The DAISY format gives the user total flexibility to access the digital material however they wish through their DAISY player.
The beauty of the DAISY format is that all the functionality can be built-in at the beginning by the producer (including full text, images, audio, print page numbers, footnotes etc) - the user is in total control over which elements or functionality of the DAISY book they wish to access.
See our how to produce section to find out about the different production tools that are available to help you produce DAISY content.
DAISY players
Hardware and software DAISY players are available - most people who belong to RNIB's Talking Book service use a hardware DAISY player. Software DAISY players enable DAISY books to play through a computer. On-line access to DAISY books is increasing - these can be downloaded to a hardware player, streamed over the internet or downloaded to portable MP3 players.
Different DAISY players offer different levels of functionality - some are very basic, only offering access to the audio and navigational structure of the DAISY book. Some players offer enhanced functionality, such as being able to search the text (if it's present in the original file), record audio notes and view the text and synchronised audio together as the book is playing.
Reading for leisure
If someone is reading a leisure title in the DAISY format, they may choose to just put the CD in their DAISY player and listen to the audio from start to finish. However, if they don't want to hear all the introductory matter, such as the publishing details of the print book or the copyright information, they may wish to skip this part of the book and navigate to the start of the story - this is now possible with DAISY.
Reading for study
If someone is reading a DAISY title for study purposes, they may want to dip in and out of the book, skip between chapters, headings and sub-headings, find specific words or references, add bookmarks or record their own notes for future reference - this is all now possible with DAISY.