[BlindResearch] Seeking Guidance on Accessible PDF Reading and Annotation with Screen Readers

[ronak shah]

Thank you everyone, this is very helpful!

@Brandon, you mentioned "I use *~* to designate a comment from me.". Could
you please explain this further? I did not completely understand the use of
*~*.

Thanks!

BR, Ronak

On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 5:04 PM Brandon Keith Biggs <
brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello Ronak,
> 1. I recommend getting an OCR tool like opening a PDF in Google Docs, then
> downloading it as a word file. Also, try this paper OCR tool:
> https://papertohtml.org/
> You can also ask your disability services to convert papers to word, but I
> prefer the above options. I personally use Kurzweil 1000 to OCR.
> 2. The best annotation option is with word or google docs. I use *~* to
> designate a comment from me. I also will put all papers into a spreadsheet,
> and paste interesting quotes into one column, and put my thoughts in
> another column. I have many other columns like bibtex citation, abstract,
> link to the paper, pointer, title, type, tags, etc. I have over 600 papers
> in my spreadsheet and run queries and searches to find the ones I'm looking
> for when writing a paper.
> Sadly, most of the mainstream research tools are inaccessible.
> Hope this helps.
> Thanks,
>
> Brandon Keith Biggs <http://brandonkeithbiggs.com/>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 8:31 AM ronak shah via BlindResearch <
> blindresearch at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
>> Dear researchers,
>>
>> I hope this message finds you well.
>>
>> I am reaching out to ask for advice on two specific challenges I’m facing
>> while reading and annotating research papers in PDF format as part of my
>> PhD work. I would be truly grateful if anyone could share their experiences
>> or workflows on these issues.
>>
>> *1- Accessible PDF Reading:* Many of the research papers I need to read
>> are decades old and often difficult to access with my screen reader (NVDA,
>> latest version). If anyone has workflows or techniques to improve PDF
>> accessibility for smoother reading, I would be very interested in learning
>> about them.
>>
>> 2- *Annotating PDFs with Screen Readers:* I am also looking for ways to
>> highlight and annotate text within PDFs using NVDA, allowing these
>> annotations to be captured by tools like Zotero for future note-taking. Any
>> guidance on annotation methods that work well with screen readers would be
>> incredibly helpful.
>>
>> I am working on a Windows 10 university-provided machine, which limits
>> any significant system modifications. I would appreciate any insights or
>> shared practices that could help streamline my reading and note-taking
>> process with PDFs.
>>
>> Thank you in advance for your time and suggestions.
>>
>> Warm regards,
>> Ronak
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