“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
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
“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.
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)
“…the library staff help and give me guidance – don’t sit in silence and suffer! Probably when you find something you just save it, then it takes so long to find it again. I made, on my memory stick, a reader library and I put all my texts in folders in alpahbetical order so I do not have to go through the whole search process again which is more eye strain. I just make up folders with certain headings and then you can go straight there – It is handy that each one has a date so that I can see ones from the previous year.” Microsoft File organization tips: 9 ideas for managing files and folders.
Amber – Nursing
“I like the double screens and I like ATS (Assistive Technology Service room) as it is quiet – the two screens help because you are able to look at two things at the same time rather than flick back and forth having to flip between things. I do not have a good short term memory so to look at things and compare is good otherwise I forget things. I cannot remember what I have just read, so I have the text up on one screen and then make notes on another.”
Sarah – Philosophy and Economics
“Use Excel to look at past exam papers and work out patterns – make Excel spreadsheets to see what has come up – list the questions under each topic and then you can see what keeps coming up and work out the different sections that need revising. This works well with any lists of things you have collected.”
Sarah Philosophy and Economics.
YouTube Video Sort Data in Excel Rows
Microsoft Excel 2007 to 2010 – How to Sort Data – Article with images.