[nabs-l] PDF Files

Mon Nov 4 16:13:15 UTC 2013

Joshua,
Thank you for your advice. These documents are not from my professors. I'm
doing a research paper and when I looked online for sources, I found a large
amount of pdf files.
hannah

-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Joshua
Hendrickson
Sent: Monday, November 04, 2013 2:46 AM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] PDF Files

Hello Hannah.  Like others have already said, I'd use kurzweil to convert
the pdf's to either word, or txt.  However, an even better option at least
to me, is to ask your professors to email you .docx word files instead of
pdf files if at all possible.  If a teacher if unwilling to do this for
whatever reason, you can go to your disability support office and talk to
them.  However, you are entitled to reasonable acomidations which in this
case having readible documents is one of these.  If you explain to your
teachers that it is a challenge for your to read the documents in pdf
format, it has been my expierence that most teachers will be more than happy
to help you.
In my online science class, I was having trouble reading the review
questions online,, and when I emailed my teacher, she emailed me the
document in .docx format.  Just a quick note, when you do get a .docx file
emailed to you, it will most likely be in protected format.  This will make
it unreadible by jaws.  There is an easy solution to this if you do get one
of these type of documents.  What you do, is download the attached file to
whatever is your prefered location on your system.  Next, go to the document
that is protected.  Make sure the document is selected by using your arrow
keys.  Now hit your aplications key and arrow down, you'll hear edit, now
press enter.
You will now be able to read the document.  I hope I haven't confused you to
much.  Best of luck.

On 11/4/13, minh ha <minh.ha927 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I also use Kurzweil to convert pdf's into word documents as they are 
> easier to read and work with. However, as previously mentioned, they 
> can become very messy if the pdf itself hasn't been formatted right.
> Another option is robobraille. If you go to robobraille.org, upload a 
> pdf, select your preferences and then type in your email, the site 
> will convert the file for you ad send the conversion to your email. I 
> am still amazed at the quality of the conversions all the time and it 
> saves me time converting a ton of documents in Kurzweil. You should 
> definitely check it out.
>
> Cheers,
> Minh
>
> On 11/4/13, Cindy Bennett <clb5590 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Hannah,
>>
>> Most of the PDF's that I use are accessible through Adobe's 
>> accessibility feature. For me, it comes up automatically when I open 
>> a PDF, but it is under the accessibility tab under the edit menu. 
>> There are a series of boxes, but I just keep the recommended 
>> settings, and Adobe does an OCR. I will say that although it is 
>> pretty successful with text, tables and graphics are messy.
>>
>> Most commonly, I have a problem with Adobe combining strings of words 
>> with no spaces or not interpreting a page that has multiple columns 
>> as such and so I hear paragraphs out of order. Also, I have found 
>> that hand scanned in documents cannot be read well by the Adobe OCR.
>>
>> In this case, I use Kerzweil which is an OCR software. There are 
>> others such as ABBYY Fine Reader. A good OCR option can be considered 
>> a reasonable accommodation if your state has something comparable to 
>> a Division of Services for the Blind, so funding is typically 
>> available for it.
>>
>> I do not know how to use the OCR function of JAWS 14.
>>
>> One workaround would be to see if you can find the file somewhere 
>> else. For example, professors would sometimes give out readings from 
>> journals and I could find accessible versions on my library's website.
>> If they are excerpts from novels, you could look on websites such as 
>> bookshare.
>>
>> That being said, I am not well versed at OCR options that are good 
>> with math, foreign languages, or any subject with symbols. I think 
>> there is a math solution called Infinty Reader, but this may be for 
>> textbook scanning.
>>
>> Cindy
>>
>> On 11/3/13, Hannah Chadwick <sparklylicious at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hello list,
>>> I'm currently using Jaws 14 with my windows 7 pc. It seems that a 
>>> lot of documents, especially academic ones are in pdf files. I was 
>>> just wondering how you read these file types? I've been converting 
>>> most of them in to word files, however when I do, they become very 
>>> messy. I look forward to your responses.
>>> Best, Hannah chadwick
>>> University of California, Davis CA
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Cindy Bennett
>> Secretary: National Association of Blind Students
>>
>> B.A. Psychology, UNC Wilmington
>> clb5590 at gmail.com
>>
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>
>
> --
> "All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty
> recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity:
> but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on
> their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible." T. E. Lawrence
>
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