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

[Brandon Keith Biggs]

Hello,
It's just a very unique combination of cymbals I can search for and find
quickly in word files. You can also use comments if you're good at doing
that, but I prefer just to annotate inline.
Thanks,

Brandon Keith Biggs <http://brandonkeithbiggs.com/>


On Wed, Oct 30, 2024 at 1:06 AM ronak shah <ronakshah.26397 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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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>>
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