[blindlaw] New list member with a question

[Steve Jacobson]

I realize that this won't help in this current situation in view of later notes.  However, I wanted to 
be sure to point out that it is usually not necessary to physically print and scan documents that are 
scanned 
images.  Kurzweil has a virtual printer that captures the printout in a file that it can process and I 
believe OpenBook has something similar.  Some of the other OCr software have the ability to do OCR on a 
PDF file directly as well.  OmniPage is one such example as it comes with PDF Converter which can do 
this.  This can save a lot of work on larger PDF's that contain scanned images, and it can yield better 
results since printing and scanning can degrade the image further.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:14:48 +0000, Dittman, Robert wrote:

>Hello Shannon,

>First, welcome to the list.

>Second, I must state at the outset that this is not legal advice nor am I able to represent you in this 
matter.  The following is personal help given in the spirit of assisting a fellow blind person.


>You say you are "involved" in a law suit.  If you are represented by counsel, perhaps they or their 
staff can provide the documents to you in Ms. Word format.  If you are representing yourself, the 
standard "Go talk to a lawyer applies."  That being said, what I do is to print the documents out then 
use open book or other OCR scanning software.

>If I may ask, and you do not have to answer, what types of documents are you wishing to have access to? 
Are they government forms such as court documents, or evidence provided by one of the parties or 
counsel?

>If they are court documents you may wish to call the court clerk to ask if you can get copies in Ms. 
Word format. If evidence, then that is a different matter.

>Good luck, and again it never hurts to speak with an attorney if you can do so anytime you are 
"involved" with legal proceedings.


>Robert D. Dittman
>Student Attorney
>St. Mary's University, Center for Legal and Social Justice (Civil Clinic)
>2507 N.W. 36th Street
>San Antonio, TX  78228-3918
>Phone: (210) 431-5760  fax: (210) 431-5700
>Email: rdittman at mail.stmarytx.edu

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>-----Original Message-----
>From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of shannon
>Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2012 11:27 AM
>To: blindlaw at nfbnet.org
>Subject: [blindlaw] New list member with a question

>Good morning all,
>I am not a lawyer but have a question for the blind lawyers.
>In the age of legal documents being available on the web but in most cases in inaccessible formats how 
do you all handle gaining access to them?
>Are you responsible as individuals for gaining access to them or is there a provision that the legal 
documents be in an accessible format?

>I am involved in a law suit that I want to get more background on and I am finding that the documents 
available on the Web and through governmental agencies are mostly in formats that are not accessible 
with a screen reader.
>I want to read this information but most of it is scanned and in rather poor fonts for OCR with the 
readily available OCR programs.
>Thanks for any information
>Shannon Bartch
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