[nfbcs] [Blindtlk] question on navigating electronic docs

Sun Jan 21 01:03:08 UTC 2018

When I worked for the Navy, Jaws wasn't so advanced and the Navy has a 
policy of modifying jaws for its own purposes and when versions of jaws 
do get to users, they're 2 versions behind current version of jaws.  The 
modifications made to the jaws software have caused vendors some serious 
problems since what's accessible on the commercial version of jaws isn't 
always accessible on the version of jaws used by the Navy and all other 
D.O.D. components.  The vendors have to get that version and test their 
web sites and documentation against that version as well as software 
packages in order to be able to prove accessibility for D.O.D. users.

On Sat, 20 Jan 2018, Tracy Carcione via nfbcs wrote:

> Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2018 14:44:13
> From: Tracy Carcione via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List' <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Tracy Carcione <carcione at access.net>
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] [Blindtlk] question on navigating electronic docs
> 
> 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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>
>

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