Change history

Change history of RTFC version 10

Version

Changes

10.04

July 2026

New:

Keyboard shortcuts <AltGR+R> for launching the Hypertext Wizard and <AltGr+W> for Microsoft Word are now handled directly by RTFC. This results in faster program startup on current Windows versions. To switch from the old Windows shortcuts to the new method, a restart of your computer is required after installing the update.

New:

The integrated printer driver now supports TCP/IP printers. This means that no Windows printer driver is required for network printers. RTFC now fully controls the printing process and works independently of the Windows printing system.
The printer's network address (IP address or hostname) can be entered using the "Network" button in the "Printer Setup" dialog. The connection is checked immediately, so you receive instant feedback on whether your input is valid.
With integrated support for network printers, we are addressing Microsoft's modern printing initiative, which will lead to phasing out of traditional printer drivers on Windows 11 and later in the medium term.

New:

Automatic detection of Windows printer drivers is now optional and can be disabled if needed. The setting can be found in the context menu of the printer selection drop-down list.

Improvement:

Automatic detection of Braille printers has been revised. Spaces and hyphens in printer names are now handled consistently. In addition, older models and chipsets are now better supported when using printers with virtual COM ports.

Improvement:

the analysis of audio files for automatic phrase recognition now supports virtually al variants of WAV and MP3 files. The analysis in the hypertext Wizard's "Source Files" dialog step now also displays Audio parameters such as sampling rates and bitrates.

Improvement:

the response speed of the Document Reader and the integrated screen reader has been further improved slightly.

Improvement:

the progress bar during conversion now responds more reliably, which primarily benefits sighted users.

Improvement:

Processing of multiple documents at the same time has been optimized to prevent system overload. This is particularly useful when selecting and converting several files at once from the file explorer context menu.

Bug-Fix:

the keyboard echo during Braille input with the RTFC Braille Keyboard has been revised. Previously, the keyboard could stop responding if the speech output was too slow.

10.03

April 2026

New:

the use of placeholders for designing headers and footers with Braille-Tags was extended. The placeholder "%w" for wide space can now be specified multiple times, for example to right-align page numbers or to center text. The placeholders for page numbers "%b", "%n" and "%p" can now be joined in pairs by characters such as ".", ":", "/" or "-". This allows, for example, the representation of page numbers as lower numerals in 6-dot Braille.

New:

if the numbers from "0" to "9" are defined with a leading numerical sign (dots 3, 4, 5, 6,) in the loadable Braille table for Computer Braille, numbers including periods and commas are each indicated with a single numerical sign after conversion.

New:

when installing and uninstalling RTFC, an installation log named RtfcInst.log is now created in the temporary folder. It shows the installation progress and contains additional information about the system environment. In case of an installation error, the messages recorded therein help with error diagnosis.

New:

the context menu for the "Add File" button in the Hypertext Wizard now also contains the most recently used documents from Windows, not just the most recently compiled documents from RTFC.

Improvement:

the back translation of Italian Braille was optimized with regard to special characters such as currency indications, accented letters, brackets and mathematical expressions, as well as mixed capitalization.

Improvement:

Support for the Braillo 300 and Braillo 300 S2 printers was extended, so that the margins can now be set via the paper size dialog in RTFC. In addition, files with different page lengths can be printed without having to manually set the printer configuration to a different number of lines per page.

Improvement:

if a BRL file ends with line or page breaks, they will not be printed. This prevents unnecessary blank pages from being printed at the end of files that were not created with RTFC.

Improvement:

in speech synthesis, dates in combination with weekday information, as well as leading zeros in numerical information, are now read aloud correctly.

Improvement:

the folder selection dialog in the "Folders" tab in the program options would now default to the last folder used.

Improvement:

the progress dialog can now be navigated using the tab key. This makes the individual fields accessible to screen readers as well.

Bug-Fix:

if a filename contained foreign language characters that were not included in the current Windows locale, the file could not be opened and converted.

Bug-Fix:

the loadable Braille table for Computer Braille is now also taken into account in headers and footers.

Bug-Fix:

when defining foreign languages using font families, the language change was not recognized when a paragraph first contained text in a foreign language and then text in the main language. The implementation was only designed for the reverse order.

Bug fix:

when specifying a Braille profile using Braille tags, certain exceptions for contractions were not taken into account.

Bug fix:

when creating a word list with the character frequency, all characters of the ANSI character set are again taken into account, as in previous versions.

Bug fix:

Brochures printing was incorrect when a BRL file was saved in Unicode.

10.02

July 2025

New:

the add-ins for Microsoft Word are now also available in DOTM format. Starting with Word 2007, after installing RTFC, the files will be exchanged for the previous add-ins in DOT format. This happens as soon as the Hypertext Wizard is invoked. The DOTM format is based on the Office Open XML format, which is preferred by administrators over the DOT format. It's more efficient and allows you to enforce stricter macro antivirus security policies. For backward compatibility, both file variants are now stored in the installation directory of RTFC. Remember that if you use your own digital signature, the new templates must now be signed.

New:

the method for importing PDF files can now be selected in the context menu for a source file, the output format or the further steps in the Hypertext Wizard. You can choose between "Import PDF with Word" and "Import PDF as text". For the latter method, the text import options from RTFC are applied as before. The behavior for PDF import on the part of Microsoft Word cannot be changed.

Improvement:

since the import filter of Microsoft Word for PDF files cannot import all files without exception, the previous import filter of RTFC is automatically used in the event of an error. This applies, for example, to PDF files with a page size that is not supported by Word. In addition, Word is visibly executed for the import of PDF files, so that any error messages can be acknowledged.

Improvement:

When saving files in computer braille, the "Encoding for Braille files" specified in the application options is taken into account, provided that Unicode is selected as the "Braille file format". This makes the influence of the specified Braille table on the display of the dot patterns visible during display and printing. Without Unicode Braille, the encoding of computer Braille has so far only had an effect on printing.

Improvement:

when trying to print an empty file in Braille, a corresponding error message appears. Previously, a dialog was displayed to open a file for printing.

10.01

April 2025

New:

RTFC now uses Microsoft Word's import filter to import PDF files. The prerequisite for this is an installed version of Microsoft Word from 2016 onwards. Word offers excellent support for tagged PDF files as well as the PDF/A format. Word also usually achieves good results for classic PDF documents that contain text as graphics and require optical character recognition (OCR). This allows PDF files to be converted to other formats in one step, with most of the formatting being taken care of. Optionally, PDF files can also be converted via RTFC's previous text import. In some cases, however, it may be advisable to convert the files into an RTF file first and post-process them. Especially with sensitive target formats such as Braille, where every character counts.

Improvement:

for the keyboard echo, while typing braille with The RTFC Braille Keyboard, JAWS is now used if it is executed and the keyboard echo is enabled in the RTFC program options. This makes it easier to use the normal keyboard as a Braille keyboard immediately after pressing the key combination <AltGr+Enter> without further adjustment. When you work with Braille input, most screen readers cannot announce the characters entered because the key presses are not transmitted to the screen reader. However, it is particularly helpful when translating back if the characters are announced, as something only appears on the screen after entering a whole word. In this case, the entered characters can only be checked via the keyboard echo.

Improvement:

If the Hypertext Wizard was started with administrator privileges, the assignment of the RTFC Braille Viewer as a display and print program in File Explorer on Windows can be repaired. To do this, go to the program options, tab "File types" and click on "Explorer". If "RtfcView" is assigned as the viewer, the RTFC printer driver for the Braille and Plain text file types is also inherited.

10.0

January 2025

Release of version 10.