[nabs-l] PDF Files

Arielle Silverman arielle71 at gmail.com
Mon Nov 4 23:12:46 UTC 2013


Don't forget that if you use Gmail, you can save the PDF to your
computer, email it to yourself as an attachment and then open the
attached file in HTML. It will make navigation much easier though
won't fix all the column formatting problems. And this only works for
PDF's that haven't been scanned. If it's been scanned, then you'll
need to use OCR of some sort to convert it. RoboBraille does a pretty
good job of preserving formatting.

Best,
Arielle

On 11/4/13, minh ha <minh.ha927 at gmail.com> wrote:
> What do you mean adobi doesn't read the file? Does jaws say "alert,
> document is empty" or something along those lines? If it does, the
> document has been scanned in as a picture and there's really no way fo
> ryou to read it except use Kurzweil or robobraille to convert them.
>
> On 11/4/13, Hannah Chadwick <sparklylicious at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Cindy,
>> I've tried adobe. However, when I open the file, Jaws won't read it. is
>> there something I can purchase to make it more accessible?
>> Thank you, Hannah
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nabs-l [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Cindy
>> Bennett
>> Sent: Sunday, November 03, 2013 10:54 PM
>> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
>> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] PDF Files
>>
>> 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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>>
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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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