[blindLaw] JAWS Loosing its Place when Reading PDF's in Acrobat

Tue Aug 6 10:34:05 UTC 2019

Steve, this is brilliant!  I will try this right away when I get to
work and get back to you with results.  Thanks for the great idea!

On 8/5/19, Steve Jacobson via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Laura,
>
> I am suspicious that what is happening for you is that JAWS is loosing focus
> when you are reading a document and that it is loosing its place in the
> virtual buffer containing the text within the PDF document.  JAWS seems to
> be having a lot of trouble these days maintaining focus.  It is partly a
> bigger issue now because of the various types of notifications provided by
> Windows 10.  Although many of us have often heard the "Focus Lost"
> announcement, that can be turned off for specific applications.  To
> determine if my guess holds any water at all, open up a PDF document.  When
> it is open, bring up the quick settings menu with JAWSKey and the letter
> "V".  Then, press the letter f by itself multiple times until you hear
> "Focus Lost Announcement".  If that box is unchecked as it is in my case
> with Acrobat-DC running, you will not hear any announcements that focus was
> lost.  If you check that setting, then you should actually hear that focus
> was lost.  This will not fix the problem and it could quickly get very
> annoying, but it might allow you to determine if the issue of JAWS loosing
> its place is due to the "Focus Lost" issue.
>
> If it turns out that this is at least part of the issue, then you can go to
> Vispero with a specific question like "How can I avoid loosing focus in
> Acrobat-DC".  Also, it would seem reasonable for JAWS to maintain its
> location on the virtual buffer through a lost focus event.
>
> There was a time when JAWS would tend to loose its place on web pages if one
> jumped to another application and back.  There might be some variation of
> this still happening within PDF documents since they also make use of the
> virtual buffer.
>
> If this is the issue, it is also possible that something is happening inside
> the adobe product that is momentarily confusing JAWS just long enough to
> cause it to loose its place.  That might well be an Adobe issue.  However, I
> think Vispero will have to help isolate that since Adobe doing something
> like that won't be apparent to the person reading the PDF document in all
> likelihood.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Steve Jacobson
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindLaw <blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Laura Wolk via
> BlindLaw
> Sent: Monday, August 5, 2019 4:38 PM
> To: Blind Law Mailing List <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Laura Wolk <laura.wolk at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [blindLaw] ABYY FineReader Stability with Jaws?
>
> Why shouldn't we insist on Adobe creating a better OCR solution?  Also, the
> issues being raised have to do with Jaws losing focus, inexplicably
> jumping around the document, and not navigating properly as you scan
> by paragraph or line.  Unless i'm mistaken, that has nothing to do
> with OCR capability.  And if it does, then it only highlights that the
> solutions provided by Jaws and Adobe are inadequate for the task,
> since people are using these functions and still getting rather paltry
> results.  It also doesn't make sense, given that people have reported
> a marked downturn in Adobe's performance as of late with Jaws.  So
> perhaps the issue is we're simply discussing two different things.
>
> As for my previous email, thank you for bringing your interpretation
> of it to my attention.  However, I've reread it, and I don't think
> there is anything disrespectful about its tone, except perhaps that I
> didn't give exact concrete data about how many files I'm dealing with
> and how frequently assignments are given and expected back the same
> day.  The suggested overnight solution is just not viable.  And I
> don't think it would be viable in many competitive high-paced working
> environments.   (Again, I am in no way commenting on your own personal
> working environment.  I'm making a general statement based on the
> general proposition that, oftentimes in high-paced environments,
> associates are given hours not a full business day or overnight to
> complete a task, and these minutes add up).  I hope that clarifies my
> point.
>
> Angie, I do get your point, and thank you.  My point is, if you take
> those minutes, let's just say even five minutes per document, or even
> 3, and then say you have to review twenty files.  Those minutes add up
> quite quickly.  Just like the track change issue.  Sure, if you've got
> ten to review, no big deal.  When you're talking about 600 changes, it
> matters
> a whole lot more.  So I completely hear you, but just like at some
> point the "a little extra time" approach to track changes veers into
> "I can't actually or I am severely struggling to complete my duties"
> territory, so too with converting pdfs.  And again, my main point
> doesn't even have to do with converting.  It has to do with the fact
> that I have a pdf that Adobe is reading just fine.  It's not
> presenting as blank or empty.  But in the course of reading, Jaws
> becomes frenetic and starts jumping all over the document.  This
> happens with multiple documents, and others have stated they
> experience the same.  It seems like there must be a solution to this
> that does not involve saving to another doc type (since Adobe seems
> able to read it), but only involves stabilizing Adobe and Jaws.
>
> For that reason, I'm still interested in your and Ger's experience
> using Nuance to batch
> convert.  Did you or do you have the issue of Jaws jumping around when
> you do not use Nuance to first convert the pdf to another pdf?  Does
> Adobe appear more stable when you're using a nuance-converted pdf?
> Ger, it sounds like you are not having the issues that I am
> describing.  So if you are using Nuance to ocr and tag documents and
> those documents are then stable in Adobe, that would be a wonderful
> and welcome development!
>
> Thanks,
> Laura
>
>
>
> On 8/5/19, Gerard Sadlier via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> Angie’s comments are well made. I would only add that if the document
>> contains paragraph numbers those are a good and reliable reference
>>
>> On Mon 5 Aug 2019 at 20:52 Angela Matney via BlindLaw
>> <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Laura, one quick observation: Without addressing the need for precision
>>> when, say, referring to line numbers or making other references to the
>>> PDFs
>>> that are required for your job, I just want to add that converting files
>>> to
>>> another format may not take the amount of time one might expect,
>>> particularly if you use a mainstream solution. I don’t know how long it
>>> takes Kurzweil to convert a PDF because I don’t use that product. In the
>>> past, I’ve used Abbyy Finereader; nowadays, I use Nuance Power PDF. Each
>>> of
>>> these can OCR a file of several hundred pages in a matter of minutes and
>>> give good results, barring handwriting or other unusual attributes of
>>> the
>>> file. I’m in no way saying that we don’t need a better way to access PDF
>>> files directly; I’m just suggesting that converting a PDF to Word or
>>> another format of choice isn’t necessarily a process that takes hours
>>> and
>>> hours.
>>>
>>> Having said this, it’s certainly true that if you have many, many files,
>>> there will be a good amount of time involved. This has happened to me
>>> before (involving due diligence for a merger and documents from the
>>> other
>>> side’s data room). But I’m not sure that the method I used ultimately
>>> took
>>> more time than I would have spent performing OCR on the PDFs, which
>>> would
>>> have had to be done in any case because they were images.
>>>
>>> I can’t comment on using any of these applications to read PDFs
>>> directly.
>>> In my mind, converting files to another format is analogous to printing
>>> vs
>>> reading the PDF on-screen, and while it’s not perfect, it generally
>>> works
>>> for my purposes.
>>>
>>> I hope you’re able to find a solution quickly.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Angie
>>>
>>> Angela Matney, CIPP/US
>>> Attorney at Law
>>> [Loeb & Loeb
>>> LLP]<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.loeb.com%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7C35dfc2f479984ab262cf08d719ed72db%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637006379927625333&sdata=%2FPHXcR0hDOTY%2BGZt01nMItJWTi1IRXDWGEeUaMy4wOY%3D&reserved=0>
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