ZoomText magnification with screen reading.

“I use Zoomtext a lot for reading and assignments when the screen reader is the most useful thing. I use the printer and scanner, although now I do not use the scanner so much as most of it is on line – I have large fonts and mouse pointer but usually read things with a screen reader as it saves my eyes.”
Amber – Nursing

YouTube Video link to  ZoomText Tips and Tricks #10 – Using the SpeakIt Tool

You can personalise your mouse pointer in Zoomtext and there are several free downloads such as ‘Philip’s Large Coloured Cursors‘ that allow you use a colour and size of pointer that makes it easier to see and Dolphin Computer Access offer Windows High Visibility Mouse Pointers.

Access ebooks from libraries with Kobo Reader

Kobo reader“I have discovered that the Kobo e-reader can open protected (DRM’d) epubs from libraries.  They are synced by connecting the device to a PC with Adobe Digital Editions installed.  But as far as I know it has no TTS.”

The Kobo wifi has adjustable fonts and views but these can depend on the book that has been downloaded.

Using the free Calibre ebook management service is another alternative when documents need to be converted to an accessible format

Neil – Psychology

Dulling down a computer screen to prevent headaches.

laptop keys

Laptop keys with brightness settings available as function keys

“Because with my dyslexia, bright colours give me a headache. I dull it [the screen] down so that I can sit at a computer for a lot longer… I get headaches when I drive at night, as well.  I like typing on blue but when I print it out it remains normal like black text on white. The dullness prevents me getting headaches and I can concentrate for longer.”

Andrew – nursing

Using Ctrl+F or Command +F to find things – keyboard shortcuts.

search in PDF

search Wikipedia page“I would find that when I am reading poilicies which have so much text to read, I go to the  summary and then use the find and just go to the specific bit. If you know you need a specific item such as ‘consent’ – then use Ctrl +F [Command +F], add the word to the search box and find it directly.”

Amber – nursing.

Crazy: 90 Percent of People Don’t Know How to Use CTRL+F

This week, I talked with Dan Russell, a search anthropologist at Google, about the time he spends with random people studying how they search for stuff. One statistic blew my mind. 90 percent of people in their studies don’t know how to use CTRL/Command + F to find a word in a document or web page! I probably use that trick 20 times per day and yet the vast majority of people don’t use it at all. (Alexis Madrigal)
 

Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts for Windows

vBookz PDF – free iPhone app for reading PDFs with text to speech.

vBookz PDF Voice Reader

vBookz PDF Voice Reader

“I’ve just tried a different vBookz app [from the one that offers free Audiobooks  – 30,000+ classics read aloud with text to speech]!   Its called vBookz PDF Voice Reader.  It is a free PDF TTS app and will read directly from a PDF, so you see the page as it should be, not just plain text.  It uses a moving box, rather than highlighting – the box surrounds the word currently being read.  The screen shot shows how the reading speed is controlled and page control.”

The company provide a quick overview of the vBookz PDF Voice Reader app on YouTube.

Neil – Psychology

Free Balabolka will open unprotected ePub files (and PDFs)

Balabolka logo

Balabolka logo

“Free Balabolka will open unprotected ePub files (and pdfs), but not protected ones like library books. Balabolka has options for changing font style, colour, size and background colour.  It can use the free MS voices or any voices you have with other programs, and speaks with highlighting. It does not preserve presentation or images.”

The on-screen text can be saved as a WAV, MP3, MP4, OGG or WMA file. The program can read the clipboard content, view the text from CHM, DjVu, DOC, EPUB, FB2, HTML, ODT, PDF and RTF files.

Here is a video with Craig Mill showing the use of Balabolka being used with MyStudyBar

Direct YouTube video link 

Jean – Dyslexia support