect – generator of Interactive Communication Boards that is also included in the Suite.
To create a shortcut on the desktop, you should open the File Explorer and go to the C: drive, where you will find the AraSuite folder and, within it, AraWord.
We double-click on this folder to open it and right-click on the AraWordApp file to send it to the Desktop.
To finish the installation process, we will open the application, clicking on the icon on the desktop, and we will have to select the Resource Manager in the Toolbar and, later, on Check for updates. In the new window, it is noted that “There is a new version of the pictograms“. Click on the Update button to download the pictograms that, later, we will use with AraWord and TICO.
We can also install the pictograms, opening AraWord and selecting Tools – Resource Manager – Check for > > updates
After the update process, we can use the application with the entire database of ARASAAC pictograms and enjoy the new implementations it incorporates.
ARAWORD is a freely distributed computer application consisting of a word processor that allows the simultaneous writing of text and pictograms, facilitating the development of augmentative communication materials, the development of accessible documents, and the adaptation of documents for people who have difficulties in these areas.
ARAWORD is also a very useful tool to be used by users who are acquiring the literacy process, since the appearance of the pictogram, while writing, is a very positive reinforcement to recognize and evaluate that the word or phrase written is correct.
Department of Computer Science and Systems Engineering of the CPS of Zaragoza
CPEE Alborada
CATEDU
Joaquín Pérez Marco
Joaquin Ezpeleta
José Manuel Marcos Rodrigo
David Romero Corral