Good evening.
My name is Eden Brown, formerly Eden Kizer, a totally blind court reporter and also an avid Braille user since the age of three. I ahve been excited about multi-line since my first foray with a Canute. I was an early adopter, and it had some heat and stopping issues if you went too fast. I heard those are fast.
Anyway, fast forward to now, and I’ve been beyond excited about the Monarch for years. Imagine my disappointment when the ifrst one I tried was completely unreadable thorugh the membrane. I oculd read no letters. I therefore thought the Monarch was a hot mess.
However, I decided after hearing from others they were not having this problem that I wanted to try agian. I found a local Rise partcipant and managed to get my hands on another Monarch.
I’m afraid my husband is probably not happy right now. I am about to order a Monarch as soon as I can figure out how to split among multiple cards.
I am most excited about readin gBraille music, being able to read web or e-mail, bookshare books, using JAWS to proofread some of my court reporting files.
I still struggle a little bit with the membrane, but I hope that it will stop being bothersome at some point. My husband tells me that maybe that will mean the display will last longer.
I am a Brailliant user and a former BNT user.
How is possible compatability with Voiceover going? I’ve herad discrepancies like multi-line is available in Apple, but then I hear it’s not working.
thanks for all the great info and course. It’s quite helpful. I will take and appreciate any tips you all have. I have not been crazy about tactile graphics, but maybe that’s because I never learned to read them well. Maybe a way to change that somehow.
Hi Eden, and welcome! I’ve been using the Monarch for a couple of months now, and I love just about everything about it! I have especially enjoyed reading books and magazines with it, something I knew I would love!
I am also a lifelong Braille user. I’m hoping that a bookmark function will eventually be added for the Braille editor, so that I can read books with that… Or maybe a feature added for reading BRF files in Victor Reader. If there’s a way to do that, I haven’t found it yet.
I haven’t tried using the Monarch with my iPhone yet. For now, the only screen readers that I’ve heard it works with are NVDA and a new version of Jaws that will hopefully be released soon.
Tactile graphics are pretty neat on the Monarch. I haven’t tried opening anything on the Internet yet, but I have thoroughly enjoyed exploring the TGIL that is integrated with the Monarch.
Suffice it to say that it is an amazing device, and I hope the new one will work great for you! Wishing you all the best!