Readers and Writers for Text
Readers and Writers for Text
With the advances in technology, reading (by Screen Readers and others) and writers of text has become dominant options for persons with blindness and visual impairment that could potentially challenge the supremacy of the Braille literacy.
About this page
This page discusses everything about Textual documents for blindness and low vision. It is structured as follows:
Screen Readers and Magnifiers: There are numerous screen readers available for the most popular operating systems such as Windows, Mac, and Linux and their prices range from free to over 1,000 dollars. We take a look at different options in Screen Magnification Software, Screen Reading Software, PC Software, OCR Software, Digital Smart Pens and Scanners.
Large Print: Large printed books are gaining popularity for the users with low vision. We discuss what is large printing and Large Printing in India.
Audiobook Narrators: With the boom of audiobooks, narrators or voice over artist for book reading has become a vibrant profession and passion.
Accessible Formats: Braille, Large Print, Audio and Digital Text: People with blindness or visual impairment rely heavily on accessibility. We explore Commonly used Accessible Formats and present a Comparative View of Formats.
Making Accessible Webpages: ARIA Authoring Practices: One area where electronic accessibility is severely lacking, are webpages. It is important learn and practice what are needed for an accessible webpage and check Accessible Site Samples.
Screen Magnifier Features
Enlarges text, icons, other graphics up to 20X or more.
Enlarges and enhances everything on screen
Enlarges the words typed
Keeps focus on typed characters, keyboard commands, or mouse movement
Enlarges and enhances mouse and text cursors
Sharpens edges, increase contrast, and change color combinations
Splits computer screen – magnification and perspective
Customizable for vision acuity
Screen Reader Features
Reads out a screen loud
Default computer access
Customizable TTS for voice
Uses AI to speak-out screen changes as you type
Keyboard shortcuts to selectively read text elements
Announces keystrokes and describes icons, and graphics
Special mouse navigation and click / double click keys
Provide refreshable braille display in place of speech
Listen to documents such as Text, Word, HTML, PDF, or RTF
Screen Readers and Magnifiers
The two main computer accessibility tools are screen magnifiers and screen readers. If you have little to no usable vision you will be best served with screen reading software, which reads aloud all of the text and text-based elements displayed on a computer screen. If you have some usable sight, you might find screen magnification software, which enlarges the information displayed on a computer screen, helpful on its own or used in concert with a screen reader.
Screen Magnification Software
The most basic task of screen magnification software is to magnify the screen.:
A screen magnifier enlarges text, icons, and other graphics up to 20 times or more.
While typing a document (say, e-mail) with a screen magnifier, enlarges the words you type (easier to read). As you type characters, issue keyboard commands, or move your mouse, a magnified screen view will keep up with what you are doing and where you are focused on the screen.
A screen magnifier enlarges and enhances mouse and text cursors to make them easier to see and track.
It sharpens edges, increase contrast, and change color combinations to make things easier to see.
It gives users many options to customize what to magnify and what to highlight or sharpen based on their vision acuity.
Screen Reading Software
Screen readers speak letters, words, numbers, punctuation, and elements aloud, sending the voice output to your computer speakers or connected headphones.
A screen reader is the default computer access method for people who are unable to see the computer screen.
Even users with partial sight will want to learn about, and most likely use, screen readers.
Pairing a screen reader with a screen magnifier will enable you to spend more time using your computer with minimal eye strain.
Screen readers use one of a growing number of computer voices, also called text-to-speech (TTS) engines, to speak text. The voices are customizable, giving you the ability to set volume, pitch, tone, and speed.
As you enter data, click links, or issue other commands, the computer screen changes. So screen readers use a bit of artificial intelligence to determine what information you may wish to hear at any given time.
Full-feature screen readers include dozens of screen reader keyboard shortcuts that will read highlighted text, characters, words, paragraphs, and any number of other text elements.
Screen readers can announce each keystroke as you press it, decode and describe icons, and even describe certain graphic images.
Screen readers also include special mouse navigation keys that allow you to manipulate the mouse pointer, moving it wherever on the screen you like, and to press other keys to perform a mouse click or double click.
If you are learning to read and write braille, most screen readers offer an additional useful option. Instead of having your screen read out loud, you can obtain a refreshable braille display and use your screen reader without audible speech.
Sources:
Assistive Technology for People with Visual Loss, Delhi Journal of Ophthalmology, 2020
Screen Readers and Screen Magnifiers: An Introduction to Computer Accessibility Software, American Foundation for the Blind
10 Best Screen Readers for Blind People (5 of these are FREE!)
Further Reading:
Screen Magnifiers, American Foundation for the Blind
Screen Readers, American Foundation for the Blind
Screen Magnification, Perkins - School for the Blind eLearning
Screen Reader for Low Vision Students?, Perkins - School for the Blind eLearning
Introduction to Screen Magnifiers
In this video, Emma Urquhart, an Accessibility Consultant at Atos, talks about Screen Magnification Tools.
Screen readers and screen magnification - Getting interested in technology
People with sight problems discuss the accessibility features that make getting online more accessible. Chapter 1 of RNIB's
A Comparison of Three Screen Readers: JAWS, NVDA, and Voiceover
In this video, Caitlyn from Challenge Solutions compares the top three screen readers: JAWS, NVDA, and Voiceover.
PC Software
NVDA, Nonvisual Desktop Access, Screen Reader allows vision impaired people to interact with the Windows and applications like Firefox and Chrome, email clients, chat software, music players, and Word & Excel.
Supports 50 languages and used in over 150 countries.
Uses the eSpeak speech synthesizer and SAPI 4 and SAPI 5 synthesizers.
It is free and open source
WebAnywhere is a web-based screen reader for the web. It requires no special software to be installed on the client machine and, therefore, enables blind people to access the web from any computer they happen to have access to that has a sound card.
It is free
Magnifying Glass (Windows)
Magnifying Glass is a free and flexible screen zooming utility. You can magnify any portions of the screen under your mouse. It is useful for designers, engineers, visually impaired users. It has various and unique set of features and many visual options. You can apply various settings by right clicking on its icon.
It is free
Serotek System Access (Windows)
This downloadable and complete screen reader can be used even outside your browser, thus making it one of the quickest ways of getting a screen reader up and running on your system.
It is free and open source
Serotek offers extended versions for a fee.
It provides screen access to Windows, as well as applications, including MS Word, Outlook, IE, Outlook Express, Adobe Reader, and Skype. It can be installed on two computers.
MAGic® Screen Magnification Software
MAGic is a screen magnification and screen reading solution from Freedom Scientific for low vision computer users. MAGic can help you work more efficiently with business applications, documents, email, navigating the Internet, and engaging in social networking. MAGic delivers smooth, crisp letters, even at the highest magnification levels.
MAGic magnifies the computer screen from 1.1 to 36 times its normal size to suit the comfort level of the user having Low Vision to enable him/ her to operate the computer independently and also to give training in computers to those with low vision/ partial sight.
It has in-built color enhancements which eliminate glare and increases contrast reducing eye fatigue
It also has mouse enhancements which makes finding & tracking the mouse easily
Has a cursor enhancement which helps to locate the cursor with colorization
It has in-built human voice which reads through the documents, e-mail & web pages
Easy to Learn - comes with large-print user guide and more than five hours of basic training in accessible DAISY text and audio.
Available in 2 options – With Speech and Without Speech
JAWS®
JAWS, Job Access With Speech, from Freedom Scientific provides speech and Braille output on PC. Allows to navigate the Internet, write a document, read an email and create presentations
Features
Works with MS Office, IE, Firefox, etc.
Two multilingual Text-to-Speech synthesizers: Eloquence and Vocalizer Expressive
Talking installation
Built-in free DAISY and Player and full set of DAISY -formatted basic training books
Supports Windows® 8.1 and Windows 10, including touch screens and gestures, and support for MathML
Professional Add-ons
OCR feature provides access to the text of PDF documents
Compatible with MAGic screen magnification software, and OpenBook, scanning and reading program
How I Use Screen Reading And Magnification
(Voice Over - Talk Back)
In this video I show my 3 step process for using a smartphone and computer. I demo 3 tap magnification and Talk Back on an Android and discuss how it's slimier on iOS.
Thunder Screenreader (Windows)
Free screen reader for Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 or later, including Windows 7 and 8. It is not open-source, but it is free for individuals and organizations.
Distributed with the WebbIE set of programs, which provides a text web-browser, a podcatcher, an RSS news reader and other tools.
It is free
ORCA (Linux)
ORCA is a Linux based screen reader for the GNOME desktop. Recently it has been included with the Ubuntu installation CD, and with a couple of initial key presses it allows blind people to have audible interaction during the installation process.
Works with OpenOffice, Firefox, the Java platform and other applications.
It is free and open source
One Loupe (Windows)
Simple and easy to use, the small Magnifier is always ready when you need it to view all fine details, even the small print in the I-Net to decipher.
Features
Dual or multiple monitors support
Magnification modes: Normal, realtime, realtime + mouse (working mode)
Fullscreen magnification
It is free
ChromeVox (Chrome)
Google ChromeVox is a Google Chrome screen reader extension for visually impaired users.
It is free
ZoomText® (Windows, Mac)
Freedom Scientific offers ZoomText and Fusion, the leading computer access solutions for the visually-impaired.
A screen magnification system
Features
1x to 36x magnification
eight zoom window types
color, brightness and contrast controls
visible pointers and cursors
Dual Monitor Support and application-specific settings
Screen magnification system integrated with basic screen reading capabilities.
Features (over Magnifier)
Application-specific settings
Human-sounding reading voices
Program, typing and mouse echo options
Automatic document reading
Screen magnification and screen reading software that provides the features and benefits of ZoomText Magnifier/Reader, plus JAWS - a complete screen reader.
COBRA (Windows)
Provides access to information on a computer for people who are visually impaired and converts information from the screen into speech, braille or magnified form