[nfbcs] [Blindtlk] question on navigating electronic docs

Sat Jan 20 19:54:33 UTC 2018

I've used JAWS OCR on scanned images in PDF documents, and it's worked 
well, but I've usually just used it for a quick look. I haven't really 
tried to see how well it preserves formatting or if you'd be able to use 
hierarchical navigation in such a document.

On 01/20/2018 01:44 PM, Tracy Carcione via nfbcs wrote:
> I've had reasonable success with PDF documents that are just an image scan,
> opening them in Kurzweil 1000.  K1000 treats them as an image, and reads
> them as if they were from a book.
> Because I have K1000, I haven't tried Jaws OCR on them, but it might work.
> Tracy
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jude DaShiell via
> nfbcs
> Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2018 12:03 AM
> To: Steve Jacobson; Blind Talk Mailing List; nfbcs at nfbnet.org
> Cc: Jude DaShiell
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] [Blindtlk] question on navigating electronic docs
>
> Also, the pdf document has to have been created or repaired by someone with
> both an extensive knowledge of pdf accessibility and commitment to pdf
> accessibility.  If what's inside that pdf is just a scanned image, without
> even the language being enabled it's inaccessible.  If one can get beyond
> the security protections adobe put on those documents by default with latest
> versions of its software, best bet is to do a thorough accessibility check
> on each document and fix what's possible to fix before even attempting to
> read any of them.  Most documents produced by the Federal Government have
> Section 508 accessibility requirements whether honored or not.  Working
> papers do not have Section 508 accessibility requirements.  Put this in the
> context of adobe not having a single setting in its software which enables
> all accessibility automatically unless specifically overridden by its
> Federal customer, or for that matter any other of its customers and you can
> understand how and why the state of most adobe documents is where it is at
> these days.
> If Wordperfect by default enables a language attribute on documents it
> produces which are then imported into adobe you have a chance at
> accessibility but only a chance since the remainder of the accessibility
> editing or repair may not have been done beyond the language for the adobe
> files.  This is something I had to deal with before retiring from Federal
> service a few years ago so I have one or two insights on the matter.
>
> On Fri, 19 Jan 2018, Steve Jacobson via blindtlk wrote:
>
>> Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2018 23:29:19
>> From: Steve Jacobson via blindtlk <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
>> Reply-To: steve.jacobson at visi.com,
>>      Blind Talk Mailing List <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
>> To: 'Blind Talk Mailing List' <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>, nfbcs at nfbnet.org
>> Cc: Steve Jacobson <steve.jacobson at visi.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] question on navigating electronic docs
>>
>> Anne,
>>
>> I saw your note on both lists but did not respond assuming somebody
>> with more specific experience would answer.  However, I'm sending this
>> reply to both lists to help avoid duplicate answers.
>>
>> Unfortunately, the answers are not simple.  I do not know much about
>> WordPerfect documents, but I believe you can open them in Microsoft Word.
>> There is a mode in Microsoft Word and JAWS that gives you some ability
>> to navigate in a manner that is similar to the web.  If you are only
>> having to read WordPerfect documents, this might be an alternative.
>> It is more questionable whether editing such a document and converting
>> it back to WordPerfect is a good idea.  There is also a "simple" or
>> "complex" document setting in the verbosity menu of JAWS that might
>> help for navigating within Word.
>>
>> In general, the same navigation keys that are available on the web are
>> also available when reading a PDF document.  I am almost certain that
>> you already know that, though, so perhaps I am not understandint your
>> question.  To have the best chance of taking advantage of that
>> navigation, use the "infer reading order from document" as the reading
> order in the reading dialog.
>> Sometimes reading "Left to Right, top to bottom" gives better results,
>> but often it does not preserve as much of the structure.
>>
>> However, hear is the downside.  None of the above will help unless the
>> structure exists in the documents you are reading.  You can't skip to
>> headings if there are no headings.  You cant use table navigation keys
>> if the data were not formatted as a table.  Particularly PDF documents
>> are very unpredictable as to the amount of document structure that has
>> been included in the document.
>>
>> Anne, if I've missed what you were really asking, let me know.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Steve Jacobson
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: blindtlk [mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Anne
>> Naber via blindtlk
>> Sent: Friday, January 19, 2018 2:51 PM
>> To: blindtlk <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
>> Cc: Anne Naber <amnaber92 at gmail.com>
>> Subject: [Blindtlk] question on navigating electronic docs
>>
>> Hi,
>> I sent this out to the computer science group as well, but haven't
>> received any responses.
>> I'm wondering if there is a way to navigate through pdfs an word
>> perfect docs similar to how you would navigate the web?  Can you
>> divide the doc into headings, links etc?  If so, can you then locate
>> and jump around?  Is there a controlled way to skip over large blocks
>> of text?
>> Thanks,
>> Anne
>>
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-- 
Christopher (CJ)
Chaltain at Gmail