[blindlaw] dealing with PDF documents posted on the internet

[David Andrews]

Recent versions of JAWS, in fact can do OCR on a screen or 
document.  The result may not always be quite as good as that of a 
stand-alone OCR program, but it isn't bad.

Dave

At 05:07 PM 7/21/2015, you wrote:
>JAWS is not equipped to deal with these files in its own right. 
>Because they have been scanned they will need to go through some 
>type of OCR program. Ideally purchasing a program like Kurzweil or 
>another program. There is a service that I've never used called 
>pdf2text.com that people on other lists say works. hope that helps.
>Chuck Krugman, MSW Paralegal
>1237 P Street
>Fresno ca 93721
>559-266-9237
>
>-----Original Message----- From: Susan Kelly via blindlaw
>Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2015 10:13 AM
>To: Blind Law Mailing List ;  (gui-talk at nfbnet.org)
>Cc: Susan Kelly
>Subject: [blindlaw] dealing with PDF documents posted on the internet
>
>Apologies in advance for this cross-list posting, but I am desperate 
>to find some workable answers.
>
>I am a county public defender whose duties include juvenile 
>appeals.  The court websites in our county are of varying levels of 
>accessibility, and even within those varying levels, more 
>differences are permitted to exist because the court clerks all have 
>different methods and standards.  When it comes to transcripts filed 
>in the court of appeals, individual reporters upload their documents 
>to the COA in the manner they see fit.  This will generally be in a 
>PDF format, but it is generated by one of two proprietary programs 
>available to them through the state office of the courts to generate 
>written documents from stenographic notes.  These programs contain 
>bizarre coding that, when the PDF is created within the program (as 
>opposed to being scanned physically from printed paper) somehow is 
>embedded in the PDF.  This causes everything from tiny blocks of the 
>page being read in a non-sensical, patchwork fashion, to reading 
>halting at the end of each page of the document, despite the 
>settings within JAWS for a continuous reading experience.
>
>So far, the only even semi-effective route around this that we have 
>found is to physically print out the transcripts, scan them on our 
>already over-worked scanner, and then to run them through our 
>equally taxed OCR program, which ironically is also provided by 
>Adobe.  Neither a print-to-PDF followed by OCR of the document nor 
>the OCR program in JAWS itself is effective on our network for this 
>task, thanks to peculiarities of the county network environment.  I 
>do not have the luxury of purchasing any new or different equipment; 
>even if I did, IT likely would not allow it to be run on "their" network.
>
>All that being said, is there a quicker / easier solution that I am 
>missing? I have changed the JAWS settings countless times, to no 
>avail, which may also be a function of our network environment.
>

         David Andrews and long white cane Harry.
E-Mail:  dandrews at visi.com or david.andrews at nfbnet.org