[blindlaw] Difficulties with court transcripts in PDF format and JAWS

[Susan Kelly]

The court website is technically covered by ADA, but getting compliance has met with puzzled reactions, at least in our county - huge numbers of so-called "professionals" seem to assume that if it is on the web, it is automatically accessible.  (Believe me, I have trouble biting back the sarcastic responses when I am told this.)

I do not know what program the court reporters use to prepare their transcripts...I can say that the transcripts that are prepared from audio recording machines are fairly useable, aside from the frequent notations of "unintelligible" for words that could not be determined based on lack of volume or poor pronunciation, so I assume that those are prepared in Word or Word Perfect.  The problems seem to arise most often with transcripts prepared from the traditional stenograph machine used by human reporters.  From my experience when I could still read things visually, these are much more accurate in terms of contents, but not at all amenable to use with assistive technology when disclosed digitally.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Jaquiss [mailto:rjaquiss at earthlink.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2015 12:17 PM
To: Susan Kelly; 'Blind Law Mailing List'
Subject: RE: [blindlaw] Difficulties with court transcripts in PDF format and JAWS

Hello:

     An essential thing to know about PDF files is that they can be created in a variety of ways. MS Word can create a PDF file from a Word file and these should be quite readable. It is also possible to create PDF files by scanning printed documents and creating PDF files from the resulting images.
This later type will not be as accessible and will have to be processed with an OCR package. I would suggest trying to make arrangements to have the original word processor file emailed to you. I would think that a court's website would be covered by the ADA.

Regards,

Robert


-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Susan Kelly via blindlaw
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2015 9:03 AM
To: 'blindlaw at nfbnet.org'
Cc: (gui-talk at nfbnet.org)
Subject: [blindlaw] Difficulties with court transcripts in PDF format and JAWS

Our court of appeals loads the transcripts for cases to its website, which is becoming increasingly inaccessible, thanks to the use of semi-described images on at least half of its links instead of properly labeled link-boxes.
I can navigate around that, albeit slowly, by continuing to click through each link (they don't list well) until I hear what seems to be the proper link for whatever it is I need to do.  The real problem comes in once I have accessed my case file and try to listen to the transcripts themselves.  Some are PDF, while others are simply .tif or .jpg scans.  On top of that, even the PDF files have not been properly OCRd, or so it seems, as they will not read through continuously despite my settings in Adobe and JAWS.

My assistant has tried to circumvent this issue by downloading the file to our office network.  The problem persists, though, with the narration stopping at then of each page; using a "page down" or "ctrl page down"
command is ineffective, as reading starts back up mid-page; I thus have to advance it one line forward (which does not read) and then back up one and start the "read all" command again to read each page.  This is very time-consuming and annoying, and I have to assume that it is, at least in part, the result of the manner in which the court reporter has transcribed the documents.

Does anyone have any suggestions how to tackle this problem?  Also, does anyone know how I would word a polite letter to the reporters / courts to suggest that these documents be better prepared?  Because I work in the juvenile court, our time limits are extremely short and this is a time waste that I really would like to avoid.

Thanks!
_______________________________________________
blindlaw mailing list
blindlaw at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindlaw_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
blindlaw:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindlaw_nfbnet.org/rjaquiss%40earthlink.n
et